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The man thrust his paddle into the lake as if it was a knife cutting through melting butter and pulled forward. With each move to haul his fishing boat to the shore of bamboos and reeds, the sparkling waves of light quivered beneath the water ripples.

The water became clear as the boat entered the shallow zone. A dense forest of green muskgrass towered from their beds of gravels and sands alongside the seagrass meadows. Some small fishes passed through the seagrasses without care while some got scared of the boat's shadow and hid in their underwater dwellings. A blue crayfish curiously peeked out from his cave and went back into his burrow in disinterests.

Ahead of the fishing boat was a line of five wooden posts that jutted out from the shallow water. A sturdy rope was tied and strung through all the posts in a straight line. The man set down his paddle and grabbed a hemp rope with a braided loop sitting under him.

The rope was already tied and knotted into a wider loop on one end. He stood up and threw the looped end toward the wooden posts.

Tuk!

One of the nearest posts got caught. The man sat down with a firm grip on the rope and grabbed hold of the rope to drag his fishing boat ashore until he reached the fourth post. Splash! Crunch! He got up and jumped down from his vessel with a long metal chain in his other hand.

Clink-clink!

The man quickly wrapped the chains around the fifth post. He grabbed the double hook shaped like a W, which was attached to the end of the chain. Then, he fit the chain straight into the centerline of the half-cleaved post.

Gricks!

The fishing boat was fastened to this wooden post by locking the double hook into its twin rings.

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Splash! Splosh!

The man went back into the shallow water. His dark gray sleeves darkened and became wet, soaking up the water as he went deeper.

The fish basket was hanged from his fishing boat's side, half floating and half submerged into the lake.

Splosh! Splosh!

The man's fishes were still swimming around inside, waving their thin tails and sharking their fins. It was crowded, but none could leave their yellow reed cage. A pair of brown hands released the tight knot that held the basket captive.

Quickly, the man slid his skinny arms through the braided straps and hoisted the heavy basket up straight. He walked back to the shore and went up the trail with several tar black stone slabs naturally embedded into the ground.

Their corners were whittled into smooth curves from the fall of raindrops through the passing of times. Next to the stone steps was a small trench path, filled with water flowing down to a pond near the lake shore.

With each step, the man's fish basket turned into a half-sieved pot with a big leak. Water gushed through the hole, the size of a wine cup's rim from the bottom of the reed basket into the trench path. Mossy green algae and small fishes of yellow, brown, red, blue, black, and orange fell out, following the stream down to the pond.

Meanwhile, the rest of the bigger fishes were still trapped. At the end of the stone embedded trail uphill, there sat a lonely little hut made from bamboo. Only one-third of its water volume was left in his basket with the trapped fishes by the time the man got to his home.

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