reed fishing

ex brother in law wanted to impress his kids with reed fishing he saw a local doing but didn't have a clue, so for those city folk that dont know either, heres the recipe:

ingredients:

1 or 2 mildly excitable, easily amused children

3 reeds from the bank of a stream or marshy area

1 small crab hole about halfway up any beach

have the child insert the big end of the reed into the hole until the crab grabs it (they can feel it and the child will start sqealing), then have them jerk, not too hard and not too soft - out comes the crab with lots more wild squealing from the child - once out the crab will release the reed, land with a soft plop, and immediately retreat down the hole again.

note: it dosent really hurt the crab unless the child goes all obsessive and does it forever.

tip: the trick here is to find a crab hole where the water table is no deeper than the length of the longest reed. the crab sits atop the water table, happily feeding, then this kid starts poking him with a stick so he grabs it with his claw and so on and so forth. this is actually yet another indian method for catching fish bait.