Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 8:06 am Post subject:

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Well, we had our fishing trip, and it was a mixed success... We rocked up to the canal at about 5pm this afternoon I guess, and the first fish I saw in those terribly foul waters was a big old spotty catfish. I got a bit excited and waved to my offsider, Bach, and I guess I scared the cat because he slunk away into the shady, murky depths of the canal and I never saw him again, and Bach ever saw him at all.
We had a nice big net, about 15 by 20 feet. We tied some ropes to two corners of the net, and threw it in. Then we threw chunks of the coconut bun we had procured earlier from "Paradise Mart", a filipino grocery store/restaurant nearby. Heaps of little tilapias came in and attacked the coconut bun, and with three throws of the net we got about 20 little tilapias. We used a 40 gallon garbage bin with a battery operated air bubbler to transport them home, and even though we got stuck in the horrendous Pa'ia crawl rush hour traffic, and the journey took more like an hour, most of the fish seemed pretty alive when we released them in the two ponds we wanted to stock...
So, no catfish, which was actually the aim of the adventure, but some fingerling tilapia which are supposed to be quite a hardy eating fish too. Will have to do some research on raising these guys. Hopefully we can get some fish dinners before too long.