Ray Johnstone knew exactly what he was looking for when he posted an ad for someone to go fishing with on Gumtree. The 75-year-old South Australian man had recently lost his previous fishing buddy after he passed away. It didn’t take long for people to take notice of his ad and start responding. As of yesterday, it had already been viewed over 60,000 times.
Johnston wasn’t looking for anything fancy, just someone who was willing to partner up, split costs and was preferably a land based fisherman.
Johnstone ended up getting much more than he expected or asked for when Brisbane man, Mati Batsinilas, 22, responded and offered a fishing trip off Stradbroke Island in Queensland with all expenses paid. Batsinilas even offered to take Mr. Johnstone’s grandson.
“This is just something where I feel like I can help and I do it with passion. I want him to have the best experience of his life,” Batsinilas said.
He even said he’d pick Johnstone up from the airport.
As incredible as that is, the story doesn’t even end there. Johnstone’s upcoming fishing trip has even been sponsored by outlet Boating Camping Fishing, who gave him hundreds of dollars of fishing gear for free to help the trip to Stradbroke Island be even more epic.
For all of the negative we see daily on the internet, it’s stories like this that show the power the web really has. A man was simply looking for a friend to fish with, now he’s about to have the fishing trip of a lifetime.
