Update – The Young’s – Thailand

The Young’s – Thailand

Hunting for Fish
Jun 19, 2012 10:28 am

Recently we instituted a dinner time conversation starter for our family. We recount our day and say what our low’s and our high’s were. Recently our high points are outweighing our low points and there have been times when no one has had a low point for the day. That is so encouraging to me because there are things we can find to complain about or that can be our low point but sometimes the good outweighs the bad so much that it is not worth listing.

One of my recent high points was a fishing trip I went on with the pastor of the fellowship we attend. Like my previous fishing trip I did not know what to expect. The previous trip was a 2 day camping excursion where we took 13 fishing poles and cast out from the shore while baiting the lines every 4 hours waiting for the fish to bite. This trip did not involve fishing lines and lures. It involved a .22 caliber rifle with a scope and silencer. You read that right. We went fishing with a gun.

Our day started at 5 a.m. and ended around 3 p.m. The time in between we boated around the Mekong Lake to different elevated banks that overlooked inlets where fish congregate. We shored the boat away from the inlet and then hiked to our position. Once in position we took a nice sized rock and tossed into the water to stir up the fish a little. After waiting a couple minutes fish would start to swim to the surface. Once a fish would surface, you focus, breathe, and shoot.

Since I don’t have a trained eye for this, I did not see what my pastor was looking at most of the time. He kept seeing fish and said they were too small. Eventually he saw one that was big enough. He took his shot and got a direct hit. Now I was intrigued even more because I didn’t know how we were to recover the fish that is now at the bottom of the lake with a gunshot in him. I soon found out…you swim out there and dive down. How else would you get it?

It was an off day as we only got one fish for the day (normally he gets 5-10 weighing about 7-12 lbs. each!), but I enjoyed it. I was exposed to a new and exciting way of getting a fish and I was given great insight into what my pastor thoroughly enjoys doing in his off time. He is good at it and it proved to be effective. It also gives an interesting twist on Jesus’ famous words to the first disciples when He said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”