Swellnet: In the clip you talk about making fishing lures. Lures aren't expensive, so why make them?
Laurie Towner: It doesn't have anything to do with cost. It's a part of what I enjoy doing: keeping myself busy, working with my hands.

I just make them as I go or when I need them. I sometimes make some and give them to mates.

This style of making them is, in a sense, new to me. So at the moment it's all just trial and error. Did they work or not?

I'm always looking for new things to do as well. I guess I'm always tinkering on something. The good thing with lures is that it's both creative and helps feed the family.

What about diving? You said you were out all day yesterday diving.
As I'm getting older, I'm really getting more and more addicted to diving. I've always enjoyed it but I find I'm doing it more. Like you said, that's what we did yesterday, just went diving all day and didn't even take one fishing rod.

In a sense it's similar in that you're hunting for a feed?
Exactly. Like many people who live by the coast that eat fish: You don't want to go buy it, you want to catch it yourself. Othrwise it's just another expense to life.

I've always been surrounded by a fishing family, like Baddy [David Treloar] who passed away. He was a professional fisherman and I learned a lot off him, especially when I was at a young age. Like I'm seeing it with my kids now. My little fellow will run home with a flathead...he's running across to the lake, catching flathead on his own on lures and running up with flathead and like, "Dad, can I eat it right now?"

For kids, having a river system, or a little lake, it's great. It's another thing to do amongst the hundred thousand other things kids do in a day.

What about rock fishing? I guess that's an obvious crossover for surfers as you're staring at the waves, getting an idea of the swell rising or falling - things like that.
Yeah, definitely. That's another thing about fishing, you learn things off friends and family - whoever's into it and whoever's done it before you. One of my close mates, he's just a couple years older than me, he lives down the road, he's right into his rock fishing and he's absolutely unbelievable at it. So he basically taught me that form of fishing.

Taught me the basics of it at least. I guess it's just like any other thing that you learn. You get taught some things, then as you go on you begin to figure other things out for yourself.

I was also taught rock fishing, and one of the lessons was that you couldn't talk. You weren't allowed to talk out there. Are you a non-talker when you're out on the rocks?
Ha ha...no way. I sometimes do it as a solo thing to escape and have my own time, but I also do it as a social thing. So talking is a big part of fishing. Gotta talk.

Tell me about going out by yourself solo.
Well, I sometimes love jumping in my boat and doing it on my own. I think it's a bit of a therapeutic thing for me. Like, some mornings I'll get up in the pitch black and I'm going out to sea in the pitch black and there's nothing but phosphorescent flowing through the boat, and the stars are out. Especially when those solo mornings happen in winter when it's cold - the cold is somehow more therapeutic.

So fishing isn't just fishing then?
No. I obviously fish to get food, and if I've got too much fish I don't fish anymore, but it's as much about being out in the surroundings. Like yesterday, we had a massive day diving, all day for stuff all fish, but we were out there with eagle rays and crystal clear water.

Tell us something, Laurie. You're obviously a good fisherman, but what about Torren? Fella can surf, obviously, but was his effort just for the camera?
He's actually good..

Tell the truth.
Ha ha...anyone that can use an Alvey is a good fisherman.

And he can use an Alvey..?
Yep. He was using it fine and he's self-taught on that thing. I never taught him. He already had one and knows what he's doing. So no, he can fish. He knows what he's doing.

Ask him. I think he won like fish of the year up at his Byron fishing club; he caught the biggest Spanish Mackerel. Actually, I'm not sure if it ended up winning for the year, but it was like a 27 kilo Spanish or something, so he knows what he's doing.

OK, this interview might require some fact checking*. Before we go, aside from the handmade fishing lures, you also ride an alaia which I assume is handmade..
Yep.

But what about the other boards in the clip? Also made by you..?
No. One thing I haven't got into much of is board shaping, and I don't know if I ever will. I guess I've always enjoyed learning the process, and I shaped a couple that I rode in the last film [Slow Lane]. I shaped a little twinny that went really well...and in fact it still goes really well. 

So were they Dylan's boards then that you were riding?
Yeah, exactly. I'm riding Dyl's boards, and sort of have done my whole life, though occasionally I jump on a mates board here and there. The only type of boards I've ever really shaped are timber boards that I've been I guess riding for the past, I don't know, maybe fifteen years now. Those timber boards basically just keep me in the surf when the surf's average and the wind is south.

* Torren caught the 'Spanish Mackerel of the year', which weighed in at 21 kilos.