Bountiful Baskets
A Relic of Historic Commercial Fishing at Iluka
When Hebe Prindable took this large oval-shaped basket down from the wall of his shed, to hand to the Iluka Museum, he knew it was worth more than the weight of the fish it once carried.
Hebe himslelf used this very basket, along with other members of his family – the Prindables. The basket was used to carry and sort fish taken from the sea and the river using nets. Bream, blackfish, flathead, groper, snapper and mackerel were among the fish species caught at Iluka and sold commercially.
From the 1890s to the 1960s, this type of basket was also used by other settler-origin fishing families at Iluka. And while baskets like this were hardy and could be repaired and patched – as this one shows – they did not last forever.
In the 1960s, this type of fishing baskets was superseded by a plastic crate. Consequently, few baskets like Hebe’s survived, which makes this one all the more valued. Thanks to Hebe, through seeing his basket we get a real feel for how past commercial fishers at Iluka carried their catch.
