THANH HOA – Mr. Ngo Van Binh drives a motorboat around the Ba Thuoc hydropower reservoir, an iron rake is dragged along the bottom of the lake, collecting mussels every 30 minutes.
Early one day in early April, after a hasty breakfast, Mr. Binh, 40 years old, from Canh Nang town, Ba Thuoc district, went with his wife to carry his tools to the banks of the Ma River. The fishing couple’s schedule today is to rake mussels on the Ba Thuoc hydropower reservoir, a few kilometers from their house.
On the iron-hulled boat anchored next to the fish cage, Mr. Binh pumped more oil into the engine, while his wife helped spread a large canvas to cover the bottom of the boat. Checking the equipment was complete, he stooped, using the power to start the 15-horsepower machine. The boat left the wharf, slowly heading upstream, where a lot of mussels are expected to live.
After walking for a few kilometers, when he reached the fishing point, Mr. Binh reduced the throttle, walked towards the bow of the boat and slowly dropped the iron rake to the bottom of the lake. The rake is anchored to the side of the boat by a rope as big as a big toe, more than ten meters long. The workers in Ba Thuoc invented a rake consisting of many iron nails welded together like wide teeth, reinforced into the shape of an open cage. The bottom of the cage is tied with a net, which has the function of holding mussels when they pass through the rake teeth.
The boat now had to pull the obstacle below, so Mr. Binh had to press the throttle all the way, but it was still sluggish. The sound of the engine sometimes screeching, sometimes slamming down, resounded throughout the lake. The smell of smoke mixed with grease…
About 30 minutes later, feeling that the mussels were full of rakes, Mr. Binh and his wife began to drag the rope onto the boat. The rake was lifted, the mussels were as big as corn kernels stretched round in the mud and leaves… “Today’s mussels are beautiful, in the right season”, Mr. Binh said to his wife, pouring out the mussels with his hand. He then threw the iron rake back into the lake bed, continuing to hit a new batch, in the same manner until the end of the day.
Mr. Binh’s wife, Ms. Nguyen Thi Tuyen, 39 years old, scooped up large handfuls of mussels and garbage into a sparse basket, stooped over the water, turning back and forth to let the mud float out. While treating mussels, she chose to throw away the pebbles and the inside. When there were only mussels left, she poured them into a large pot beside her. For each batch of raking, they shoveled 3-5 kg of clean mussels.
Binh and his wife are from Cam Phong commune, Cam Thuy district. Married for more than 10 years, they moved to Lam Xa commune, Ba Thuoc district, making a living by watercraft. “My father has been attached to the fishing profession for many generations, so I have been absorbed in the profession since I was a child. It was hard work but there was no other choice…”, Mr. Binh said. According to his parents floating in the river, Mr. Binh and his wife did not have time to go to school, just learned to know the word.
In the early years of coming to Ba Thuoc, he and his wife, as well as dozens of other fishing households in Lam Xa, often raised fish in cages and caught seafood on the Ma River. About 5 years ago, when Ba Thuoc 2 hydropower plant was built, a large area of about 500 hectares in Ai Thuong, Lam Xa, Canh Nang town… turned into a lake bed. Shrimp and fish are less and more difficult to catch than before, some fishermen switch to mussels, others help with ponds or hire concrete.
The mussel fishing season in the Ba Thuoc reservoir area usually lasts from March to May of the lunar calendar every year, before the floods come. Every working day of Mr. and Mrs. Binh normally starts from 6am to mid-afternoon, earning more than quintals of mussels. Selling to traders at the shore for 5,000 VND/kg, they earn 500,000 to 700,000 VND. On peak days or hit the trick, they can get more than a million dong.
“Mussels here live on freshwater sandy areas, with little mud, so they are very clean and the meat is usually firmer and fatter than elsewhere,” Ms. Tuyen said. The job of raking mussels is hard work, but it doesn’t have to invest a lot of capital. Spending about 20 million VND, families can buy a motorized iron boat and buy enough working tools.
“The river is floating, the danger is lurking, but if you don’t go, you don’t know what to spend. Rain and wind also have to do, some days work hard to pull nets all night…”, Mr. Binh said. Not rich, but the money earned after each working day also helps him and his wife enough to live and support two young children who are of school age.
In Lam Xa fishing village, there are more than 10 households working as mussel rakes. On the river on a sunny day, motorboats run up and down bustling, laughing and talking.
Nguyen Van Canh, 32 years old, usually works as a mechanic, but in the mussel season, he quits his job and goes down to the river to “make farming”. His wife had just given birth, so he only went to fight mussels alone. Being proficient in the profession, Canh can also beat a ton of mussels every day. He said this job is hard, but “the money is really fresh” so he is very greedy. In addition to increasing income, raking mussels also helps local people like Canh to improve family meals.
Mussels are bivalve mollusks, scientific name Corbiculidae , which usually live in brackish estuaries and freshwater. The mussel intestine contains a lot of vitamin B12 and iron, very good for people with anemia. After catching mussels, people often use them to cook soup, stir-fry rice paper, process mussel rice…
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