Girls fishing adjective | lead stories

Tancia Witter’s passion for navy blue ignited as a young girl when her father, a fisherman, often took her with him on his trips to the sea.

Most mornings, starting at seven in the morning, they would be out by boat, and back at their home on Alligator Pond by 10 in the morning, in time to prepare for classes in the afternoon at Manchester High School.

During their time at sea, he would share his knowledge of sea creatures and the marine world.

Witter recalls in A Gliner She said in an interview that when she got a lot older, she learned fishing techniques very quickly and started working alongside her father selling the snappers and lobsters they caught.

“It was a good experience… and it was easier for him because I helped him with his work,” she said.

Witter, who now resides in the Clarendon community of Farquhar Beach with her six children and husband, has, without realizing it, passed her passion for fishing to another generation.

On Tuesday, her daughter Malicia Makala, a first-grader, was helping her mother climb in and out the snapper.

With her face positioned, her lips pressed tightly together, and her eyes laser focused, little Malika was dedicated to the task at hand as she stood by her mother’s side trying to remove the fish’s innards.

When asked why she decided to help her mother, she simply replied: “Mom, go eat her so I can help her.”

Wetter explained that she did not teach her daughter how to prepare fish for cooking, but that little Malicia often watched her actions carefully and one day began to implement what she had been taught visually.

“I feel good, and I know they helped me,” she said of her younger daughters.

Malika bragged in a short interview with the catcher She can scale fish better than her mother.

The skill has not yet been mastered

But using a rather blunt knife, she struggled with the process and appears not to have fully mastered the craft. Her mother took over instead, completing the task of climbing and gutting the small fish that Malika was carrying.

And she resigned herself to the fact that she might not be a good match for her skilled mother, which turned the conversation around.

“Can I have one biscuit, Mom?” she asked, her eyes brightening.

“I don’t have it. So, pay me, I pay you, measure two fish that look alike?” replied the mother as they both burst into laughter.

Fishing, which was the family’s livelihood, enabled the Witter children to go to school and put food on the table.

Although she is retired from fishing, she said she often goes out to sea for exercise.

It is mainly her husband who goes out to the nearby Milk River to take part in palanca fishing, which involves placing in the water a box with multiple hooks of bait, usually attached to squid meat, to catch the fish.

Witter lamented that with recent strong winds often blowing through the community, their livelihoods had been paused because it would be too dangerous to go out to sea in a small fishing boat, for fear it might capsize, resulting in death by drowning.

“We can hardly buy food in time. Even small savings have been made because sometimes (strong winds) blow throughout the months,” she said.

Despite the current challenges she faces, Witter remains humble and grateful for the life she is leading. She expressed a sense of pride in seeing her children grow up, loving the same experiences she enjoyed as a child with her father.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com