OK, it was their bails that were burnt to create the darn things, and they did bat and bowl better than us, but really and truly ...

That noise you can hear is the media, or sections thereof, beating up a storm of recriminations.

There was a bit of confusion in last week's column; we'll blame the subs.

Stew and meself weren't fishing with ounce (28 gram) jig heads at all.

Old mate Stew was actually using a half-ounce (14 gram) jig head on an 8/0 hook (hey, you want to catch a big fish you use a big hook).

The biggest hook yours truly had was a 3/0, that had a quarter-ounce (seven-gram) head, which is probably as heavy as you need in the lake for chasing flathead and bream.

Our esteemed editor put us on to a bloke who'd apparently caught himself a fairly large shark in Lake Mac, so we thought that a `phone call and request for a photo was in order. Such is the speed in today's society that the thing is already on the internet

Jamie Palmer was out fishing in his mate Mike Jolly's boat when they hooked and could have landed a hammerhead shark.

Yes, the capture of sharks is, naturally, becoming more common. but this one was slightly different.

According to Jamie, these blokes were downrigging live squid in the lake. No, that's not a misprint, they were downrigging in the lake.

Those familiar with the lake would know that its average depth is about 6-7 metres so the thought of using a downrigger seems slightly bizarre.

Not so, says Jamie, who reckons they've been downrigging with live squid for a while - the shark was hooked in two metres of water - and have had success catching XXO-sized fish.

Just prior to hooking the shark, they'd hooked and lost a 10-kilogram-plus kingfish. Mind you, they were fishing at lunchtime.

The shark took about 20 minutes to land and was too big to fit in the boat.

Jamie guessed the length at "around seven feet''.

Check out the link below to see the video.

That's it deep-sea fishing in Lake Macquarie sounds like all sorts of fun!