What does Timothy do to prepare Phillip for fishing in Theodore Taylor's The Cay?

In Theodore Taylor's The Cay, Timothy makes many preparations to teach Phillip how to fish, and learning to fish becomes critical when Timothy is afflicted with malaria. Though he gets better, there is a great chance he could be afflicted again due to his old age.

Timothy's first preparation is to shape many nails into fish hooks for Phillip to use and to attach those hooks to strands of a life line from the raft to use as fishing lines. A second preparation Timothy undertakes is finding an excellent fishing hole that is also very safe because it is on the reef. Every two feet along the reef, Timothy had "driven a piece of driftwood deep into the coral crevices so that [Phillip] could feel them as [he] went along" (p. 94). Another important preparation is teaching Phillip to get used to the fishing hole. He teaches Phillip how large it is and lets him feel along the ledge. He also teaches him what to do should he fall in to the hole.

To fish, Timothy teaches Phillip how to grab mussels, open the shells, and use a knife to pull out the mussel meat to use as bait on the hooks. Phillip then drops the line and baited hook into the water of the hole and, within a moment, he feels a "sharp tug" and flips the fish over his shoulder onto the reef (p. 96).