Catch the fish.

When the rain almost floods the ponds, lakes, canals, ditches, and rice paddies, various kinds of fish swarm onto the fields to find new habitats, breeding grounds, and food after a long period of starvation due to being stranded. The fish migrate in the largest numbers right after the heavy rains have stopped. At that time, we children would rush out with baskets and buckets, running along the edges of the ponds and into the fields to catch them. Fish were everywhere; the water was a sea of ​​green. Those with experience would only catch the larger ones, because catching every single one we came across would be impossible. We usually only caught snakehead fish, because the tilapia and other small fish were thin, stiff, and slimy, not tasty to eat, because they had been starving for months. Snakehead fish weren't too thin because their food was small fish, and small fish were always available everywhere.

Catching fish was mainly for the thrill of it, because the fish we caught couldn't be dried, and making fish sauce wouldn't be very tasty either. Sometimes we'd catch a whole basketful (a large basket used for catching fish when draining or scooping from a pond) and dump it back into the pond. At night, each of us would grab a lantern, a spear, or a knife, and we'd follow the flooded, acidic ditches to freely stab and slash the fish. At this time, the fish's reflexes were very slow because the acidity in the water blinded them. We usually went fishing secretly because the adults wouldn't let us, as it was the fish's breeding season.

Catching field mice

When the rice fields were flooded, that's when we'd all go rat hunting. There's no other time of year when catching rats is as easy and abundant as at this time. The water flooded the irrigation canals and all the cracks in the fields. With nowhere to hide, the rats gathered in groups along the edges of rice paddies, on high mounds of earth, or along the banks of ponds in the middle of the fields. At this time, all it took was a good dog with a keen sense of smell to find the burrows. Once the dog found a burrow, they'd all dig it up, catching one rat after another. Some burrows, dug less than two meters deep, yielded hundreds of rats, huddled together.