Despite being a Nigerian from the south, I haven’t used the triangular fishing tool before but tales of it still fill my head, one such is the fishing of crabs both hairy and non-hairy of which my father was an expert.
He told me how they’d make the cone-like trap from strings of raffia palm and keep it just close to the muddy floor of the swamp.
In the swamp, I remember vividly, how the tiny branched trees showed a different hew of colour where the water level had been and the leaves are shy as the edge up to the top of the tree.
The crabs didn’t, so when the water levels reduced, they’d take up the cone-like trap filled with crabs and sometimes mudskippers alike.
The mudskippers caught would be used for peppered soup. The crabs are cooked with just water and when they turn red, become ready for eating either with balls of pounded yam dipped in the peppered soup or with fermented cassava.
I was very young when I tried crabs for the first time along with my cousins who were more eager to crack open the red shell revealing the white flesh underneath.
Nobody was taught how to eat crabs except me, my dad open a couple of crab shells to show the salty, and black fluid that was in the middle.
“Good for men” he had said, even as I was just a boy.
It took a few trials for me to learn the trick, which was holding the not-so-hard under-belly and the rocky top shell and pulling away. This divided the crab into two.
The next day I forgot how to open and repeated the trials, even now I might still go a few times before scoring the hit.
I never got the opportunity to catch crabs but I got those snake-looking fish that my aunt hates. Eels were easier than crabs or so I thought.
Since my father ate almost every water creature, getting him to teach me some tricks wasn’t hard. Although he wouldn’t go with us to the stream for the Eels, citing the fact that Eels were children’s games and he won’t be seen fishing for them.
I was glad all the same for letting me out with those adventurous cousins of mine. I was more mature then, 10 years I think, with my younger brother who was 6, and wanted to do everything I did, and he still does.
My father told us late in the evening was best, so we set out around 4 pm out of excitement and the thrill of catching our first Eels with nothing but treads and office pins bent to look like hooks.
Small fish was part of the deal hence the treads and office pins. The Eels however would be caught barehanded.
The trick as my father had told me was to flush it out of its hole with a stick while another person waited with a hole dug on the other side and grabbed it into a basin.
Easier said than done because the first Eel I caught moved between my fingers and I dropped it for my cousin fearing a bite. It slipped through the mud and my cousin caught a handful of mud which he through away furious.
I made my second catch in what seemed like ages after my younger brother and cousin had done theirs and the victory wasn’t like the first but I ate that thing with joy.
My uncle came back that evening with some palm wine and we were allowed to take a sip or two because we were boys and getting drunk from a cup of the milky juice was very possible.
My father had no business with palm wine except of course drinking it, so he told little about tapping palm wine or which palm tree had the sweetest juice. The only thing I learned from him was that a fresh palm wine was not easily going to get you drunk except if you drank a whole keg and I never did.
We ate dinner that late, after the roasted Eel and palm wine, which would have been a dessert if we knew what a dessert was at that time.
The dinner in the village was always late because my grand-mom had to wait for everybody before we ate. In her words, “A family that eats together stays together”.
She wasn’t the only factor, as the market was more lively at night with oil lamps and fresh fish on display. This was because fishermen returned in the evening and between separation and selling the market started long after the sun was down.
The wait was however worth it as I could listen to adult conversation all the while getting free chunks of meat and fish from my uncles as I was the firstborn child of my father who was also the firstborn.