Under Mom's suspicious gaze, James began looking around for materials to build his fish trap.
The materials were easy to find.
All he needed were stones and a few dead branches.
Before long, James started pushing stones toward the river. One by one, he rolled them into the water.
"Rrrr?"
Zack and Zoe quickly noticed what their older brother was doing. They stared at him in confusion, clearly unable to understand what he was trying to accomplish.
James turned toward them and let out a short growl.
"Rrr."
It sounded like an order.
The two cubs immediately remembered the painful days of being bossed around by their big brother and hurried over without protest.
Under James's command, the two unfortunate cubs were soon forced to help push stones into the river.
Splash.
Splash.
The three cubs worked together, pushing stone after stone into the water. Once there were enough, James climbed into the river again and chose a suitable location.
He began arranging the scattered stones carefully.
Little by little, he built them into a curved barrier in the river.
Mom watched the entire process from the shore with a deeply confused expression.
At this point she was seriously questioning what her cubs were doing.
Instead of continuing her own fishing attempts, she walked over and let out a questioning sound.
Zack and Zoe immediately acted innocent.
Clearly this had nothing to do with them.
Mom then looked directly at James.
James had no idea how to explain something like fish traps to a tiger, so he simply gestured for her to keep watching.
Half an hour later, the simple fish trap was finally finished.
Zack and Zoe stared at the strange structure their brother had built, their curiosity obvious.
Mom looked equally puzzled.
James sat down beside the river and waited patiently.
"Heh… time to witness a miracle."
Before long, fish swimming downstream reached the stone barrier.
Seeing stones blocking their path, the fish naturally swam toward the opening James had left in the trap.
Once inside, they soon discovered another layer of stones blocking their escape.
When they tried to turn around, more fish had already entered behind them.
Within minutes dozens of fish were trapped inside the enclosure.
Water splashed everywhere as the fish crowded together.
The trap had basically turned into a small fish pond.
"Rrr!"
Zack and Zoe stared at the scene in shock.
So many fish…
Even Mom looked stunned.
James lifted his head proudly.
"This," he thought, "is the power of human intelligence."
He was just about to show off a little—
When Mom suddenly rushed forward like a missile.
James froze.
"Wait—!"
Too late.
Mom charged straight into the fish trap.
With one powerful movement she shoved aside several of the stones James had carefully arranged.
In an instant most of the trapped fish escaped back into the river.
James stood there speechless.
But Mom didn't care about the destroyed trap at all.
Fish were still jumping in the shallow water.
That was all that mattered.
She immediately began grabbing them with her claws.
Despite the chaos, Mom's fishing ability was actually quite impressive.
Her thick claws worked like daggers.
Any fish that got caught was almost impossible to escape.
Water splashed everywhere as she moved back and forth through the river.
It seemed she had never seen so many fish in one place before.
At one point she even lowered her head and used her saber teeth to stab at the fish.
By the time she finished, the trap James had spent so much effort building was completely destroyed.
But Mom returned to the shore proudly.
One fish hung from each paw.
Another was stuck on one of her saber teeth.
And she held one more in her mouth.
She dropped them on the ground with a casual flick.
Zoe immediately ran over and pressed one paw onto a large grass carp.
The fish flopped violently.
The sudden movement startled her and she quickly jumped backward.
Zack, who was a bit braver, pounced on another fish and pinned it down before biting into it enthusiastically.
Both cubs looked at Mom with sparkling admiration.
"Mom is amazing…"
James stared at the destroyed remains of his trap and sighed.
"That was my trap…"
Mom, however, looked extremely proud.
She picked up another fish and devoured it in just a few bites, bones and all.
While eating, she noticed James sitting quietly nearby.
She growled at him.
"Rrr."
What are you standing there for? Come eat.
James gave up arguing.
There was no point fighting over food.
Since becoming a saber-toothed tiger, this was actually his first time eating it.
Before eating, however, James suddenly had an idea.
"Shouldn't I remove the scales first?"
He wasn't sure if it was necessary.
But he tried anyway.
He held the fish tail down with one paw and scraped along the body with the other.
The scales came off in neat rows and scattered across the ground like tiny pieces of ice.
Once most of the scales were gone, James tore off a piece of fresh meat from the belly of the fish and swallowed it.
He paused for a moment.
"…Yep."
Very familiar taste reminded him of raw sashimi
Too bad there was no soy sauce.
---
Mom had an enormous appetite.
When she caught large prey, she could easily eat thirty or even forty kilograms of meat in a single meal.
After that she might not need to eat again for several days.
Of course, meals like that didn't happen every day.
The small fish they caught now weighed only a few kilograms each.
For Mom, they were barely snacks.
After finishing her fish, she jumped back into the water to try catching more.
Unfortunately, this time things didn't go so well.
After several attempts she came back soaked and empty-clawed.
Mom looked genuinely confused.
Why had there been so many fish earlier…
…but now she couldn't catch any?
As the sky grew darker, Mom finally decided it was time to leave.
She gathered the cubs and led them back to their cave.
The next morning she woke up unusually early.
Even Dad looked confused when she woke him.
Zack and Zoe were still half asleep.
"What's going on?"
Mom simply growled and walked out of the cave.
The family followed her.
James had a bad feeling.
No way…
Sure enough, Mom led them straight back to the river.
She walked up to the remains of the stone trap James had built the day before.
Then she sat down beside it.
And stared at the water.
Waiting patiently for fish to gather in the trap again.
James watched the scene and couldn't help laughing.
Mom had completely misunderstood the situation.
She was basically waiting for fish to walk into the trap by themselves.
Like waiting for rabbits beside a tree stump.
And she seemed very confident it would work again.