When I was a kid, dad had a copy of Guide to Fishes and used to lend it to me to read, with the threat of heavy punishment if I lost, or damaged it.
I devoured every bit of knowledge I could from that book on fish and crustaceans, as did kids all over the country. Quite simply Grants Guide to Fishes became the “bible” for all anglers and commercial fishermen.
In my opinion there are very few people in Australia who have had a huge influence on the fishing world.
Three that spring to mind are Charles Alvey, the founder of Alvey Reels and the inventor of the Alvey side cast reel, Mal Florence who gave us wonderful fishing adventures on film and video and Les Wilson, the founder of Wilson Fishing, a family owned Brisbane company, which today is the one of the biggest tackle wholesalers in the world.
However, in my mind Ern Grant is right up there with them. Many years ago, Ern was a government biologist and in 1963 was asked to produce a book called Know Your Fishes, which in 1965 evolved into Grant’s Guide to Fishes and later to Fishes of Australia.
Ern was also involved in establishing a fish hatchery at Borumba Dam near Imbil in the early 80’s and ran a fisheries research station on the Noosa River for a number of years from the mid 70’s to mid 80’s.
As a government biologist, he was allowed to spend 30% of his time on producing his books, which he continued to do after he retired in 1984.
In total, Ern produced 12 editions of Guide to Fishes and still today, despite there being many online apps on fish identification, is the “go to source”.
His late wife Meg and son Morgan helped him with producing these wonderful books and Morgan still markets the Guide to Fishes, although since 2021 it has only been available as on online book … https://www.grantsguidetofishes.com
I’m very proud to have been asked by Ern, who became a good friend over the years, to write the foreword for his book, which at the time in 1997 was the 7th edition and Morgan informs me has been used in every edition since then.
My reason for writing this tribute to Ern is that he turns 100 on the 27th of June. He is in care as most people his age are, and although not as mobile as he once was, Morgan tells me he’s still pretty sharp.
So here’s to you Ern Grant. You are a wonderfully humble and knowledgeable man, whose contribution to knowledge and education of anglers has been immense.
Here’s a story we did on the Borumba Dam Fish Hatchery in June 1994, and a couple of stories we did on Ern on the Coastwatch show. The first one was in June 1995 on Grant’s Guide to fishes, the second one in July 1997 on the science behind fish identification.
