BY BORDI JAEN
(Continued from Feb. 7, 2022)
I MADE friends with the children who lived in the area, and they always accompanied me to the places. They showed me everywhere like the back of their hands. It was only natural since they had lived in the area ever since. The stream was teeming with wildlife of all sorts. One odd thing that struck out in my memory was them gathering up these pufferfish. The brownish pufferfish puffed up to the size of a golf ball when provoked. They didn’t seem to have well-developed spikes and rather, had pricks, being younglings. The boys said they were pests to the fish we cultivated so they had to be taken out when seen.
I spent the most time fishing. Not conventional-fishing-with-a-fishing-pole -ut-to-sea kind of fishing. There was a bamboo apparatus placed on a portion of the stream near the command center. I never learned its name and since the internet was of no use, I have to provide a description for it.
It enveloped that portion of the stream such that it cordoned any way for most creatures to escape to the current the stream was taking them to which was the estuary. However, there was an ever so slight opening placed against the stream’s direction. Its purpose was to let fish and other creatures in without escaping. The scrappy fisherman would then precariously stand upon one of the bamboo apparatus’ linings to use an elongated butterfly fishing net device to catch the unfortunate creatures trapped within.
The device was like a large butterfly net held by bamboo and fishing net. Any creature would be difficult to catch seeing how fast they are in water. However, being trapped in that enveloped bamboo apparatus within, the butterfly fishing net made it easy to catch them. I loved using that thing.
On the good days when the tide was high, the bamboo apparatus would contain numerous talangka, alimango, lawâ (a fish like a bangus but smaller, thinner, and less bony), stickfish, lukon, and the like. Like a gamer greedily collecting his loot, the satisfaction of harvesting the catch with my butterfly net fishing device was truly something else. Even better, rather than colored pixel, the catch was real and edible!
Once it happened that a poisonous sea snake was caught in the bamboo apparatus while I was fishing. Its black-purplish hue slithering in the muddy water. It ate what probably would’ve been my catch. I caught the vermin with my net and handed the thing over, proceeding with caution by using the elongated bamboo-made holding of the butterfly net, to one of the workers. They proceeded to subdue the creature with a rock to the head like Goliath, chopped and quartered it like a medieval criminal, and fed the remains to the crabs which congregated on the crevices of the rocks by the shore. A fitting end to such creature, like the dragon Saint George slew. (To be continued)/PN
