Around the outside of the fence will be a number of canoes, occupied by men and lads fishing with large string nets fastened to stout canes of calamus palms. With these they spoon the water and often bring up a fish. After a time the large bamboo-net fence is slowly pulled up the sloping bank, sweeping before it and enclosing in its narrowing space any fish that may have escaped the spears, nets, and traps, until it is drawn right up the bank. The whole scene is very animated, men and women, boys and girls—a score or more of them—laughing, jesting, joking most noisily, splashing each other, scrambling, swimming, kicking, fighting, and diving in their efforts to catch the fish they feel gliding between their legs or slipping through their fingers. Many go as much for the fun as for the fish.
See page [241].
See page [238].
(4) Fish-hooks, probably first introduced by white men, are in general use all along the river. The hook is baited with cassava, or earth worms, or the entrails of fowls. It is thrown into the river to lie on the bottom until it is found and swallowed by a hungry fish. I have seen a fish weighing 20 pounds caught in this way. The end of the line is a running noose placed round the angler’s wrist. I once saw a boy about 14 years old jerked off the bank into the river by a fish that had swallowed his hook, and then in fright had suddenly started off. The boy, taken by surprise, lost his balance and toppled into the river; he and his fish, however, were soon pulled out.
ANCHORED FLOAT WITH BAITED HOOK
The following is another mode of using the fish-hook: A crescent-shaped float of light wood (generally ambash) is prepared, and a cord is fixed across from horn to horn; from this cord hangs a string with the baited hook at the end. This float has a heavy stone fastened to it at the end of a long cord. The fisherman goes into the middle of the river, drops the stone anchor (to keep the float from being carried away by the current), arranges the float and hook, and returns to land in his canoe. As long as he sees the horns of his float above water he knows that no fish is on the hook. When a fish takes the bait and swallows the hook, it overturns the float in its attempts to escape, and when the fisherman sees the rounded bottom of his float above water he knows that a fish is caught on the hook. I have seen fish weighing close on 40 pounds caught by this ingenious method.
