1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 103: New Boat Bursts into Nets, Capelin! (Also known as Happy Encounter)
Liang Ziqiang's boat was in the lead, and soon the family's gondola, driven by his father and eldest brother, followed from behind.

Today, his boat opens, and the gondola is also about to go out to sea.

As they moved forward, fish would occasionally appear on the sea surface, but the fish were not big and did not form schools, so Liang Ziqiang naturally did not cast a net.

Although he was not as particular as his father, he was also eager to catch a lot of valuable good fish when he opened his first net!

As we were driving, we saw a fishing boat on the side. But the boat was not in a hurry to move, but was moving slowly, doing something on the water.

As he looked over, two people on the boat who were busy bending over looked up and saw them, and shouted to him from a distance:
"Brother Qiang, congratulations! Is the new ship going out to sea today?"

They are Li Liang and Deng Zhaocai.

"Yeah. Why did you stop? Did you find fish underwater?" He also shouted at the other party from a distance. Although the distance was a bit far, there was no obstruction on the sea, and the wind was not strong at the moment, so the sound floated far away on the sea.

"I am also preparing to go out to sea to cast my nets, so I threw two 'sea slingers' onto the seabed. It won't delay my casting of the nets. I will come back to see how much I can pick up when I go out to sea again in a few days!"

"Sure, that thing is very powerful in catching fish. If you put a few more, it's no worse than going out to sea and casting a net. It's also much easier and less troublesome than casting a net!"

He was certainly familiar with the term "undersea slither", as he had let it go before. It was true that it was very powerful in catching fish.

The net on the seabed is sac-shaped, just like a huge bag placed on the seabed. To be more precise, it is like the net bag used to catch butterflies.

This enlarged version of the "net bag" has two anchors at the bottom to keep it in the sea and prevent it from drifting away. There is a buoy on top of the "net bag" to make it easier for the owner to find it and retrieve it next time.

The impact of the sea water flow will generate hydrodynamics, keeping the net mouth open, and the fish and shrimp will naturally be washed into the "big net bag".

If you release the fish for two consecutive days and then come back to pick them up next time, the harvest is generally very good. Sometimes you can catch dozens of kilograms of fish with just one "seabed dive".

Later, his "sea diving" disappeared and he didn't have the time to make a new "sea diving" fishing gear, so he stopped doing it.

"Why don't you make a few more 'sea crawlers' and we can release them together. It's not a big deal to just throw a few sea crawlers into the sea every time we go out to cast our nets!"

"Okay, that'll have to wait until I make it next time!"

"We're almost ready now. Since we met today, why don't we team up and go cast the net together? We can also share in the joy of your new boat!" The two men said with a chuckle.

"What's the point of being happy or not, just open the car and go!"

The sea does not belong to any one person. Moreover, as he has dealt with them more and more recently, Liang Ziqiang has discovered that these two people are not that bad in nature. On the contrary, they are better than many hypocritical people. So in fact, he has already regarded them as close friends.

So, together with the gondola driven by Liang's father and Liang Tiancheng, there were three fishing boats in a row, all heading towards the distance at the same time.

Li Liang's boat was following very closely, but they had to avoid the pressure difference caused by traveling side by side, so they kept a certain distance behind his boat on the right side.

On the way, they encountered five or six fish gathered together, but none of them were valuable fish, so Liang Ziqiang did not stop the boat to cast the net.

This went on for quite a while, and finally they came across a dozen fish. Deng Zhaocai couldn't wait any longer:

"Brother Qiang, it's been a long time, and we haven't seen any large schools of fish. Ten or so fish are still fish after all. How about you keep going and we can use a net to catch these ten or so fish first?"

Liang Ziqiang took a look and saw that there were about ten gobies. This kind of fish was only a few cents per pound, and ten or so fish together would only be worth a dollar or so. He would definitely not touch this kind of fish in the first catch of his new boat.

"You cast your net, and I'll go ahead and take a look!" Liang Ziqiang responded and continued to sail forward.

We drove for about ten minutes or so. When I looked up, the entire sea in front of us suddenly seemed to be hiding a huge mirror, reflecting the sunlight in the sky with a faint luster!

"What the hell, what's going on?!" Liang Tiancheng on the phoenix-tail boat shouted first, and his voice floated unhindered to Liang Ziqiang's lotus-patterned boat.

"Why are you asking? Is this your first day out to sea? It's obviously good news! There is a school of fish underwater, and it's a large one at that. The scale of this school is much larger than the red snapper and golden pomfret we encountered last time!" Liang's father rolled his eyes at his eldest son. While answering him, he was also mobilizing Liang Ziqiang.

In fact, Liang Ziqiang didn't need his reminder. He had already quickly pulled the fishing net to his feet and was ready immediately.

Just as my father said, the large school of fish before us was so huge and mighty that its size had already exceeded the last school of golden pomfret!
However, it is a bit far away and I cannot tell what kind of fish it is yet.

The ship continued to move forward rapidly and came to the "giant mirror" that was shining with light.

Now I can see it clearly.

There are countless slender fish floating underwater, and the word "tens of thousands" is not enough to describe how large their number is!
This fish is not big, about ten to twenty centimeters long, with a very light golden body and shaped like a willow leaf.

At this moment, the sun was shining brightly between the sea and the sky. The sunlight shone through the sea surface onto the fish, making them look particularly bright and dazzling, as if the entire sea water was transparent.

It's like willow leaves floating in the air, crowded but not messy.

Some of the sunlight even radiated from the light gold fish, creating the mirror-like effect that Liang Ziqiang had just seen!

Among the fish in the group, at least half of them have bulging abdomens, which shows that they have food in their stomachs.

Liang Ziqiang and Liang's father shouted out almost at the same time:

"This is a capelin!"

The capelin is also called willow leaf fish, and has a particularly humane name: "Happy Meeting".

The number of eggs in their stomachs is more than ten times that of ordinary fish, making them true "multi-seed fish".

But because many southern fishermen called seeds and eggs "spring", this fish gradually got the name "capelin".

Generally speaking, fishermen try not to catch fish with eggs in their stomachs, but capelin is an exception.

In addition to its delicious meat, the most attractive thing about this fish is its belly full of fish roe!
Moreover, there is no need to worry about catching so many female fish and causing a sharp decline in the number of small fish, because this fish has a unique ability - sex change.

All the larger ones with bulging bellies are females. The smaller ones that haven't grown up yet are males.

When the net is cast, the female fish enter the net, while the male fish slip through the mesh because they are too small.

After a period of time, the male fish grows up and automatically turns into a female fish, and its belly also starts to become big and full of fish eggs.

That is to say, all the capelins will eventually enter the pregnancy period, without exception. In addition, the number of fish eggs is astonishingly large, so unless they are overfished like in later generations, they will not become extinct.

"It seems that we have sailed a little too far today. These fish usually do not appear in waters close to the shore!" said Liang's father as he picked up the fishing net.

This time, Liang Ziqiang was faster. When he reached the edge of the fish school, he quickly cast the fishing net.

On the gondola, Liang Fu and Liang Tiancheng also cast down their fishing nets one after another.

After Liang Ziqiang cast the net, he tied the net tightly to the boat, turned around and instructed Liang Zifeng to use another spare fishing net to cast a net as well.

The two nets on the Lotus Pattern boat were cast out in the water at the same time. Although they were only targeting a small area of ​​fish on the edge, countless capelins had already been caught in the nets...

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(End of this chapter)