I Caught One!

When I was a lot younger, my grandfather would always take me and my brother fishing out on the lake in his pontoon boat.  We'd fish for hours...I'd never catch anything....and, hence, I haven't really fished since!  This afternoon that would change.  Jenesa and I were given the opportunity to fish for piranhas!  Piranhas!  These weren't just ordinary fish from back home that would nibble, but not bite.  These fish have fangs!  I pictured them to be half-fish, half-shark.  Where are they?  When are we leaving?  Hell, I'll even paddle the boat myself.  Let's go!

Instead of baiting the hook with a worm...we were given small blocks of meat.  Hide the hook.  Throw the line into the dark (mirror black) water beside the boat.  And, then, contrary to what every fisherman will tell you (especially my grandfather!) viciously tap the water several times with the end of your bamboo rod.  This creates the illusion that other fish are fighting and will attract the curious piranhas.  Within seconds...you should feel the first set of nibbles.  John told us the trick to snagging a piranha is to wait for the 2nd or 3rd nibble and then slightly jerk the line to hook the fish.  Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy as it sounded....but Leonard did catch on quickly.  Tada!

I managed to catch the first piranha of the day from our group.  It was the red-bellied piranha which is supposed to be the most aggressive type in the river.  This was a little bitty piranha....and, of course, size matters! Now give me another piece of meat for my hook and let's try this again!  Our boat moved from one location to the next throughout the afternoon.  It took Jenesa a little while longer to hook her first piranha.  And, when she did....she managed to catch a very rare type of piranha.  The flying piranha!  This piranha actually jumps high out of the water and fly's from one side of the boat to the other side of the boat.....haha.....of course, that only happens when the person holding the fishing rod gets trigger happy when she feels a nibble (rookie mistake) and pulls the damn thing up out of the water at 100mph.  Geesh!  I had a piranha whizzing past my ear at warp speed.  Fangs and all!

All in all, our group managed to catch quite a few piranhas today.  Jenesa and I each caught two.  John said he would take them back to the resort and fry them for dinner tonight.  Great!  We'd be having seafood for dinner!  Back home that would cost us $19.99 at Red Lobster.  Here it cost us a few hours and a little patience.

Needless to say, I won't be buying a boat when we get home.  Fishing is still something I'll leave to my grandfather....and the 1980's.