GEORGE TOWN: His given name is Ah Beng but everybody knows him as Ah Hua the ragworm hunter.
“I have been doing this for the past seven years. It is hard work as I have to wake up before dawn to catch the ragworms during low tide,” said septuagenarian Ang Ah Beng.
That is how “Ah Hua” has been making a living from catching marine ragworms off the shore of the clan jetties here.
“I can usually make up to RM80 a day selling these ragworms to fishing enthusiasts,” he said.
Fish bait: Ah Beng showing the 0.3m-long ragworm caught under the Tan Jetty in Weld Quay, George Town. — CHAN BOON KAI/The Star
His regular customers would contact him whenever they wanted to go fishing, he said.
“They will call me when they want ragworms for bait, which I sell for RM20 to RM40 a packet,” he said when met at the Tan Jetty foreshore last week.
He would usually go to the foreshore three to four days a week.
But when it is the season, you can find him by there seven days a week.
“I sometimes have leftover ragworms and I will sell them by the roadside in Weld Quay next to the volunteer fire and rescue station.
“If I’m unable to sell my stock, I will turn them into frozen bait which can be sold later,” he said.
Ah Hua said he used to do odd jobs around the inner city when he was younger.
“They hide in decaying wood of abandoned boats and the mudflat by the foreshore. I dig them out using a modified iron rod.
“The Weld Quay foreshore can be a dirty place, especially during the low tide as the clan jetties do not have a proper plumbing system and everything is just flushed into the sea.
“I have also come across poisonous snakes and huge monitor lizards, but luckily, nothing untoward has ever happened to me,” said Ah Hua who lives in Lorong Ikan near Beach Street with his wife. They have no children.
He said the longest ragworm he caught was about 1m but most of the time, they are less than 0.3m.
Ragworms can be found on a wide range of beaches made up of mud, sand or clay, living in U-shaped burrows between the high and low water marks.
They can be identified by a pair of small holes in the sand which marks their burrows.
These ragworms will feed on just about anything. They spin a mucus net at the entrance to their burrow in which they catch plankton and other small particles.
In Vietnam, especially Hanoi, ragworms are considered a delicacy. They are boiled to remove their fishy flavour before being mixed with eggs, minced pork, herbs and tangerine peel to make cha ruoi or worm omelette.
