1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 168: A Valuable Fish Disguised as a Reef
Lin Baixian was extremely jealous, this was the bait that the "king of groupers" Rat Grouper loved to eat! He immediately felt that the shrimps, fish meat, etc. that he had prepared in the bait bucket had all turned into dog shit.

He opened his mouth, wanting to have a share and take two pieces to try, but Liang Ziqiang gave him a look and he swallowed his words back.

He was afraid that if he really touched his heavy-shelled crab, he would probably be broken into four pieces...

Liang Ziqiang carefully put a piece of heavy-shell crab on the hook, and then deliberately found a place with a complex and deep reef structure and lowered the fishing rod.

Compared with ordinary grouper, mouse grouper hides deeper, so he specifically sets his hooks in such places.

Seeing that there was no hope of getting the fish, Lin Baixian had no choice but to give up. He retracted his gaze, put a fish on his hook, and started fishing.

The two began to wait patiently, chatting with each other from time to time to relieve their boredom.

After chatting for a while, the two realized that more than ten or twenty minutes had passed. If it were before, groupers would have started to take the bait and they might have caught two or three.

But now, the fishing rod has remained motionless and his emotions are very stable.

"What's going on? My fish pieces specifically attract tiger groupers, and your heavy-shelled crabs attract rat groupers the most. But after waiting for so long, neither the tiger groupers nor the rat groupers appeared. Where did they go?" Lin Baixian couldn't help but murmur in surprise.

"Let's wait and see." Liang Ziqiang didn't say much.

After waiting for a while, there was still no movement. The two speculated that the most likely reason why the tiger grouper didn't come was that they had almost caught all the tiger groupers in this area with the fresh fish they had killed last time.

As for why the "King of Groupers" did not show up, it is very likely that there are indeed no rat groupers in this island and reef area.

The more they fished, the more frustrated they became. Finally, they had to withdraw the hooks. Sure enough, the fish and crabs were still hanging on the hooks without moving.

He shook his head helplessly, took the fish and crab pieces off the hooks, and put them back into the bait bucket.

Liang Ziqiang never expected that he would get nothing after all the hard work he put into finding the heavy-shelled crabs. He had never taken the bait off the hook intact before, but today was the first time!
The two picked up some shrimps from the bait bucket and hung them on the hooks. As a second choice, if there were no rat grouper or tiger grouper, they could only consider fishing for common blue grouper or the like. Anyway, any grouper was more expensive than ordinary fish.

After lowering the hook full of fresh shrimp back into the water, the two were more confident this time. After all, blue snapper was the most common species on this island reef, and it shouldn't take long for them to start biting.

The two continued talking for a while until they realized again that after quite a while, there was still no response.

"No way, there are no blue spots at all?"

This time they couldn't stay calm.

More than half an hour later, the two of them appeared on another reef, changed their location, and continued fishing.

Still no grouper took the bait!

"Damn, is it true that they all ran to the deep sea because the weather turned cold?" Lin Baixian was a little crazy.

"That's not right. The north wind hasn't officially started yet, and the cold wave hasn't officially arrived yet! Did you encounter any winter floods on the sea during your journey here?"

When the north wind blows and the cold wave arrives, the shallow seabed can no longer be used for shelter, so fish have no choice but to start migrating to the deep sea in large numbers. This concentrated migration of fish is called "winter flood".

The "winter flood" can be said to be the only big rebound in the fishing off-season. If you are lucky enough to come across batches of "winter flood" fish, you can make one last big catch before there are no more fish to catch.

On the contrary, in April when the spring is warm and the flowers are blooming, fish swim back in groups from the deep sea to the nearshore and shallow sea areas, which is called the "spring flood".

Lin Baixian shook his head: "According to previous years, this time of year is not yet the time for the real winter flood."

Liang Ziqiang said, "That's right. The groupers moved to the deep sea at about the same time as the winter flood. Logically, at least a considerable number of groupers should still remain on the islands and reefs!"

But if they had not moved to the deep sea, how could they not catch grouper? Liang Ziqiang thought about it for a long time, but could not come up with an answer.

The two could only continue to squat, hoping for a turnaround...

The fish didn't come, but a flying bird did. The gray-white bird flew lower and lower, and finally landed on a small brown reef not far away to rest.

"Damn it, could it be the birds causing trouble again, eating all the fish?" Lin Baixian blurted out.

"You really have a mouthful of recklessness. If it can eat grouper, it must be at least bigger than an oystercatcher, right? This is a little white-fronted tern, and it's not very big. How do you know it can eat grouper?"

As the two were talking, they noticed that the gray-white little tern was moving constantly on the reef.

This caught Liang Ziqiang's attention. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the small reef in the distance was actually sinking little by little.

Every time it sank a little, the tern would move forward a little more to find a foothold. The next second, the reef suddenly seemed to come to life and suddenly rose from the quiet sea surface.

A brown mouth quickly rose and opened with splashes of water!

The tern's cry of fear and despair was only half uttered before its entire grayish-white body fell into the mouth, as if sucked in by an invisible suction force.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye. The brown "reef" returned to the sea surface and sank slightly.

The grayish-white figure of the Little White-fronted Tern seemed to have been wiped out, leaving no trace, so much so that one doubted whether it had really appeared!
"Fuck, what is that? A crocodile?!" Lin Baixian trembled after witnessing this lightning-fast scene.

"Crocodile, how can there be crocodiles in the sea?"

As far as Liang Ziqiang knows, there seems to be only one kind of crocodile that can survive in the salt water of the ocean - the saltwater crocodile.

But his eyesight was not blurry. The brown "reef" just now could not be a saltwater crocodile in shape. It was too different from the appearance of a crocodile.

Liang Ziqiang decided to get off the reef and walk closer to the "reef" to take a closer look.

Not far away, we saw two or three brown "reefs" moving slowly and silently near the big reef where the oystercatcher couple danced affectionately last time!

This time he was closer, so Liang Ziqiang could see it clearly:
"You said it wasn't a crocodile, it's okay, it's a shark, and there are more than one or two!"

Seeing him speaking so calmly, Lin Baixian became uneasy:
"Damn it, you made sharks sound as light as yellow croakers. How much better are sharks than crocodiles? Don't look around. I have to get back to the boat. It's important to drive the boat and escape! Yuan Xiaomei is still waiting for me to marry her. I don't want her to be alone all her life..."

This guy really ran back without even looking back. He is usually the best at talking nonsense, but he will get scared the moment something happens. I am talking about him.

"Don't worry, Li Liang is here, Yuan Xiaomei won't be alone!" Liang Ziqiang "comforted" her, then said contemptuously, "Don't you even consider the size? This shark only eats groupers and small seabirds. You're so big, how can it eat you?"

"If the little shark is here, there must be a big shark too. Don't you think so?" Lin Baixian retorted.

Liang Ziqiang also boarded the boat and started it. But unlike Lin Baixian, he did not plan to escape, but drove the boat towards the sea where the small shark had just appeared.

As the wooden boat approached, the calm of the waters was broken, and more camouflaged small sharks emerged from inconspicuous corners or underwater, swimming in schools on the sea surface.

Watching this scene from a close distance, the joy on Liang Ziqiang's face became more and more intense, and the frustration of not being able to catch grouper before was gradually swept away!

In fact, not all sharks are as scary as people say.

These sharks in front of you, with brown spots all over their bodies and eyes like cats' eyes, are called "cat sharks".

Their hobby is to chase live fish, which includes swimming in and out of the cracks in the reefs, chasing various small groupers.

They also have a more special hobby, which is eating birds. They disguise themselves as reefs to lure flying birds to land, and then swallow them up in a flash.

But they are not bloodthirsty, so the fish and crab pieces that the two people used for fishing just now did not attract their attention.

In fact, the only ones that are really bloodthirsty and threatening to humans are a few tough guys in the shark family, such as the great white shark, bull shark, oceanic whitetip shark...

But these types of sharks usually live in the deep sea and the open sea. Of course, once they appear in the shallow sea, these fierce guys are still very scary. Fishermen will generally flee at the first sign of danger and stay away from them.

In fact, there are many "gentle" sharks in the shark family, and they have no desire to attack humans.

As for cat sharks, they are relatively small in size and have neither the intention nor the ability to attack humans.

Liang Ziqiang took a look and saw that the cat sharks in front of him were smaller than one meter long and larger than one meter long. They were probably relatively large among cat sharks.

“Fuck, why did you chase after them? Even if they don’t bite, no one would eat shark meat. It tastes so disgusting…” Lin Baixian thought he was crazy.

"Last time Jiang Wenang was chatting with me, you didn't listen carefully. You don't care whether it tastes good or not. Cat sharks are beautiful and glow at night. Some people buy them and keep them in large saltwater tanks as scenery!"

Yes, cat sharks are called sharks, but their actual status is: human pets...

Driven by Liang Ziqiang, at least dozens of cat sharks gradually emerged.

Such a large group of cat sharks, they are not sharks, they are all money!
Now, grouper and the like are no longer important...

Two chapters have been posted in the early morning, happy reading, fellow readers!



(End of this chapter)