Fishing for iobo

I wrote about ‘iobo’ before (10 August) focusing on having it as food. Well I have now seen how they get iobo, so let me tell you about that.

At low tide, you go out and look for the type of grass that iobo lives under. Then you shove your special stick into the sand there and wiggle it back and forth.

Next you put your hand down the hole that the stick has made.

And you bring your hand back up with the iobo that you found

Then you should gut it straightaway, by pushing a stick through it.

This is a iobo that hasn’t been gutted yet.

Here is a pot with the day’s iobo harvest, and other seafood (not cooked yet)

Lastly you need to pound it so that it will be soft and easy to eat. I think if you don’t do this, it will be really chewy like bad calamari.

Village – Fishing boats (post by Bill & Liz)

Fish is used to supplement the village diet. The traditional method is to use wooden outrigger canoes and many people still use these boats. Our village had a modern boat that they use for fishing and hope to make a little business out of it. Currently, they just sell locally on the beach, but are looking into being able to transport their catch into Madang town.

Here’s a picture of fish being sold at the beach.

The modern boat is moored in the river after fishing.

Here’s a traditional outrigger canoe that was used for fishing.

Fishing

Elvira and I had the opportunity to go out with the people sometimes and observe some of their regular activities and then as part of our work, we would record someone telling us about that activity in their own language.

One of the things we did early in our trip was to go out fishing with the ladies one afternoon. They put out these nets, set them up, and then check them the next day for fish. The fish swim into them and get stuck in the holes as you can see in this picture:

Here is Rebecca with some of the fish that got caught in the net:

We went out in traditional dugout canoes and at first I was worried with every little wobble that we were going to capsize (especially after having that incident at Easter!), but of course we didn't! Here's my pose for the photo on this fishing trip:

Hook fishing

Twice I went fishing with a rod and hook when I was in the village. I used a small rod with a short fishing wire and a hook attached. For bait I put little pieces of shrimp onto the hook, but first I had to remove the tail and skin. My hands got all covered in yucky stuff!!

The river goes into the sea and I could fish either in the river or in the sea, but I preferred the river. To fish, I just stood at the shore and waved the rod around to throw the bait into the water and then waited for a fish to bite.

Sometimes I would get a bite and the bait would be gone, but a fish didn’t come when I pulled the hook out of the water. Other times I didn’t feel anything and the bait disappeared. Occasionally I would catch a little fish! On each of the times I went fishing, I caught two fish. The people were so happy about that and said to me, “You win!”

Here are some kids doing the sort of fishing I did:

The fish I caught:

Me with my dead fish:



Yes, they are ridiculously small and certainly nothing to brag about, but that is the kind of fish they are expecting to catch and they cook them and eat them.

I’m not experienced with cooking fish, so I gave my fish to our foster mum to cook for me. Here is the meal that she brought me with one of my fish on top.


I think the villagers eat them bones and all, but that’s not for me. I just ate the little bit of meat in the middle of the fish and gave the rest to our resident cat!!