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Strange job in the West: The man for 30 years surfed on the mud to catch fish

The coastal mudflats are home to seafood species: crabs, oysters, clams, fish… when the tide recedes, leaving mudflats tens of kilometers long is when people live on the beach in the hamlet. Mo O (Trung Binh commune, Tran De District, Soc Trang province) is busy “sliding” to make a living.

Job creation from the hard

In his career of 32 years, Mr. Tran Co (47 years old) living in Mo O hamlet (Trung Binh commune, Tran De District, Soc Trang province ) is considered one of the most professional skaters in the region. I don’t know when the profession “slipped up” started, only when he was 15 years old, his father taught him how to “go ahead”, “slide”.Previously, the fishing industry in Mo O developed so much that people called this “sliding ward” because there were hundreds of people following the profession, but now there are only a few dozen fishermen and Mr. Co is one of the few there.


Mr. Co took the card to start a day of skating.MINH CHON

Because the terrain is a muddy beach, it is impossible to wade to catch fish, so people have devised a way to take a thin board to make a means of moving on the mud quickly and with little effort. The slab is about 2m long and is made of tamarind or tamarind wood to be water-resistant and durable. To control the board, the fisherman has to put one foot on the board and one foot in the mud to push the surfboard away, almost all of his strength is on the hope, so people often call it “slipping”.


Every day, Mr. Co slides about 100km by sea to catch seafood.MINH CHON

To catch a lot of fish, in addition to going well, you need to know how to identify fish caves. Normally, sea goby, star goby, mudskipper , catfish … or hide under the canopy of cork forest, and bare mudflats often catch snails, oysters, even crabs. When identifying the fish cave, Mr. Co had to lie down close to the mud surface, groping his hands along the cave and “chasing” in the mud to catch fish.

Unstable income

According to the fishermen, most of the people who follow this profession are coastal households, most of them have no or little productive land, so they can only cling to the sea to make a living.Mr. Co’s family has a total of 10 people, from his parents’ lives to his generation, they all cling to the profession of sliding to make a living. According to Mr. Co, the profession of skiing does not have a fixed time but depends on the great water. Sometimes at night he still had to shine a light to find fish, each trip took at least 5 hours to complete.


Co’s two children love to go skiing with their father.MINH CHON
Mudfish – a famous specialty of Soc Trang province.MINH CHON

Although the job is precarious and the income is not high, many people like Tran Co are still determined to stay with the profession. Sometimes, even his relatives advised him to leave his hometown to find another job to have a more stable income. But Mr. Co has never thought of quitting his job, for him every day he can ride on the muddy surface and immerse himself in the salty taste of the sea, that day he is still attached to hope and the water. Follow thanhnien

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