Videos of mud fishing in marshy land or small streams, with catfish emerging from the mud after some prodding, have always been popular on YouTube. After a while, trends of mud fishing using household items like Coca Cola, Pepsi, Mentos and toothpaste started emerging. They have a similar pattern—the vlogger identifies a hole or pit in a marshy area, usually near a small stream. They are then seen pouring fizzy drinks into the hole along with Mentos or toothpaste, and as the water bubbles, the catfish suddenly surface as well. The videos often show multiple fish emerging from the same hole.
But on Wednesday, popular vlogger Firoz Chuttipura from Kerala, of ‘Village Food Channel’ fame, released a video showing how this ‘new, easy technique’ is actually false.
In the beginning, the video seems like any other ‘Cola fishing video’, with Firoz and his friends pour beverages, a cut-up tomato and an egg into holes in the mud along a stream. Many of the holes they first explore turn out to be false leads, until they find one out of which two fish emerge after cola is poured in. Later, they cut up a tomato and crack open an egg into the hole, after which several fish bubble out one after the other.
However, at the end, it is revealed that the hole out of which the fish were removed, was actually created by Firoz and his companions. They buried a bent PVC pipe in the mud; when Firoz poured the cola into one hole, his friend is actually pushing a live fish through the other end, which the viewer cannot see, and assumes it is natural fishing.
Debunking the practice, Firoz’s video shows that the entire area in which the video was shot, was artificially constructed. His exaggerated catfish catch shows how the other such videos doing the rounds on the internet are fake. The camera angle and clever way of catching people’s attention is what makes these mud fishing videos popular.