FAMOUS for fish and chips on the waterfront in Nelson Bay, the name ‘Bub’s’ has a history that few are aware of.

Lillian Sutton, from a Parramatta family, couldn’t possibly have foreseen her future when she married Maurice Henry ‘Bub’ Monin in April 1945.

It all started way back in France, the country of origin for the Monin family, who settled in Australia where Henry Maurice ‘Harry’ Monin joined the Royal Australian Navy in 1920.

Harry remained in the Navy for 30 years and it was on naval manoeuvres in Salamander Bay that Harry met and later married Vera Asquith, the eldest daughter of ‘Tally’ Asquith, a well known and highly respected local fisherman.

Being in the Navy, Harry spent extended periods of time overseas.

It was during these periods that Vera, who was living in Sydney, returned to Nelson Bay with youngest son Maurice, to be with the family.

Maurice, nicknamed ‘Bub’, would spend all his daylight hours with his grandfather, Tally, and developed a genuine love of the sea which led him to join the Navy, as his father had done before.

Bub served on the HMAS Shropshire in many theatres of battle in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

The young couple were married shortly after peace was declared and Lillian, who was looking forward to a settled city life, was somewhat surprised when Bub informed her that he wanted to go to Nelson Bay and become a professional fisherman like his grandfather.

With £149 in gratuity in his pocket the budding fisherman and his nervous young bride arrived in Port Stephens.

Their first home was an old Army tent which was pitched on Alice Sproule’s land at Fly Point where Bub filled his days adding framework and floorboards to the tent and building cabins.

At every opportunity, every spare moment, Bub was on the water, fishing.

Lillian meanwhile was learning to adapt and to love the lifestyle.

It was in November 1945, on a beautiful warm spring day, when the bay was calm, not a breath of wind, that Bub set himself on Shoal Bay Beach to catch kingfish.

Tally had told him that these were perfect conditions for the big fish to move along the beach – “kingy weather” he was told.

Working alone, Bub waited and waited for the fish to arrive.

Sure enough the yellow fins and the bow waves created by big kingfish in shallow water was the sign for Bub to jump into action.

Time to fix one end of his net to the beach and work the other end around the school.

Back on the beach Bub began retrieving the net knowing that there were at least some fish inside; he could feel them hitting.

As the net neared the beach, the fisherman couldn’t believe his eyes as the huge kingfish filled the net and thrashed in the shallows.

It was this catch of fish that set the young family on the road to establishing themselves in the fishing community.

Bub worked with Arthur Asquith and the Tarrants on the beaches until 1948 when he bought the first ‘May Bell’ off Frankie Thomas.

The boat enabled him to work the wide waters seine trawling and lobstering.

In 1962 the May Bell was sold and the family, which continued to grow, moved back to Sydney to work a fish shop in Parramatta.

After working the venture for four years in tough times it was decided to return to Nelson Bay and start all over again. Lillian had developed a real love for the area and was eager to return.

The year was 1967 and the couple had $150 to their name but she recalls Bub’s fighting words.

“It’s only money, let’s get crackin’ and earn some more,” he said.

Surely a brave attitude with seven kids in tow and one on the way.

One night, not long after returning to the Bay, Ronnie ‘Clanka’ McLean and his wife Del arrived on their doorstep. “Look Bub, I would like you to come and work with me on the ‘Del Star’,” Clanka said.

“The deal is a third of the catch for you, a third for me and a third for the boat.

“What do you think?”

The offer was gladly accepted.

It was only a fortnight later that Ron turned up again, this time to offer Bub a 50/50 share – so commencing a long, successful and enjoyable partnership.

The newly formed team worked incredibly hard, long hours in all seas just earning enough to pay the bills.

Just when it was needed – around Easter – huge schools of leatherjacket settled on the reefs where the boys were working.

Tons and tons, boxes and boxes, full traps every day and top dollar at the markets.

This wave of leatherjackets gave the crew a mighty boost.

Both families were back on their feet.

Jimmy Chalkley remembers the time.

“Leatherjackets… seemed to either be in plague proportions or there were none,” he said.

“We always reckon Clanka McLean and Bubby Monin caught them all.”

The following Christmas, Clanka and Bub had been getting a few lobsters overnight in the deep water out in 40 fathoms, in their leatherjacket traps.

Normally you wouldn’t look at a trap in less than ten days, however they were going away for a fortnight at Christmas so it was decided to bait the leatherjacket traps with dry salted bait, hard bait, that would last far longer and catch longer than the fresh bait that they had been using.

When they came back and checked the 30 traps the result was amazing – 220 dozen lobsters!

The turnaround of fortunes gave Bub the opportunity to involve himself in another venture that he had long wished for: to build a new boat – the ‘May Bell II’.

Years earlier Bub and Lillian had been wandering through the bush around Gan Gan, as they did regularly, searching for “knees” in the hope of one day building a boat.

On this particular day he suddenly stopped and stared at one great tree.

A mighty stem post!

“This is going to be my boat,” he informed Lillian.

Bub returned to the bush, sawed the tree and with help dragged it back under their house.

He loved timber and at every chance he would work on the wood with an adze, a little at a time.

That tree was to become the stem post for the May Bell II, built at Fullerton Cove and launched at Stockton in 1971.

No matter how much Bub wanted to be on the water he still loved waiting for fish to move, sitting in the sand around the open fire with his mates on Shoal Bay Beach.

Maurice Henry ‘Bub’ Monin continued to fish out of smaller boats the ‘Adroit’ and ‘Margaret Grace’ until his passing in 1992.

The Monin name is still involved in commercial fishing as son Lee sits on the sand and waits for travelling fish at Shoal Bay – a long way from France.

By John ‘Stinker’ CLARKE