Let's go fishing together

“Let’s go fishing together/The baskets aren’t full yet so we don’t want to go home/Snakehead fish, catfish, perch, crucian carp… none of them are bad/Fish from the fields, fish from the ponds/Stewed or grilled, all are delicious”… That is a very familiar song in my hometown about the joy of fishing. Not only is it fun, but when we were young, for us, going to the fields to catch fish during the rainy season was also a passion.

Normally, around the middle of the eighth lunar month every year, fish from the river or streams follow the water of the first rains of the season, go to the fields, lay eggs and reproduce. A few months later, when the fields are harvested, many types of fish appear, especially snakehead fish, perch, catfish, etc. In deep, water-filled fields, they gather in schools. Carp, like other types of fish such as crucian carp, bream, amaranth, climbing perch, and snakehead fish, etc., live in rivers. Usually, they go to the fields when floods come and then stay in deep-water fields.

There are many ways to catch fish in the fields. Some people use traps, some use nets, some use fishing rods, some use fishing nets, some use fishing nets... I still remember, when the war was not yet fierce, behind my house there was a large shed, where my father kept traps, traps, fishing nets, and fishing tubes... and I was allowed to use them to go fishing with my friends.

Drag the net.

Normally, the trap is only brought out during floods and this tool is placed right where the water flows. The fish follow the water flow, sooner or later one will get in. The most interesting thing is when you go to check on the trap, pick it up and see 5-6 fish in it at the same time. I remember once I pinned the trap on the bank of a ditch, when I went back to check it was gone, it turned out the trap had drifted away several meters because a snakehead fish as big as a wrist had gotten in and pulled it away.

There is probably no need to discuss about bailing fish. When you see a deep pond or puddle with lots of fish, stop it, bail it dry, then just catch the fish and put them in a basket. When you go fishing, you sometimes bring out your fishing rod, put bait on it, and then sit and wait. But there is a rather interesting type of fishing: in the afternoon, put bait on hooks and then stick them along the banks of the rice fields. At night, the fish come out to eat, when they are hooked, you can go fishing in the morning. Catching eels with traps is also a very special hobby. Take a piece of hollow bamboo, cover one end tightly, and place a woven bamboo tube with small, very thin bamboo sticks on the other end. In the afternoon, when it is about to get dark, catch some earthworms, crush them, apply them to the mouths of the traps, and then put them along the banks of the dry rice fields. Eels live in the caves, and at night they crawl out to look for food. When they smell something fishy, they think there is their favorite bait inside, so they crawl in. Every morning, when I open the trap and shake it, I am very happy to see a heavy trap, because inside there is always an eel.

Among the ways to catch fish in the fields, the kids like me at that time loved to use the net, because the net was the easiest way to catch fish, and it took the least effort. The net was a very simple tool, made from old bamboo sticks, split into small pieces and woven together with rattan fibers, forming a screen. Then, people attached the screen to two bamboo poles, crossed over each other, one end spread out, the other end gathered, the end was a thin wooden stick. When holding the two poles, placing them on the hips to push on the flooded rice fields, the thin wooden stick would press against the ground, and there was no other way but for the fish to be squeezed into the net compartment and stay there. Every day, around noon, after taking the buffaloes out to eat, we kids would invite each other to carry the net to the fields. Sometimes our hands and feet were covered in mud, sometimes our clothes were soaked, but there were many interesting things about going fishing, especially when we finished fishing, each of us carried our baskets home with a basket full of fish. Not only fish, sometimes we also caught crabs or snails, eels or octopuses. Of course, when we caught betta fish, we did not forget to choose a few of the most beautiful ones and put them in a glass bottle on the table. Perhaps betta fish are the most beautiful fish among all the fish living in the fields, especially the male fish, each one has a colorful color with blue, red, purple, yellow...

The fish have entered the trap - Photo Internet.

In my neighborhood back then, every house had several earthenware jars. Some held eels, some held fish. When we caught a lot of fish, we put them in the jars as food for later use. Farmers! We ate the day before, but who didn't think about the next day?

In addition to grilled dishes, my grandmother had a very special way of braising freshwater fish, especially snakehead fish and perch. Before braising, she always grilled the fish over charcoal, then fried it, then braised it, sometimes with ginger leaves, sometimes with turmeric leaves, doing so to remove the fishy smell and make the fish both fragrant and chewy. Sometimes she braised two batches of fish at the same time, because according to her, freshwater fish must be braised at least three times to be fully absorbed, and eaten with rice to have a rich flavor.

How interesting, many evenings, in the cold winter weather, the whole family gathered around the dinner table and in front of them was a pot of braised fish just taken down from the stove, the steam still rising, along with a pot of snail soup cooked with green bananas that smelled fragrant... Growing up, going to school and then living in the city, the story of the countryside gradually faded into my memory. Last week, a few of us went to Da Ban. On the way back, the whole group stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the banks of the Dinh River. The meal was delicious for everyone because there was braised perch in a clay pot and sour snakehead fish. So the whole group chatted about the story of catching fish when we were young. It turned out that most of the guys in the group had lived in the countryside before and knew about draining ponds, fishing, casting traps, catching fish in traps, and setting traps... One guy said: "Stop telling me, it makes me miss it so much! Do you know what I miss? I miss the image of a snakehead fish with a bamboo grill from head to tail, grilled over charcoal! Oh my god, how fragrant it is!...".

HOANG PHU LOC

Source: https://baokhanhhoa.vn/van-hoa/nhung-vung-ky-uc/202412/ru-nhau-di-bat-ca-dong-f516283/