Dr Vince To Hook Into A New Lifestyle
Illawarra Mercury
Tuesday December 2, 1997
Up Woonona way they all call him The Doc.
His real name is Dr Vincent Verzosa and last week he retired from Wollongong Hospital, hanging up his scalpel to spend more time giving fish the treatment.
The Doc got hooked on the fishing caper on the Philippines island of Luzon, spending all his holidays away from the hospital fishing with the tuna fleet.
I met the Doc when he arrived in Bulli from Port Moresby in 1978, where for five years he had been the head lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Papua New Guinea.
We both share the glorious uncertainy of fishing and over the past 19 years fished together in many fresh and saltwater adventures.
Lake Jindabyne is the Doc's favourite spot for catching rainbow trout - for golden perch he likes Wyangala Dam.
I know his favourite haunt for whiting is Warilla Beach because I took him there. We also fished Sussex Inlet for flathead and bream.
For 10 years his good mate Andy Castro has been trying to take him fishing around the Five Islands off Port Kembla in his 16ft tin boat, but the Doc gets seasick just looking at a boat.
This week my old fishing mate will not be fronting for work at Wollongong Hospital, instead he has got the Warilla Beach whiting worried about the treatment the Doc has prescribed for them.
© 1997 Illawarra Mercury
