Simon periodically gets a fishing craze. His rod is a stick about seven foot long which he keeps beside the back door. His line is a piece of stout cord which is tied to the stick at one end and a hook to the other.
Simon asks his cook/houseboy to get some worms. A day or so later someone, his cook’s friend, turns up at the house with some old tin of worms. I have no idea where he finds them in the local baked, brick hard murram soil. With suitable care the worms will survive for a week or so.
The unfortunate worm is stuck on the hook, and then lobbed off the quayside behind Simon’s house and into the river Nile. The hope is that a tilapia will take the hook and then be put back on a bigger hook to bait a Nile perch. There might be some optimism here although Nile perch six or seven fot long are regulary caught at Namasagali by local fishermen.
Simon catches a few tilapia, too small to be eaten. They will be given to local dogs or cats. Occasionally Simon catches a tilapia big enough to bait his larger hook for a perch. The tilapia seems acceptable to the perch in the river. The hook is not.
As the sun sets the mosquitoes and other insects get thicker. Simon goes home before the firebugs are out.
The next evening the same.
And the next.
There are still worms, and beside Simon’s house there is a manhole cover. Removing the manhole cover reveals flowing water draining a swampy area reclaimed by Uganda railways many years before. Simon lowers his baited hook down the manhole and almost immediately hooks a big catfish. Once this catfish is restrained Simon baits his hook again with the last worm. Immediately an even larger catfish is hooked and comes out of the manhole on the end of the line.
Simon says catfish taste muddy.