Unlucky fish ran up to the mouth of the cave and stabbed once, making the hunter unable to eat or sleep. In addition, they also face many dangers, even losing their lives.
The water began to turn net when the hunter dived to the bottom of the river tens of meters deep to catch the fierce, sharp catfish weighing tens of kilograms.
In An Qui hamlet (An Thoi commune, Mo Cay Nam district, Ben Tre), people who dive to find scrap iron, build many bridges, but specialize in catching catfish, only counting on their fingers.
One day in early May, we went to the house of Mr. Nguyen Tan Dat (48 years old) – who is known as the “king of catfish hunting” in this country. His house is nestled in coconut orchards laden with fruit. Sitting and sipping a cup of hot tea, Mr. Dat said: “He owns an orchard of more than ten workers, with an income of hundreds of millions of dong per year. However, the thing that he cherishes the most is the 3 net rackets, because it has followed him since he started his career until now.”
The family has long roots in Ben Tre, specializes in farming, hunting fish is just an extra, but it makes him passionate. Many years of diving in the river, catching all kinds of fish and shrimp, he found that there are many catfish but not many people know how to catch them. It is a long-lived fish that dwells in deep burrows, whirlpools and burrows where hard soil is present. Anyone who has been stabbed is extremely painful and susceptible to infection…
Ham Luong and Co Chien rivers are where Mr. Dat often “hunts” catfish.
Mr. Dat said that catfish caves usually have a main door and 2-3 niches to escape when in danger. Catching fish is also not easy because they see the action is to stretch their fins and shoot like … arrows. Taking advantage of his free time after taking care of the garden, Mr. Dat set up anchor again to catch catfish.
“Going to catch catfish is so much fun! Every time the big fish runs out and drags the racquet he pulls, he is extremely happy. In the morning, I heard that there were guests coming to visit, so I stayed at home for a day,” Dat said.
After much persuasion, he agreed to take us to the river to catch fish. Get off the boat with the oil engine he dived in the riverbed a few years ago. On the boat is an old oxygen tank with a breathing tube, a net, a cloth belt inside with nearly ten kilograms of iron.
Before the boat departed, Mr. Dat pulled over to the nipa palm bush to cut the bud to poke the fish out of the cave. After more than 10 minutes moving to the place where the catfish is believed to be, Mr. Dat proceeded to throw the anchor for the boat to stop. Wrapping the belt around his stomach, he shoved 3 nets and coconut buds inside.
Next, he took a breather and before jumping into the water, did not forget to look back and say: “This place is close to home, only small fish are caught, not like the Ham Luong River” . On the boat, the sound of the engine exploded, while we sat watching the bubbles that bubbled up to mark Dat’s diving path.
After more than 15 minutes of diving, Mr. Dat emerged from the water, his face covered with seaweed but his mouth was still smiling, carrying a trophy of a shark weighing about 3kg. Rowing to the boat, Mr. Dat quickly took the pliers to break 3 sharp prongs, because he needed to make a little scratch to get hit. After cutting the barbs, Mr. Dat put the fish he had just caught into the boat compartment containing water.
Before returning to the riverbed, Mr. Dat said while explaining: “Then make sure you eat! Even so, I’ve stuck to its barbs a few times, and the pain is so intense that the fever is gone, and my body is shivering with cold. This fish did not help with any medicine, it swelled for a week, many people could not stand the fire and had to remove the joints.
Mr. Dat is preparing to dive and catch catfish near his house.
A catfish weighing about 2kg was caught.
Over an hour of diving, we returned from the hunt with the spoils of 4 catfish weighing nearly ten kilograms (signing 120,000 VND), making everyone very excited.
While driving the boat home, Mr. Dat said: “Seafish hunting takes place all year round. The breeding season of this species starts from May to September of the lunar calendar. Catfish usually reside in the vertical banks of the river bottom more than ten meters deep. Many caves are so big that a person can get in. When I get to the bottom, I will touch the mouth of the cave with my hand, if the mouth of the cave is smooth, the water inside is warmer than the outside, there are fish in. At that time, use a racket to capture the mouth of the main cave, will continue to check the nooks and crannies. Then use your hand or a coconut stick to poke the cave, causing the fish to startle and run straight into the net. Because the nets are tied to the body, when the fish throws, the line will startle, just quickly reach for it and then follow the raised anchor line.”
For more than a decade of working in the profession, no one can count how many tons of catfish Mr. Dat has. According to him, a diving session in the “golden age” he caught about 40-50kg of catfish, sometimes catching fish weighing up to 13-14kg. The largest catfish he ever caught weighed nearly 20kg, so he had to unload all the compartments to get it through. By the time he got home, he brought two people ashore carrying his tail and still touched the ground.
“Nowadays, we can catch a lot of about 20-30kg every day, and less than ten kilograms. Any big fish is only 9-10kg but usually 3-5kg. There are still many catfish in the rivers in the West, but compared to the previous three, there is only one, due to many people catching them to the end,” Dat said with a regretful voice.
Dat said he started diving when he was 24 years old. At a young age, after getting married, he and his wife returned to An Hoa hamlet, Binh Khanh Tay commune to build a house to wait every day for the delivery of goods to catch customers to drive motorbike taxis. Once, he became acquainted with Mr. Ba Diving in Mo Cay district, so then he was brought along with his boat. After participating in a few times, he began to learn how to scuba dive for scraps and salvage sunken boats.
After a few years of apprenticeship, Mr. Ba Di was sick and had to give him all his tools as… “mechanical workshop”. Since then, he has worked as a worker specializing in picking up sunken boats, finding bodies, … to feed his family.
Around 2006, during a house collapse caused by a landslide, Dat and many divers were afraid of danger, but felt guilty about the owner, so they tried to cling to the riverbed for 11 days to find the bodies of 2 victims so bad that they bled. ear.
Recalling that scene, Mr. Dat recalled: “In the landslide in Binh Khanh Dong market, in addition to 3 houses, 40 tons of grated coconut, 2 mother and daughter were submerged under the vortex. Listen to family members recount that the woman was bathing at that time. After many days of diving, only the child’s body was found, and the mother’s body has been lost until now. But then, not only did they not thank me, but they also suspected that they deliberately hid the body to remove the dead man’s gold ring.”
Selfishly, Mr. Dat stopped diving to pick up scraps and bodies and switched to diving for bridge works with the task of pouring the ground with negative bases, because at that time vehicles were not popular, many places could not be accessed by machines.
A few years ago, while diving to build the base of the Ben Luc flyover (Long An), Mr. Dat was trapped on the bottom of the river with sandy soil, and had to lie down with a snorkel to withstand the battle more than 10m above the water surface for many hours.
Recalling this rare escape from death, Mr. Dat said: “The bridge was only 3m from the water surface to the ground, while the regulations had to be 11m, so the construction unit hired me to do it. So use a drill to break the hard layer of soil like kaolin, and then use a water hose to suck it up. After going ashore to smoke a cigarette, I dived down to check it out, and when I was going up, suddenly the ground collapsed and stuck, causing my limbs to constrict. At that time, I thought I would die, but if there was a disturbance, I would be exhausted and die faster, so I had to reassure myself.”
Over an hour of diving, Mr. Dat caught 4 catfish, earning millions of dong.
Mr. Dat is very afraid of his feet being sucked by the water cannon, because it is impossible to pull out because of the strong attraction. When he discovered that there was a lump of earth falling out, he hugged him to his back for fear that the water hose would be blocked, unable to absorb the amount of sand that was compacting him. Hours later, when his body was relaxed, Mr. Dat was able to get out with ease, but two pieces of hard earth held his neck.
Discovered that a colleague came down to rescue him, but it was also very difficult. A rare escape from death, Dat quit his job and returned to his hometown. At that time, everyone thought that this time he had retired from the sport, but a few days later saw him retreating to fix his tools, taking the boat to the big river to dive and catch catfish. The place he works is the river: Ham Luong, Co Chien, Tien, because there are many big fish.
Mr. Dat said that the catfish stings painfully, but he is only afraid of the biggest enemy – water pressure. There was a local case that Mr. Hai Duc once dived under water pressure, leaving his legs disabled for life.
Talking about the year-round profession of taking deep rivers as a friend, Mr. Dat confided: “The time to work depends on the water, from the time the water stands to the end of the water. Sometimes I work all night. Usually two people follow the boat: one diving, the other watching the tube. Doing this job requires the worker to have a good base, because lethargy is paralyzed or dead like a game. I am very blessed, my life has not been defeated by the river bed, so now I have to go fishing… to know what to do. If you see a boat that sprays drugs, catches it with an electric pulse, you will hate it and try to find a way to chase it away.”
Having followed Mr. Dat, one of his neighbors said : “In recent years, Ham Luong river catfish has sold very well, but when he went diving and caught a small fish, he released it all and told him to let it grow. After catching fish, he also avoids damaging the cave so that he can catch it next time. My catfish diving is number 1”.