My 1995 Small Farm.

Chapter 494 Fish Roe
Chen Ling hurriedly grabbed a harpoon and was about to thrust it into the water.

Wang Qingwen quickly waved his hand at him: "Lingzi, don't rush, look at this fish..."

On the surface of the two canals, two whirlpools teemed with leaping fish, like a pot of boiling water, splashing and churning rapidly from east to west.

It was like two rising waves, pushed from behind by something, winding around a meandering canal, coming from afar.

but……

The canal seemed rather narrow and winding.

They can't handle such a commotion.

As the fish were driven in by the rolling whirlpool waves, water kept gushing out from both sides onto the shore, and the fish kept jumping onto the bank in their panicked flight.

"Look, look at all these fish jumping onto the shore. Do you think the fish on the west side will also disappear like this?"

Wang Qingwen said urgently, "They were all so frightened by what was underwater that they jumped ashore..."

"Yes, brother, you're right. If there are no surprises, that should be the case."

Chen Ling nodded, tightened his grip on the harpoon, and stared intently at the 'waves' rolling in from afar.

"Huh? Lingzi, do you know what this is?"

Upon seeing his brother-in-law's expression, Wang Qingwen's brow furrowed immediately: "Could it be some kind of water monster?"

After all, Chenwangzhuang is known for having many strange things in the water.

"No, it's not a water monster, it's a big fish."

As the two figures drew closer to each other while they were talking, Chen Ling gripped his harpoon and stepped forward, still speaking.

Seeing his posture, the dogs and cows nearby stopped barking.

"Crash..."

The water surged and churned, with two waves approaching from one behind the other in two separate channels.

Chen Ling headed towards the whirlpool in the south-facing canal, holding his breath and watching the underwater movements closely. When the wave was less than two meters in front of him...

He suddenly thrust out the harpoon in his hand.

"Wow--"

Water splashed everywhere, and the surface of the water exploded with a loud bang.

The blood quickly stained the water red.

A large, bright white fish was pierced by a harpoon and then lifted up from the water by Chen Ling using the harpoon.

It was flung onto the shore in an instant.

It struggled and thrashed its tail frantically.

"What a huge fish! Is it really a fish causing trouble down there?"

Wang Qingwen was stunned for a moment, but the next instant another wave rolled in.

The brother-in-law immediately forgot what he was saying, grabbed the nearest net, and ran over to block the fish.

But just as they stretched the net out to catch the fish.

Beneath the densely packed, leaping little fish, a large, shimmering white fish swung its body rapidly and charged fiercely towards them.

It crashed directly into the fishing net.

It almost made Wang Qingwen stumble.

"Oh dear, what kind of fish is this? It's smashed the fishing net!"

"Brother, don't worry about that. There's more than one fish down there; a net won't be able to stop it..."

As Chen Ling spoke, the harpoon in his hand plunged into the water again, and another large, bright white fish was pierced and flung onto the shore.

"This is a whitefish, with a white upturned mouth. It swims fast and is very fierce. It is extremely strong underwater."

"White with upturned lips? Is that what you call upturned lips?"

Wang Qingwen almost questioned the meaning of life.

"Yes, it's much bigger than the upturned beaks in Fenglei Town. We've seen this before at Dumb Lake, north of the county town."

Chen Ling responded and quickly walked over to Wang Qingwen. Following the rolling whirlpool, he harpooned the water again.

There was a crash.

The harpoon pierced the water's surface, splashing out a large spray of water.

The fish scattered and fled.

Large and small, they stirred up the water, making it chaotic and turbulent.

This time, not a single prick was caught.

The big fish, startled by Wang Qingwen's intervention, had already submerged beneath the surface.

Unlike Chen Ling's group, who managed to catch the fish twice in quick succession while the fish were chasing them fiercely and were off guard.

After catching two big fish.

The remaining small fish will scatter in all directions.

The big fish on Wang Qingwen's side were very alert. As soon as Chen Ling arrived, they struggled to swim away from the bottom of the water after being thrown out of the net.

The fish, driven away, were still in shock.

With its big eyes wide open, it kept moving its mouth, constantly opening and closing to swallow and spit out its food.

As for the upturned lips, not a single one can be seen.

"Oh no, they've all run away? What do we do?"

Wang Qingwen was sweating with anxiety.

"It's alright, these fish only target big fish. Without big fish leading the way, they can't form a school..."

Chen Ling said something, then turned around and brought over the two big fish he had just speared. "Brother, look at these two whitebait with upturned mouths, they're both about 50 centimeters long."

"It really is! How come this fish has grown so big?"

“This isn’t even the biggest one. The one we found at Dumb Lake last time was more than half the size of this one. Lynx and the others measured it, and it’s about 1.3 meters, 130 centimeters… Just imagine how big that is.”

"Wow, a fish over a meter long, it's going to eat people fast!"

"If it were in the water, it might actually hurt someone. I remember when I went to play in the river in the summer, I encountered a big fire bream that bit people."

However, on the ground, no matter how fierce they are, they can't bite anyone.

Chen Ling tossed the two fish onto the ground, flipped them over, and they were bright white, almost silvery-white, each as wide as two of Wang Qingwen's hands. Wang Qingwen had never seen such large fish before.

The upturned beaks in Fenglei Town are called upturned green.

It's very small.

The two squatted down in front of him and gestured with their hands.

Seeing this, the two litters of civets came over and sniffed around. When they smelled the fishy smell, they stuck out their little tongues and started licking.

After licking it a few times, I felt like I'd had my fill of oral stimulation but wasn't satisfied.

One by one, they bit each other's tails and backs, sticking out their fluffy little bottoms as they tried to drag themselves into their nest.

How could these tiny creatures possibly drag such a big fish?

One by one, they whimpered angrily and resentfully, circling around Chen Ling and his companion.

They were quickly chased away by the dogs.

"Fugui, Qingwen, are you two fishing? I see big and small fish all over the ditch, why aren't you picking them up?"

Zhao Gang then led his big wolfhound over. He hadn't been staying at the farm these past few days; he and Li Min had been in the county town.

However, he often came to the village to go fishing with the two old men, Zhao Yubao and Zhao Dahai. A couple of days ago, when Zhao Dahai was still here, he also became familiar with the two old men.

We're about the same age and both like raising dogs, so it's easy for us to get along.

After Zhao Dahai and Shanmao returned to the city, they would come over to Zhao Yubao to go fishing whenever they had nothing else to do.

I'll also take a stroll around the farm once or twice.

Especially these past few days, since the red-crowned cranes returned, they've been coming very frequently.

"Wow, good heavens! There are such big fish here? What kind of fish is this? It's bigger than the stove! Can such big fish be raised in this ditch?"

"...I don't know, I've never seen it before. Maybe it's in my ditch, or maybe it swam over from that river." Chen Ling shook his head.

We've never seen any upturned beaks on this farm. If we do, they're inside the cave. They've never been seen in the outside world.

"Tsk tsk, with such a big fish, no wonder you can't take care of the small fish on the shore."

Zhao Gang was quite surprised.

"That's not how you see it..."

Wang Qingwen laughed and said, "The little fish you saw when you came here were all driven out of the water by these big guys. They drove them all the way from the far east to here in the west, scaring the little fish so much that they jumped out of the water."

I briefly explained what had just happened to him.

Zhao Gang's eyes changed, and he said in disbelief, "No way, according to Fugui, these big fish are hunting like the jackals and tigers in the mountains?"

"Yes, they are actually hunting small fish."

The whitebait is a rare, ferocious freshwater fish that is carnivorous. Given sufficient food and a wide enough aquatic environment, it can grow to a very large size.

and……

They move extremely fast in water.

Large in size, fast in speed, and ferocious in nature, these fish, once they gather in groups, roam freely in the water, and nothing can stop them.

In this canal, other fish have nowhere to hide.

That's why the situation just now occurred.

Driven around by a group of white-cheeked bastards.

Even some fish that live at the bottom of the water were driven to the surface.

"If this fish gets into the ditch, won't that spoil the dish?! Your fish is so expensive!"

Zhao Gang's expression changed, and he looked even more anxious than Chen Ling and the other two.

Wang Qingwen nodded: "Yes, we were just talking about discussing this..."

Chen Ling waved his hand dismissively: "It's alright, don't worry too much about it. As long as we get rid of these big fish, the remaining fish will be similar to those big catfish and bighead carp. They won't swarm and chase each other away, and they won't eat much fish, so they won't harm many fish."

Besides consuming a lot of fish, this large whitebait is also notorious for causing a lot of damage.

Leading a large group, like fish in the sea, they form dense, large schools that drive away other fish.

Like today, messing around with things.

The fish that were driven onto the banks of the canal were so numerous that they must have weighed at least thirty pounds.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have chased all the fish out of this section of the canal on the west side.

Chen Ling guessed that probably last night, or the night before, no one was watching them, so these white-lipped wrecked fish started to wreak havoc on the fish in the ditch without any restraint.

Chen Ling even thought that raising fish well must be quite a lot of work.

Besides water birds, the fish in the water are also on my mind.

"Huh? A moorhen is stealing fish!"

As soon as the topic of water birds came up, Wang Qingwen pointed to the east and saw moorhens peeking out from the grass, acting suspiciously. When they saw that people were far away, they snatched fish from the shore and ran away.

Some darted into the grass, while others flapped their wings and flew away as soon as the dog pounced.

These waterhens are left unattended; there are already fifty or sixty adult waterhens alone, and they roam in huge flocks every day.

Besides waterfowl, there are also many other water birds such as wild ducks.

They eat, and the ducks raised on the farm also eat.

The fish on the east bank of the farm were devoured in no time.

There are people on the west side, so the water birds like moorhens and wild ducks don't dare to come over.

But the ducks on their own farm weren't afraid of people, and they ate the fish one by one, quickly finishing them off.

Seeing this, Chen Ling and his brother-in-law finally understood why there hadn't been a single fish in the two sections of the western canal that morning, and why Xiao Jin and the others hadn't shown any unusual reaction.

The creatures in the water are causing their own trouble; it's none of their business.

Moreover, waterfowl like moorhens eat fish, and even the ducks on one's own land eat fish, so there's no way to control it.

Chen Ling didn't let them manage things at first.

"Let's eat. All that's jumping out are small fish, so don't worry about them. We caught two big fish today, so let's deal with these two big guys first. Luckily, we still have the seasoning for pickled fish in the pot, so we'll have fish hot pot tonight. We'll smoke the other one over the fire pit."

Chen Ling smiled and picked up the two large fish, preparing to take them back to process them.

When he touched the fish, he exclaimed, "Eh!", "There are fish roe inside this fish!"

(End of this chapter)