The happiness of a child is immeasurable when he catches fish with his own hand or tools.
My fellow Hivers, in this blog, I'll show you the experiences of my youngest boy in catching fish using the hook and line. Please come with me as I lead you to our fish Cage or a little concrete pond. Let's go.
A Brief History
Formerly, our pond was assisted by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in the Philippines after I had attended a training on the Protocols of Freshwater Farming that they conducted.
It was in the year 2017 when BFAR gave me 500 Tilapia Fries to culture in my concrete pond that was made intentionally for the purpose of culturing freshwater fish. With the use of the water from our own motorized deep well and some heavy rains, we had almost filled the concrete pond with a dimension of 5 meters wide by 6 meters long by one meter deep.
BFAR also gave me feeds for those fishes: from the booster to the starter to the grower and finally, the finisher feeds. That was stress-relieving to take care of those fish. In the succeeding year, I bought 500 fries for 35 cents each while the BFAR gave me another 500 pieces for free to make it 1000 pieces in all.
After a few months, we sold big matured tilapia for P150.00 per kilo. Several people bought those fish for food. We were glad to have that kind of fish farming. Until all of those tilapia were sold leaving only two or three small fingerlings.
The Sad Truth
In the year 2019, I requested again from the BFAR to buy another 500 fries or fingerlings. But, they no longer addressed my requests. There was a shortage of supplies for fries and fingerlings. I just waited and made several follow-ups. But my requests were not addressed anymore. Until this time, the COVID-19 Pandemic hit not only the Philippines but all over the world. We all suffered from it.
Seems hopeless I was, I just left the pond with a lot of water in it. But to keep control of the mosquitoes, I helped my boy to release several guppy fishes and also those three young but growing Tilapia Fishes.
The Glittering Hope
Time flies for about three years or more. After the restriction of the Pandemic was lifted, we were able to buy one kilo of grown live Tilapia from a teacher intentionally for food. But my boy thought of what to do with it. After a few hours, only one survived. So, he asked my permission to release it into the pond. I was hesitant because I was thinking it would only die there. He insisted and I granted. Surprisingly, after a year, this has been the status as you will find out here. The Tilapia fishes in-breed among the guppies.
If you've noticed, two colors of Tilapia were caught. But, before it happened, let's find out what transpired in the pond.
The previous day, my little boy went fishing there using the hook and line that I bought for him. But, after an hour or more, nothing was caught. He used the young corn kernel as bait. So he was sad that afternoon. But, he was thinking of some other kind of bait. That was Saturday.
The following day, he looked for some earthworms in the soil just a few meters away. Surprised, he found a few of them. So, excited and eager, he wanted to try again. This time, he wouldn't fail his expectations. Hurray!
The face of my little boy was shining and glittering with joy when he caught one. Then, another one.
If you've noticed, hundreds or thousands of small water lilies are floating on the surface of water. These water plants give off oxygen and also their roots serve as food for the fish. But they could not consume them all because there's a lot of mosses in the walls of the pond which they consume as food. In fact, even if we don't give them feeds for several weeks or months, they're still alive and active. Maybe they eat also the guppies with them.
Realization
I've realized that fishes multiply by themselves in the course of time as long as they have water, food, and oxygen-giving plants despite the absence of an aerator and with very minimal or even commercial feeds.
Had it not for my child who loved taking care of fishes and insisted on going on with it, these fishes wouldn't exist right now. In fact, the happiness that I saw on his fish as he caught some was really immeasurable.
My co-Hivers, I think I have to park here. Thank you for following up on this part. See you on my next blog. Take care everyone.