If you or someone you know has caught a fish in the Yass river system, there is a good chance Ross Webster helped put it there. But we will get to that later.
Ross Webster was born on the 12th of March 1949. A post-war baby. His parents were Edward Grant Webster and Doris Anges (nee Walker).
Ross’s father was a Group 9 footballer, who turned out for the Wagga Magpies.
He played with the legendary Eric Weissel between 1937 and 1939 before the war started and he went overseas to fight for 6 years. When he got back, he was too old to continue and had been struck down by the dreaded malaria in New Guinea. An affliction that caused him pain, on and off, for the rest of his life.
Ross said, “I could remember as a kid, every now and then he would go yellow and be shaking. I’d ask what is wrong with dad? The response was the war and malaria.”
Edward was in the 6th Division, formed at the outbreak of the war. The First World War had Divisions 1 to 5.
Ross said, “He served in the Middle East and Greece before they got a ‘whopping’ in Greece. He never talked about it much until he was dying. Luckily when he got out of Greece, the convoy was split up and his little boat ended up in Palestine. All they had was their rifle. They lost all their equipment, he was picked up on the coast. He told me good yarns, but only the last couple of years of his life, and when he felt like it.”
His father’s service spurred a young Ross into studying military history. “He got all the volumes of the Second World War and there was about 20 of them. They had good photographs of history, I was always interested in it. A couple of the things dad said rattled me. He was Private to Sergeant and back down a couple of times.”
Ross joked that some of the diggers sold shares in the Sydney Harbour Bridge and that the Arabs would never have them back because they could outcon them in a joking fashion.
Edward came back from the Middle East and retrained before heading to New Guinea. He told Ross, “You never saw a crook Australian in the desert. Stinking hot days and freezing cold nights. But No sickness. In New Guinea they went down like flies. Malaria, Dysentery, Beriberi, Ulcers. More got crook through ill health than were wounded or killed.”
The officers would line up the diggers to take their tablets or they would be court marshalled.
Ross said, “Dad told me it was a fight to the end, the Japs did not surrender. It was a dishonour for them to surrender.”
Edward was a railway man which meant plenty of travelling around for the family. Ross was born in Junee before going to Wagga and then on to Grafton where he learnt to fish on the Clarence River and his love for the outdoors blossomed. Anywhere there was fishing, his dad would bundle the family up and they would camp and fish. They mainly fished for Gar fish and Bream. Whiting and Flathead further out in the saltwater stuff.
Ross has been all over Australia fishing and has even been to New Guinea chasing Black Bass. He said, “It’s excellent, it’s bloody good.”
“When we were living in Wagga, Dad would dink me down on the handle bars of the bike to fish for Redfin. That’s all that was in the river in those days. They were good sized then.”
As soon as the family looked like the kids were getting up to high school age, they moved to Orange and settled for the secondary part of their schooling. In those days they had the big Westinghouse factory and there was plenty of work and apprenticeships. It was 1960. Ross stayed there until 75.
He left school and a Job came up in 1966 as an Electrical Fitter Mechanic with the Electricity Commission. He completed it in 1970 before going into National Service during the Vietnam War. He was tasked with a very particular and demanding role that required precision. He was allocated to the Royal Australian Electrical Mechanical Engineers. He was trained in tank gunnery and was posted to Puckapunyal. If the tanks didn’t fire on the range when needed, it would put those inside in jeopardy. It was no doubt high-pressure stakes, even though Ross talked it down as a ‘cushy posting’. “They would come in for servicing and fine tuning. It had to be ready to go on the range and be ready and right. We did plenty of training, finishing up at Puckapunyal.”
Once the war was over, Ross said, “By law your employer had to take you back on. I worked at Dubbo, Cobar, Bourke and Mudgee. We were away from home a lot and built substations.”

Ross played Group 10 Rugby League, continuing to follow in his father’s footsteps. He started in first grade in 1967 and was still eligible to captain the U18s at the same time. “I played for Ex-Services and we were a successful club. I loved the football. Unfortunately I never won a Grand Final, but we were narrowly beaten in 3. In 1 they beat us after the bell. They Scored in the corner and kicked the ball over after the bell.”
Ross was an imposing Front Rower and he played at the handy weight of a touch over 14 stone or 90 kilograms in today’s weight.
Unfortunately, he injured his knee and it was smashed up pretty badly in 1975. He was told that he shouldn’t play again. He had all of the cartilage removed which left it bone on bone. Not to be put off, Ross got going again and kept playing but the injury was not making the uncompromising Front Row position any easier for him.
Ross married his wife Julie In 1974 and they had three children. Kim, Renae and Ben.

He said, “I had to get out of the reach of this football. A job came up at Burrinjuck at the power station there. I applied for that as an operator and moved there in 76. After 18 months out at the dam I came in here. I was a system operator in here, we looked after the southern 1/3 of the state. It was shift work around the clock. It was a good job and it was good pay.”
Ross couldn’t stay away from his beloved footy and after a few years off he hit the paddock again. In his first game back he snapped his Achilles tendon. “I went to the Doctors and he got straight on the phone, I was at the Canberra hospital by 2pm.” He came back and played the following season and played two more seasons. When the Rams got going in Yass again, Ross pulled the jersey on and was hoping to play a few games of Reserve Grade before he ended up playing First Grade as a 37 and 38-year-old. It was at this stage that he gave the footy away. He kept fit by heading up and down the stairs at the power station twice a day. 300 odd steps.

He retired from his job in 2008 and went on to work for 12 months with the Catchment Authority. He was tasked with removing willows from the rivers and replanted native species. It was very enjoyable for him. Never one to stay still, he has kept himself busy over the last couple of decades, Ross has immersed himself in the local footy community and the wider community. He held roles as Treasurer and President and coached juniors.
Ross became very interested in Landcare where he was part of the restoration of the Yass river by removing exotics. He leapt into local government and was a Councillor from 1991-1999 across two terms. He was on the board of Southern Tablelands County Council which was based in Goulburn and he was President of Yass Landcare as well as Vice President of Yass Area Network of Landcare Groups YAN, however, one of his largest contributions has been to fellow anglers and the health of his local river system.

Ross read an article in the 80s that stated ‘Yass River had no native species in it.’ All Redfin and Trout.
He said, “Back in those days you would struggle to catch a Cod or a few Yellowbelly.”
Ross got involved through the acclimatisation society and the Transgrid fishing club. He now distributes fingerlings through the society, Burrunjucjk and the railway weir and the main weir and up the river.
He said, “We are having pretty good success and we get some good fish. Normally you will get a 35 centimetre Cod, but you can’t take them until they are between 55 and 70 centimetres. Cod are slow growing but the Yellowbelly are pan size in 3 years.”
Fishermen and Fisherwomen and families can thank Ross and his group for stocking the waterways.
He said, “We might get 6 or 7 boats and 3 or 4 drums and you distribute them all over the place so the predation is lower.”
At 25 millimetres they have to fend for themselves and grow to maturity. They battle other fish, birdlife and droughts and flooding rains.
“We get good results. I suppose I’ve put 250,000 Yellowbelly out and 100,000 Cod and about 1 in 10 grow to maturity.”
Ross spoke fondly of the time the Highway went around Yass and a positive came out of it. He said, “Heath’s donated all of their equipment for 3 days. Caltex donated $5,000 worth of fuel and all of the workmen came with it. We built 3 levels of Walker Park. They were magnificent. Excavators and Bull Dozers and we pushed dirt around and then the irrigation went in.”
For years the Yass Magpies were unable to host final series matches due to constraints around grandstand seating at the ground. They needed 400 seats alongside other requirements which also included disabled toilets and Referee’s rooms, something the club is bringing to fruition now. Yass has proven its strength as a club and one year they made a grand final. The match brought in 3 times the amount of money compared to the top first-grade grand finals in Canberra. This resulted in the powers that be, moving the games to Seiffert Oval and mid-morning grand finals ‘robbing’ the small clubs of much-needed income.
Ross often tows his large canoe, set up with electric motor, fishfinder and all the mod cons down to the river for an afternoon fish. He is reaping the benefits of hard work and may very well be catching some of the fingerlings who have now turned into adult fish and may now be breeding themselves. It takes years for a fingerling to reach maturity and there would be some Cod in Burrinjuck that would have been around a little longer than Ross. There would be few that could dispute Ross’ importance to Yass and his contribution across the region.
When asked about his 4 decades in the Yass Valley, Ross joked “I’m not a local, I’m still a blow in.”
When asked what Yass needs in the future, he highlighted housing, both industrial and residential. He bought half an acre in Yass for $3,850 in 1978 when he came to town, something modern land buyers would struggle to comprehend, but those were the times. “Blocks around town are now at $220,000 or $230,000. The blocks near Walker Park were slow to sell until LJ Hooker came and bought the lot and the market went up.

There will be more when Ginninderry comes alive. “I think it will go through an economic boom. A lot of people like the climate and it’s on a good highway. It does need a few things, but aged care is our industry. We have excellent facilities here. The place could do with a little abattoir. We have SELX and we could make use of it. Every time you put them in a truck they get knocked around, maybe they could do them locally.”

It’s unlikely that Ross will ever slow down. His bright attitude to life and can do persona no doubt draws people to him. A wise man, Ross Webster who is someone that has been able to be part of a team and a leader his whole life. One feels after spending time with him he could teach some of the younger people of today a few things about humility, perseverance and hard work.
by Matthew Stadtmiller