1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 118 Selling Conger Eels and Silver Pomfret
It's not easy to come across conger eels when casting nets in broad daylight, and it's even rarer to see such a small wave of them crossing the sea.

This is related to the habits of conger eels.

Conger eels like to stay in dark places. When the light is strong, they often lurk in the caves where they live. They will become more active when the sea water is turbid.

Today, a group of conger eels came out to travel, parading on the sea. It seems abnormal, but in fact it is due to seasonal migration.

The mesh sizes of the two nets on the boat were not the same. Liang Ziqiang deliberately chose the one with relatively smaller mesh to prevent these slippery creatures from escaping through the mesh while catching conger eels.

In fact, judging by the size of these conger eels, they are quite large and a bit thicker than the common snakes on land, so it is unlikely that they can get through the mesh. Liang Ziqiang thought so just to be on the safe side.

After casting the net and waiting for it to be pulled in, Liang Zifeng scratched his head and asked:
"According to the month, it's not the time for the fish to migrate in large numbers yet, right? Judging from previous years, it will take more than half a month!"

Liang Zifeng is of course aware of the general pattern of fish migration in coastal waters. In spring, when the temperature rises, large numbers of fish migrate to shallow coastal waters; in late autumn, when the temperature drops, they migrate collectively to deep sea waters.

However, he never had a thorough understanding of fishing.

In fact, different fish have different timings.

For example, scaleless soft-bodied fish such as conger eels may be more sensitive to temperature. Therefore, they begin to swim to deep water areas in groups half a month earlier than other fish.

Liang Ziqiang waited, watching the movement of the sea, and replied:
"It takes at least half a month for the conger eels to swim back to deep water! Besides, it has rained for a few days recently, and the temperature has obviously turned colder. You can see that this is just a small group of conger eels, and the number is not that large. It is estimated that in the next ten days or so, many conger eels will migrate. It would be great if we could continue to encounter them!"

Although this thing is not as valuable as the silver pomfret, it is definitely more valuable than the bamboo swordfish, dogleg fish, goby and the like.

When these conger eels swam in groups, they were not too dense, so we could only catch as many as we could. After pulling the net up, we estimated that there were about 20 to 30 of them. Dozens of conger eels were huddled together and twisting, which made people feel a little scalp-tingling and uncomfortable.

Although I know it is not a sea snake and is not poisonous, I still have some concerns psychologically.

Besides, conger eels can bite people. It won't kill you, but it will hurt.

These twenty or thirty conger eels definitely cannot fall directly onto the wooden boards of the cabin, otherwise their feet would probably be bitten through!
On the other boat, Li Liang and his companions were obviously also full of concerns. They pulled up a net of conger eels, but did not dare to empty the net. They stood on the boat for a while, hesitating and looking at a loss.

There was no way to free up the nets, and there were still many conger eels swimming in the sea. They could only watch helplessly without any nets to catch them!
The two looked towards Liang Ziqiang, and then saw Liang Ziqiang calmly pulling out a large and thick sack from somewhere...

"Come on, open the mouth of the sack a little wider!" Liang Ziqiang ordered Liang Zifeng.

Both of them put on gloves, and Liang Ziqiang stuffed the net into the sack before he began to pour it in. After pouring it in, he quickly tied the mouth of the sack with a hemp rope and tied a slipknot.

This kind of sack can even hold poisonous snakes, let alone conger eels. Although more than 20 conger eels twisted and struggled violently, they had no way to use their strength and were helpless.

Almost immediately after Liang Ziqiang, Liang's father on the gondola also pulled out a large sack and, in cooperation with Liang Tiancheng, they also easily collected the conger eels.

Li Liang and the other man were stunned. It turned out that the sack was your family heirloom, the essential artifact for going out to sea?
Li Liang looked at his conger eel in embarrassment, and looked towards Liang Ziqiang earnestly:
"Brother Qiang, do you have any extra heirlooms on your ship... oh, extra sacks? Can you lend me one?"

Liang Ziqiang went back to the cabin and searched for a while, then pulled out a white snakeskin bag:
"The sack is gone, do you want a snakeskin bag?"

Li Liang nodded quickly and drove the boat closer: "A snakeskin bag will do, it's better than nothing!"

After the conger eels were "placed", the next round of fishing was quickly started on the sea.

Liang Ziqiang cast four nets, and the catch became less and less, but there were still about ten in each net. After that, there was no harvest. In fact, the size of this group of conger eels was not too large, and it could be regarded as the "vanguard team" before the conger eels migrated.

The three boats did not delay any longer. Considering that the silver pomfret on the boats could not be kept for long, they all sped up and headed back.

As soon as we got back to the shore, before we even entered the village, we could hear the loudspeakers in the village blaring from afar. Upon closer listening, we found that it was the town broadcasting safety reminders.

The loudspeaker mentioned the incident in Dawu Village yesterday where a person was swept away by the waves in a heavy tone, and repeatedly reminded the villagers not to rush to the beach to catch seafood before the weather has completely improved and the waves have not really become smaller. When catching seafood, they should pay special attention to keeping a distance from the waves.

Today was calm, so the loudspeaker announcement was a bit of a last-ditch effort. But Liang Ziqiang thought it was good, at least it could raise everyone's safety awareness and reduce the occurrence of similar accidents in the future.

When I brought the fish to Zheng Liu, I found that there were not many people there.

Logically speaking, everyone has been holding back for four days, so they are all very enthusiastic to go out to sea today. Everyone is full of energy and vigor, and there should be more people coming to the pier to sell their catches than usual.

The main reason is that it is still very early today. Liang Ziqiang and his team returned to shore early because they caught silver carp. It is estimated that if it is later, the big pier will become lively.

While Liang's father was weighing and settling the bill, Liang Ziqiang had already specially selected the silver pomfret.

"It's okay. Fortunately it's not hot today. If I had come back later, it would have been hard to say!" Zheng Liu looked at the silver pomfret carefully, smelled it, and then weighed it.

Although they fished several times in deep water, after all, most of the fish in each net were saury, with silver pomfret making up the smaller part, so the total catch of silver pomfret in the several nets was only 56 kilograms.

The key is that the price is quite high, 60 cents per pound, and the silver pomfret alone costs 33.60 yuan!
As soon as the silver pomfret was weighed, Zheng Liu immediately instructed his assistants to move it directly to the pile of ice on the boat.

Next, there were 88 kilograms of saury, but they were only 1.5 cents per kilogram, which was 13.2 yuan.

The green and red shrimps caught with the saury were sold for 45 cents. They weighed a little over 11 pounds and were sold for five dollars.

After all, I caught a dozen or so doglegs in my nets, which was a bit bigger than the bamboo saury. It weighed 95 kilograms, but this fish was sold at a typical bargain price of 0.1 yuan per kilogram. It looked the heaviest, but I only got 9.5 yuan!

But if we really want to talk about the cheapest prices, the dogleg fish and goby are actually not that bad. There are also several other fish that are only a few cents per pound, and unless it is the off-season, fishermen have no motivation to catch them...

Finally, it’s the conger eel’s turn.

Liang Ziqiang's conger eels weighed a total of 50 kilograms, and the price was 0.40 cents per kilogram, which was exactly 20 yuan.

Silver pomfret accounted for the majority of today's income. Silver pomfret, saury, prawns, dogleg fish, conger eel, all together totaled 81.30 yuan.

Finally, it was another trip to the sea where the income exceeded the 80 yuan mark. Liang Ziqiang gave Zifeng 6 yuan as a labor fee, and this time, Zifeng didn't say anything.

After buying diesel, wire, anchors, etc., there was still 900 yuan left in the box. Adding the 15 yuan from yesterday's "white foam fishing" and the 75 yuan from today's outing, the income increased to about 990 yuan.

It can be said that it is almost a thousand yuan.

The goal is getting a little closer...

(End of this chapter)