They are also called lunar fish because they only appear after counting nine days from full moon
This time of year, fishermen in the Ilocos Region and the coastal areas of Cagayan facing the Babuyan Channel start counting the nights while fixing their boats – trying to figure out when the full moon will be.
In August, that means nine days after August 1, the so-called fishy one indeed – the full ‘Sturgeon Moon,’ named for abundant fishing, particularly of lake sturgeon in late summer.
There will be another full moon, on August 31, called the blue moon, so-called to describe the way the moon actually looks when, for different reasons, it had turned a blueish color.
Nine days after the full moon, ipon or goby fries, a delicacy in the region, appear and are captured in the millions from the mouth of the river by fish traps or fish pots called “bubo” in the Ilokano language.
Ipon is an Ilokano name for the fry of various species of gobies that spawn in the sea but spend most of their lives in the nearby fresh water streams of the interior.
Gobies are small fishes, carnivorous bottom-dwellers living along the shores, lakes, rivers, and fresh-water swamps.
They are practically abundant nine days after the full moon during the months of August, September, October, November, December, January and February, according to old hands – although as early as July some already watch their fortunes in the sky and the shorelines.
Called by its scientific name sycyopterus lachrymosus, this small fish that measures about 1 inch in length and ¼ inch in diameter is only endemic to the provinces of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, and Cagayan Valley.
No wonder, in Pias-Gaang in Currimao, Ilocos Norte or the nearby Sadiay Baybay Beach in Badoc, Ilocos Norte as well as the coastal towns of Ilocos Sur, fishermen and hawkers, with coronavirus 2019 already off their bulletin boards, as well as buyers of the goby fries would gather early on the shoreline.
Same scenes in Laoag City, and the northern coastal towns of Bacarra, Pasuquin, Bangui, Burgos and Pagupud and the shoreline communities of Cagayan, including Sanchez Mira and Aparri, where the Cagayan River empties into the Babuyan Channel, all the way east to Nangaramoan Beach in Santa Ana.
According to ichthyologists, who specialize in the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha), the fish zygote is meroblastic, meaning the early cell divisions are not complete
This type of meroblastic cleavage is called discoidal because only the blastodisc becomes the embryo.
Fish embryos go through a process called mid-blastula transition which is observed around the tenth cell division in some fish species.
They are also called lunar fish because they only appear after counting nine days from full moon. The fishermen can catch this fish from three to five days once in a month, making one harvest in the morning and another in the afternoon.
There are at least two fish tales – enjoyed retelling by old fishermen – that a huge egg hatches in the middle of the water.
Another is that it comes from the sea water to migrate into the river water and later on when it grows bigger it becomes the bukto, or bunog (goby fish) – popular among dwellers of the coastal communities of the rugged Ilocos coastline that stretches from Ilocos Norte down to the towns in Pangasinan just beyond the border of La Union facing the Lingayen Gulf.
This perhaps partly explains why the ipon are abundant in communities near river banks: Santa in Ilocos Sur has the 206-km long Abra River that empties into Luzon Bay, the 73-km Padsan or Laoag River in Ilocos Norte which empties too in the Luzon Bay, the 505-km Cagayan River that empties into the Babuyan Channel, and the 96-km long Amburayan River that originates from the Cordillera mountains and traverses the provinces of Benguet, La Union, and Ilocos Sur and empties into Luzon Bay.
Of course, there is the Currimao River near the town of Pinili, where warriors walked during the Philippine-American War at the turn of the 20th century and the Japanese Occupation in the 1940s, and a stream that meanders through from Lang-ayan in the east to Anggapang westward to Pias-Gaang.
With the eased lockdown restrictions, few fishermen, eager to replenish their fishing baskets and nets with this autochthonous delicacy, have been reported spotted on some stretches of the shoreline that stretches from the Salugan side in Currimao to Sadiay Baybay due south in Badoc, Ilocos Norte due west of Pinili.
The day’s catch may not be as voluminous as those caught in Santa, well known for this fish species, or those caught in the shoreline barangay of La Paz in Laoag, or in Aparri for this species they call there ludong.
Sometimes, non-Ilokanos, as those from the national capital, mistake ipon for their hipon or shrimp, the decapod crustaceans with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata, or the mobile savvy as the iPhone.
In Laoag previously, a kilo of ipon would have a price range of P300 to P400.
In Currimao, the price range is not far off the La Paz tag, but Ilokanos, who cook this or just squeeze some lemon or the indigenous dalayap or lime, would have their appetite satisfied despite the seemingly extortionate price.
At times, they just have them steamed, eaten raw or the so-called kilawen with limitless sprinkling of onions, vinegar, and ginger, or do the Mexican cuisine torta with scrambled egg, paksiw with vinegar or the sukang (accent second syllable) Iloko, sinigang (ipon soup with tomatoes and ginger), adobo, or grilled ipon wrapped in banana leaf.
In Ilocos Sur, villagers cook it as tinubong – after sometime, they turn this into boggoong nga ipon (ipon fish paste). The deep-rooted Ilokanos never call their fish paste as bagoong, imitating those in the metropolis and surrounding provinces.
There have been some who raise the red sign on eating raw ipon because, their thesis, eaters can catch the Paracapillaria philippinensis, which causes human intestinal capillarisis.
Unlike C. hepatica, humans are most likely the main definitive host, with transmission occurring primarily through eating undercooked fish.
But there is an oft-repeated narrative that Nana Apit and Nana Bikang swear none of their customers these many decades have gone to their final resting places because they relished at one point eating raw ipon.
As the Ilokanos say, with a satisfied look in their profile, “Naimas ti ipon lokdit,” loosely translated as “Ipon is truly a delicacy,” with the added expression popular in many areas of the Ilocos and Cagayan.