Fishing Filipino Style

After deciding we had worn him out enough, we decided to go out fishing one day. Fishing however is something entirely in the Philippines than in America. The typical rod and reel, and tackle box were no where to be found. Instead we were armed with little more that weed-eater string, hooks, a few small bait fish, and a sack full of softball sized rocks. This was surely going to be an interesting fishing trip. After arriving at the first stop we tied off to a buoy and began fishing. We watched in amazement as they tied hooks on to the nylon string, then wrapped the bait fish around one of the rocks and dropped it into the water and waited for a bite. This went on for some time to no avail, until Minmin got a bite. It was amusing to watch him scramble from on side of the boat to the other slowly pulling in his catch by hand. After a ten minute struggle there on the end of his line was the first and biggest catch of the day. It was a beautiful bluish, yellow, 10 kilo Mahi-mahi, which after lighting the barbeque (on our wooden boat) they proceeded to cook, and serve with the always popular rice.

We proceeded to fish through out the day and navigated from buoy to buoy. Around three or four we finally found a place where the fish were biting. Though they were small fish they were fish nonetheless. After several failed attempts we finally started to catch some fish. Though out Filipino companions insisted we were doing it too slow and wrong, we were able to catch 14 fish between the two of us. No need to go into detail about who caught more. When the fish quit biting we set our sails for home. It was a long somewhat rough trip back to the island, yet our captain tired from a long day of fishing could hardly keep his eyes open. It is always comforting to look back at the person driving the boat to find their eyes closed. But we made it home safely and had an awesome time learning to fish Filipino style.