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Unloading poles to catch fish on Dam river

QUANG NAM – After three months of planting dense stakes on the Dam River to lure fish to come to live, Mr. Ox and Mr. Trung again spread nets and plucked stakes to catch fish.

In the morning of mid-March, when the Dam River’s water dried up, Mr. Vo Suu, 55 years old, and Tran Minh Trung, 58 years old, from Tam Thang commune, Tam Ky city, left home. They arrived at the boat station in Vinh Binh village, got on a boat carrying a net and many tools, and went more than 15 minutes to the piling yard on the river 50 meters from the shore to start work.

Unloading poles to catch fish on Dam river
Mr. Trung and his colleagues unloaded the piles to narrow the net. Photo: Dac Thanh

Anchoring the boat, Mr. Ou waded into the water up to his chest and dropped a net about 50 m long and 5 m high. Wherever the net went, Mr. Ou hung the buoy one meter above the water surface, Mr. Trung dived to let the lead stuck in the mud. “If you don’t do this, the fish will hear the noise or jump out,” explained Mr. Ox.

The net surrounds the piling yard, Mr. Trung goes inside the net to pull the stakes up, Mr. Suu stands outside to take it and plug it into the water. The work of the two men repeated until the net gradually narrowed. With a sound, the fish jumped out of the water trying to get out but was blocked by the net. After three hours, the two people pulled out all the stakes, the net was gradually narrowed to about 5 m2, then they went inside to catch fish.

The fish got stuck in the net, but it was difficult to catch in the water, so they had to use a shovel. Each time Mr. Trung shoveled only small fish in, big fish escaped very quickly. To catch big fish, he had to dive and choose to force the fish caught in the net to catch it.

Two fishermen caught a lot of carp, snakehead, shriveled, sliced, tilapia, giant freshwater shrimp… All were brought to the compartment, filled with water. When the compartment was full, Mr. Trung picked the big one and put it in a mesh bag and put it in the water. “In this way, the fish live a long time, if left on a cramped boat, in hot weather, they will die and sell at a loss,” Trung said.

Bring the fish to the boat. Photo: Dac Thanh

After four hours of unloading the stakes, the two fishermen cleared their nets and put the fish on the boat to return to the wharf. As a result, they obtained more than one quintal of fish, of which more than 70 kg of tilapia, 20 kg of carp, 2 kg of catfish, 2 kg of snakehead, 3 kg of spinach, and half a kg of giant freshwater shrimp. Large tilapia costs 10,000 VND kg, small fish for animal feed, carp sold for 50,000 VND, sliced ​​fish 80,000 VND, snakehead fish 100,000 VND, giant freshwater shrimp more than 600,000 VND per kg. Selling all the fish, the two earned 2 million VND. “The first time the rambutan was unloaded, the fish was a lot, sold 8 million VND, the less time was about 500,000 VND”, Mr. Trung shared.

The profession of staking fishing on the Dam river has existed since ancient times. Dam River is a lake connected to Ban Thach River, nearly 200 hectares wide in Tam Thang, Tam Phu and An Phu wards, 4 km from the center of Tam Ky city. Every day the water rises and falls according to the tide, the average depth is 1.6 m. Around the river, there are about 300 hectares along the bank. It has vegetation, diverse fauna, fish and shrimp, reeds, sedges, lotuses, guns, creating pristine beauty.

To catch fish, Mr. Trung and Mr. Suu cut down bamboos, trunks and branches to make rams. Each pile is densely planted with a width of about 20 m2 to attract fish to come to stay, outside is made a fence around to prevent boats from entering.

Once every three months when the water runs low, two people come to unload the stakes to catch fish. “This profession does not require a lot of investment, bamboo and tree trunks are available, so it only takes work to cut down and plug. I bought a net of more than a million dong and used it for many years to fail”, Mr. Trung said and said that he had completed one. Rambutan takes about 10 days.

Mr. Suu smiled when he caught the carp nearly 2kg. Photo: Dac Thanh

More than 500 meters away from Mr. Suu, 40-year-old Nguyen Van Ba ​​and three other people from Tam Thang commune are unloading fishing poles. The way to do it is similar, they soak in the water to unload the nets. After catching fish, they put the stake back as before to continue catching the next batch.

Mr. Ba’s group made five pots, each day when the water dried up they could unload two, the rest waited until the next day when the water dried up. “It is not always possible to unload the poles to catch a lot of fish, experience is that in a year of heavy rains and floods, we can catch a lot,” he said, adding that he would wait for others to catch a lot before going. If it doesn’t take the whole day to unload and catch a few fish, the working day is not high.

“Before the 2022 Lunar New Year, I caught two quintals of rambutans, but this time I unloaded two quintals to catch nearly 2 quintals. These fish were sold for 4 million dongs and divided equally among each person”, Mr. Ba said. Fish in Dam River is completely natural, so it is delicious to eat. The fish meat is firm, sweet, chewy, and fragrant, and the amount of fat is also low, which is popular with many people.

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