THIS story is part three of a series about the Mitchells, an early Port Stephens fishing family.

COLIN Mitchell, aged 87 years, is currently running a trawler out of Mackay in QLD.

Colin has a great ability to recall past events, and has fond memories of an old canine companion.

“We had a dog [called] Rusty who was a part of our crew.

“[He] never missed a trip, he was a great dog and a true mate.”

Being a fisherman’s dog it wasn’t an easy life but Rusty was made of the toughest stuff.

One one occasion, Rusty lost his tail, or the top half of it, on the side of Colin’s car.

“He used to ride on the mudguard between the bonnet and the guard,” Colin said.

“One day I had water in the carby so on top of the hill I stopped and crossed the leads to the spark plugs so she would backfire going down the hill and blow the water out.

“I left the side bonnet folded up on top so Rusty could get back on, then I switched on the ignition and rolled down the hill up near my place at Christmas Bush Avenue.

“Not thinking any more of it, when I got to the bottom of the hill Rusty started to howl and bite at his rear end.

“By the time I stopped he was off and going like a rocket through the scrub.

“I looked under the bonnet and there was half his tail tangled around the drive shaft.”

According to Colin, poor Rusty didn’t appear for a couple of days and when he did come home the top half of his tail bone was still sticking out with no fur on it.

Interviewing Colin was an experience not to be missed as the stories he told were part of the growth of the fishing industry.

Everything he said was news to me.

“Another time I was going to Sydney in our new 1958 Vanguard ute and on the Islington high level bridge in Newcastle it was raining and I lost control of the ute and done a 360 spin,” Colin said.

“Rusty was riding in the back and I had a couple of drums of petrol in the back.

“One of them spilled and got on his feet and he took off down into the scrub.

“I drove around for an hour or so and couldn’t find him, so off I went to Sydney without him.”

While Colin ventured to the state’s capital, Rusty was off on his own adventure.

“While I was away for a couple of days, somehow he (Rusty) found his way to the punt at Newcastle and hopped on the side of Clanker’s car and got as far as the Boatrowers Hotel at Stockton.

“He must have got sick of waiting and jumped up on the back of a 1958 Vanguard ute the same colour as mine and got as far as Fern Bay where the bloke that owned the Vanguard lived.”

Rusty stayed there for a couple of weeks until Colin heard where he was and collected him.

Despite the regular misadventures, Colin’s love of the dog was obvious.

“I had a B.S.A Gold Flash motor bike and Rusty used to ride on the tank and put his two front paws in the middle of the handle bars,” Colin said.

“He would wait for me to start the bike and then leap up on the tank.

“Sometimes his back leg would slip off the tank and land on the spark plug and he would let out a mighty yelp.

“But that never stopped him and away we would go.”

I sat in awe at Colin’s ability to recall even the finest of detail.

I’m sorry I didn’t interview him longer as every story he told and incident he related was pure gold to a historian.

To finish, I will leave you with Colin’s retelling of the day Rusty got knocked overboard.

“We reckon it was when we went out to the prawn ground outside Big Island in 50 fathoms,” Colin said.

“It was when we shot away before daylight that it came to notice, on the first shot, that Rusty wasn’t there.

“We immediately steamed back to the islands to search for him and motored around Big Island, Little Island and Cabbage Tree Island but failed to find any trace.

“We decided that there was nothing else we could do so we went back out prawning and did a day’s trawling.

“When we got back to port, we couldn’t believe our eyes.

“There was Rusty waiting for us beside the truck on the wharf, wagging his tail, or what was left of it.

“We were amazed – Sid Maxim says he saw something out between the heads and put the binoculars on it and thought it was a skin diver and later he looked and said he saw the little dog come ashore at the Inner Light.”

It must have been tough being a fisherman’s dog but Rusty, apart from all his dramas, lived a long and happy life.

By John ‘Stinker’ CLARKE