mmg.com.au

As fishing yarns go, it was already a myth.

‘‘You hear about it, but I’d never seen one myself,’’ Tatura’s Peter Hamilton said.

But after landing a Murray River cod with a Number 4 Maxell golf ball in it’s gob, Peter believes the myth.

Peter was out fishing on the Murray River at Bearii a couple of weeks ago with his mate Rob Falk and Rob’s six-year-old son Karter when he felt a slow tug on his line.

‘‘It came up to the top slowly,’’ Peter said.

‘‘Rob said ‘looks like you’ve stunned it’ — it was moving real slow.’’

Peter boated the cod easily.

‘‘Didn’t put up much of a fight,’’ he said.

As he unhooked the cod to measure it, out came the golf ball.

‘‘He just spat it out. I couldn’t repeat in your newspaper what I said,’’ Peter said.

He said after measuring the cod at a healthy 67cm he put it back in the water — but not before putting the golf ball back in its mouth for a photo.

‘‘Otherwise no-one would believe us,’’ he said.

Peter said he calls his photo ‘‘hole in one’’.

As for the golf ball — it’s still in his tackle box.

‘‘The little fella tried to flog it,’’ he said.

The Tatura Milk worker said he liked to get out fishing as much as he can.

He said Murray cod, and particularly the protected trout cod, are in abundance, but he only takes one fish a year for eating.

‘‘Anything I catch I put back these days. But I keep one — you’ve got to give the family a feed for all the money you spend on gear,’’ he said.

Keen anglers can send in their photos to The News’ fishing page published in Weekend Life every Saturday.

Trelly’s Tackle World in Corio St Shepparton is offering a $300 prize for the best picture.

Send a hi-res digital fishing photo of one megabyte or above to editor@sheppnews.com.au to be in the running.

We need names, some details of your catch and a daytime telephone number.