My First Communal Fishing Adventure

Now here 's to a festive weekend, experience for me.
So, I 've been in my village for a while now, a rural village in north central Nigeria. Though I do come quite often, I do not stay too long before zooming out again.
But this time I stayed longer, almost a year and got a wind of the various activities that makes the life in a rural village fun. From the village communal hunting to the seasonal fishing in the local rivers. So much fun indeed.
Now, I 've been hearing of this particular mass fishing that comes up every 3rd or 4th week of February when the water has receeded greatly, mostly dried up at some point. This is so to enable even those who can't swim to be able to participate so no one is left out.
Also, there are a whole of trees lining the entire river bank and fallen branches here and there makes it difficult to use a canoe or proper fishing nets, instead the villagers use baskets and old mosquito nets tied around a climber made into a circle then attached to the end of a 3 to 5 feet long slender but tough stick, mostly bamboo is used.
So, the latest fishing was done on Thursday and though I can't swim properly, I decided to go along, a change from the normal hunting for rodents, snakes and birds I do go on with my cousins.
Wednesday night was a busy one for those who wish to partake in the fishing outing although it won't commence until the sun was getting a bit hotter due to how cold the water do get very early in the morning. And you know, we do go in with as little clothing as possible to ease movement in the water.
At around 10am the village gong was beaten to give the signal for everyone wishing to partake to move down to the takeoff point just where the river runs close to the village but it is usually way downstream to avoid disturbing the part where the villagers drink from.
We moved there and straight into the water we all went, me included although I spent a couple of minutes to calm my nerves and also adjust my body temperature to that of the water, although am no reptile. Winks.
We proceeded slowly but definitely downstream but as we proceeded, we broke up into groups of 2, 3 or 4 depending on your sped and also some families and friends also want to move together. I was with two other of my cousins.
About 3 hours into the fishing, we came to a part a bit deeper, say 7 to 8 feet in depth and the water was very muddy due to the crowd that has waded through it before we came. And guess what, I got a fairly powerful head nodge from something, under water, just below my shin. Wow! At first I was a bit scared since a lot of pythons do ply this area. But seconds later, this big guy here

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