Newbie Catch

On a day when all and sundry, and that includes yours truly, caught nothing - not even a bite - Yan Jean had every reason to grin from ear to ear with her very first catch, a peacock bass. She had everything against her: her rod was medium-action, she had no lures, she was using a 30 lb line, her old reel had malfunctioned.

This would have discouraged many a novice on their first outing but not her. Initially, she had WeiHao instruct her on the basics of luring in fresh water and as she whipped her first cast into the air, she cast (pun intended) her wary eyes around embarrassingly hoping no one would have noticed her short cast. After several such casts, her spinning reel jammed because of the backlash in her line. She sat quietly for half an hour at the edge of the water to sort out the 'birdnest', but the more she tried the worse it became. She finally decided to discard the line and use one of my reels with an 8 lb line.

From the legal spot, she moved surreptitiously to an illegal spot deeper in the forest with WeiHao, QiJian and Yeshun in tow, while I remained 'legal'. Half an hour later, I heard a commotion and when I turned around, Yan Jean and her male escorts returned and she proudly announced, "I have a fish!". After a round of congratulations and good wishes, I got her to pose with her first catch. Embarrassed at first - notice her expression in the second picture - we had to coax her to smile. By jolly, she really smiled. So, what did she do with her first catch? She gave it to a fellow fisho. Great catch, Yan Jean!