Chapter 8 Fishing and catching prawns

Those days Fabian and Francis ,they never had the money to purchase regular fishing equipments,but who needs fishing rods etc.then, for river fishing? All they had was a long piece of fishing guts and a hook,for weight to pull down the hook with bait a small piece of stone will suffice.Yeah that was it.As for baits they can used earth worms which were easily available by digging the soil or easier still by pulling up some grasses to catch the worms.

Another simple baits will be to catch some small prawns with a coconut shell.However the shell must be recently grind of its fresh.Tiny prawns feeds on the left over of fresh in the coconut shell.It would not take a few minutes to catch two or three of them.

What ever it was Fabian always used earth worms to fish.The worms were attached to the fishing hook.Following the the hook were thrown into the river,not very far but as far as the fishing gut will allowed.Then come the waiting game.One had to be patient to wait for a bite.

Normally fishing was done during high tide when there were more fishes coming in following the flow of the tide.Fabian never like fishing because he had no patient to wait for a bite,therefore not catching any thing.

But there were a time he really caught a fish.He and brother BBque it over a fire and ate it.That a lucky day indeed.

One fine evening at the river they saw two Malay fishermen laying a barricade by he riverside.It was low tide and the laying was easily done.The barricade of bamboo striplings were laid about few feet from the river banks.

These were set to trap fresh water prawns coming in during high tide when the river water will over flowed into the barricades,thus trapping the prawns inside when the tide recede.

Fresh water prawns fetched a good price then,These prawns had big heads and smaller body and armed with long big blueish craws.They were actually as big as the hand can hold.At high tide they swim round the river banks in search of food.Apparently they followed the tide.

Very early the following morning Fabian and brother went to that river bank.Finding no one around ,both went into the river.The tide had receded to almost kneel level.so they immediately went to scope the river side with their hands.

In the beginning they caught two prawns.Encouraged by this Fabian tried to catch more.At one scope he sensed something in the river and immediately caught hold of it."Yes,I got one big fish",he yelled out.

No sooner had he finished yelling he pulled up something wriggling vigorously.Francis saw that it was not a fish but a water snake.In horror he called out,"Snake,snake".At this moment Fabian also noticed that it was a snake struggling and within that split seconds he fling the snake away,out further into the river.<

That was really a scared for him,for holding it any longer he might have bitten by the water snake.It was indeed a lucky escaped.Thereafter both brothers climbed up to the river bank to safety.

With two prawns in hand they boiled them over a small can of water.Well nothing was lost after all.They each had a prawn for breakfast and the soup to quench their thirst.It can be considered a good day's work.

Both brothers actually had another lucky escape from another reptile - the Crocodile while catching prawns.These two brothers having forgotten the snake incidence went catching prawns again especially having seen the bamboo barricade set up by the same pair of fishermen one afternoon.

So next morning when the tide was beginning to recede both of them sneaked out to that river bank.Though it was very cold,nevertheless they brave it to go down the river.No sooner had they began catching prawns Francis suddenly saw a what seem to be a length of log floating towards their direction.

He notified Fabian to look at it,"Look a piece of log".

Fabian took a lazy glance at it,but what he saw put him in a dazed.Shocked as he was somehow managed to shout out."No.no.it is a Crocodile.Without hesitation both brothers scrambled to safety.

No sooner had they climbed up the river bank the Crocodile had lunged at them with open mouth.At the same time it also wagged its tail at both brothers.Fortunately the beast was slowed down by the bamboo barricade before it pushed them down to ledge at them.

It was really a lucky escape for both brothers,the crocodile just missed them by inches.Its wagging tail nearly swept them for they could filled the gust of wind fanned by its wagging tail.A direct hit by the tail could also be fatal for either brothers.

Frightened and terrified both of them ran some distance away from the bank before stopping to take a breather.Sitting under a coconut they panted breathlessly and thanking their lucky stars that they had a very lucky escape.

They got nothing but learned a harsh lesson.Actually no crocodile had been seen there for sometime because of the busy jetty nearby and some how this beast had followed the tide and strayed its way there.