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"Right, I cannot breathe under water. The grass sounds fine!" he was not sure how well he could keep the line from tangling in the reeds but it would be worth it to start there. "Shall we go?" He asked, then headed down toward that bank.

"Sure." Padparadscha set down his fishing gear while Kanja waded out into the water. The brown-haired boy watched with quiet excitement. If he had to guess, it was that Kanja would try to catch the fish with his bare hands. That or maybe some kind of extendable claw, like cat's claws. He could imagine all kinds of possibilities.

But then he did it. It was all over and there was a fish in hand. "How do you do that!" Padparadscha exclaimed. "That was very well done!"

Padparascha was also grinning from ear to ear. "I still want you to show me how you do it but I can show you how I do it first." He opened up the bait container and pulled out a worm, then put it onto the hook. He made a face because to him the worm seemed to squirm even more then, like it was in pain. But he bit his lip and swung the hook free, as if it were floating in the air. "So, the worm is supposed to entice the fish over to the hook and bite down. If I'm really careful I can just hook the lip of the fish and it doesn't hurt it much. But if I'm not doing so well the fish may swallow it." He grimaced again.

Now that that part was over he explained. "Normally I will toss it out as far as I can but because of the grass I can practically just drop it in." he snapped the pole suddenly and the hook swept through the air and landed in the water, held down by a weight attached to the line. "So now... I wait for a bite."

(I know too much about fishing ))

And then what? "Now we wait. It can take a couple minutes, or hours.... sometimes the fish eat the worm off the hook so I'll have to bait the hook again." There were no bites, no nibbles. He looked at Kanja solemnly. "I think your way is probably better. It is definitely faster." And if Kanja were to ask, Padparadscha would admit that, after the initial cast, his way was infinitely more boring, too.

Padparadscha laughed. "Yes! I was thinking that too. It is very boring." Put the pole in the ground? That seemed like a good idea. He looked the pole up and down and looked for a good place to prop it in the dirt. With a bit of effort it was ready to leave behind. "Okay! I'm really excited to try this." He had not explained why he wanted fish so badly. but Kanja did not need to know why he was so excited. He was just excited. If he learned how to do this himself he would not need to bait hooks or cast without catching the hook on his clothing, ever again. He moved into the water and tried not to splash.

"Wow, you move fast." Padparadscha remarked once Kanja had reached him in the water. He tried moving the way Kanja suggested, just barely skimming above the mud but he disturbed it a little while he did.

The fish returned soon enough and began to investigate them. More accurately they nibbled at the native boy's clothing. He watched Kanja while he instructed how to observe and strike. Easily Kanja caught another fish.

Padparadscha watched the fish slowly return. He watched them and tried to get a feel for their actions. But it was no use, at least not the first time, for when he struck out, his hands came back empty. "I missed, but I felt its scales."

"Ah! Sorry," Padparadscha laughed. He mimicked Kanja's hands with the fingers together and the thumbs ready to grasp. But once they hit the water he slowed or maybe the light refracted the image a little, something. He missed, but again he could feel the fish. Maybe if he could focus intently like Kanja then he would catch it. So he tried, and tried again, several more tries after that he finally grasped one, but it wiggled free of his grasp. "So how do you hold on?"

Padparadscha tried to follow instructions as they were given. It was strange on some level that another child was teaching him. But it was fun, too. He stopped while Kanja studied his hands. He jumped when the other boy grabbed his wrist, and blushed when he compared the sizes of their hands. "Wow... I... I guess I'll catch up to you eventually," he chuckled. "I'll try to catch a smaller fish, then."