Born on 21st December 1963 in Nimbin, New South Wales, it was immediately apparent that Owen was the best looking baby in the hospital. OK, he was the only one in the hospital, but ya gotta milk it when you can!
"Milking it" was exactly what he did for the first 15 years of his life.... Growing up as one of eight children on a dairy farm meant morning and night rounding up the hundred or so cows and milking the rotten things.
Owen's working life began as a welder specialising in aluminium work including racing car components and ultralight aircraft frames. It's not clear whether the continual exposure to ultra violet light, or his determination to ignore his mother's warnings to "stop it or you'll go blind" is responsible for his rapidly failing eyesight.
In order to keep himself amused Owen has participated in several competitive sports including motorcycle road racing in the early days of the "superbike" class and was an "A" grade IPSC pistol shooter.
Owen has two children (Patrick & Carol) aged 18 & 15 to a former maraige and was fortunate enough to convince the beautiful Sandra to marry him in 2003.
Between divorce and Australias draconian gun laws Owen was forced to part with all his guns, so turned his love of outdoors pursuits to fishing.
Soon enough he discovered that you can actually MAKE fishing rods and a new obsession began..
Recently he has used his self taught computer programming skills to develop PicToWeave - a software package for developing thread art patterns.
When Owen grows up he hopes to become a rod builder.
Nice Bio & nice Pix Owen! What a lucky guy to have 2 such lovely ladies to wait on ya hand & foot! (i'm kidding about the waiting on part) LOL
I think a dairy farm woulda been pretty cool but what does this city boy know.
Thanks for Pic-to-Weave and for giving me the opportunity to help with beta testing. It was truly a great experience for me and I'm proud to say that I played a tiny part in it.
Ya got some funny looking fish there down under but I bet their FUN! If I ever get over there your gonna have to let me play with the kitties too!
I raise my Corona bottle to you & yours Owen. May success ($$) come easy to you with P2W
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"Don't just stand there! What ya doing, waiting to be milked?" quote from my dad.
Great Bio and great pix Owen! What kind of fish is in the first photo! What a moose! Please tell me you were offshore and thats not an Aussie Trout! lol Need more info on the pix!
Great job Owen! Interesting pic of you, Sandra and... some bald guy... (just kidd'n Doc) The fish in the first pic... Cobia? Oh, and I 2nd what Ray said - thanks for P2W!
Great Bio Owen. I didnt know your were a COW BOY. LOL.
The big Fish Owen is holding is a cobia and still on my my bucket list.
Hey Ray you got one part of this right "2 such lovely ladies to wait on ya hand & foot! (i'm kidding about the waiting on part)" The two lovely ladys. Waiting on just aint gonna happen. He also has a great MUM too.
I was pretty fortunate to have Owen, Sandra and MUM for about a week here last year. We did the Fred Hall Show and then had an awesome time at Disneyland.
Owen I join everyone in thanking you for the P2W. It has really been a fun program and saved me many, many, many hours of writing left lists and making minor changes. Oh! I am losing my sight too but it has nothing to do with UV light. lol
Terry, The fish in the first pick is indeed a cobia. I did catch it off shore, but I was actually only about 200 yards from the river mouth.
You'll regret asking coz I love telling this story!
As is often the case I was fishing alone (Sandy gets seasick) in our 15 foot aluminium runabout. I was trolling two lures and was looking back at them when I saw a brown shadow homing in on the surface lure. When the ratchet started screaming I threw the boat into neutral and commenced the fight. Only trouble was almost immediately the other ratchet was singing the same song! I had two on at once!! The next half hour or so was a dance of battling the fish in my hands and leaning over to try to retrieve some line from the other rod every time that fish finished a run. Finally I got the fish in my hands to boat. I reached down with the gaff and struck home and lifted... and it broke! These things have a habit of doing two things when they get to the boat. One is going staright down just when you think they are beat (often taking rods or parts of rods with them) nd the other is to roll like a crocodile. This guy was doing just that so I was dodging hooks and gaffs trying to grab him by the gills. Finally I was able to skull drag him into the bot where upon he set about smashing himself and everthing in the boat apart while I set about dealing with the now almost spooled second rod. Luckily for me in my initial hast to fight the first fish I had failed to find neutral so the boat had been slowly driving forward the whole time maintaining pressure on the fish. A couple of diving runs later I had it in the boat as well and just sat on the floor exhausted. The second fish had inhaled an 8" Rapala diving lure such that the bib was level with its gills! One fish was 17.8kg (39 pounds) and the other 18.2kg (40 pounds). Although my biggest fish, the one in the photo is only a bit above average. It's not unusual to hear of 30kg fish (65lbs) and the Australian record is a horse at 61kg!! (134 lbs) The best thing is that they are GREAT eating.
They often hunt in packs and are very curious fish so you'll often see them follow other hooked fish to the boat.
Incredible fish, and the absolute finest eating fish in the good Lord's seas. Nothing that swims tastes as good! And what fighters! Great catch my friend! It's not uncommon for them to be loners down here in our waters... often found as singles around bouys, floating grass, etc. I can only imagine a pack of them! Wow...
Owen, I also want to chime in on the kudos for P2W! As the tv ad says, "even a caveman can do it"(I'm referring to me, not you). You and Sandy have a sense of humor that I appreciate and get a kick out of! Nice pics and Bio.
Owen I really enjoyed your bio and enjoyed your fish story. You're making the rest of us fishermen look bad. I hook into a small bass and then tell every one how big it is (with out pictures how would they prove me wrong), you actually have pictures to prove your's is a big fish. It's making the rest of us liars (I mean fisherman) look bad (lol). I'm not a very good welder and my eyes are getting worse, so it must be this other thing your mother warned you about is causing my problems (lol). Great job on the bio and I hope to meet you and Sandy some time.
