1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 177: Fishing Haunts the Horse

In fact, simply casting a net to catch is not the most sharp and efficient way to deal with yellow croaker.

There is a special trick for dealing with large yellow croaker, called the "knocking net method", which was invented in the South China Sea and then spread throughout the coastal areas of the country and has been popular for more than a hundred years.

The so-called "knocking gu method" utilizes the principle of sound wave vibration.

There is a kind of otolith inside the skull of yellow croaker.

This otolith not only has a balancing function, but also can sense sound, so the yellow croaker is very sensitive to sound waves.

The operation of fishing nets is like a hunting carnival, which requires the cooperation of a large number of fishermen. Usually, two large fishing boats will spread the nets, accompanied by 20 to 30 small boats forming a semicircle.

The fishermen on the small boat hit the bamboo poles tied to the side of the boat, generating dense sound waves. These sound waves resonate with the otoliths of the yellow croaker, causing the fish to faint and float to the surface of the water, which can be swept into the net.

This method of fishing with a bang is low-cost and highly efficient, but its disadvantages are also obvious. It does not discriminate between large and small fish, and all are killed by the sound waves, which is equivalent to extinguishing the incense of yellow croaker. It is a typical fishing method that will end the family lineage of the fisherman.

Originally, yellow croaker is one of the most common fish in the ocean, known as one of the four major marine products. It is this "extinction" fishing method that has been prevalent for hundreds of years, causing the yellow croaker resources to continue to decrease.

In the 1980s, the price had not yet decreased to the point of scarcity, and the market had not yet reacted, so the price temporarily remained at around 40 cents.

In later times, the effect of the fishing net method of removing the firewood from the cauldron finally emerged. By the 2010s, the price of wild yellow croaker had soared thousands of times compared to 1983. If it was a large and top-quality wild yellow croaker, the price had even soared ten thousand times!
In 2022, a fisherman caught a 7.1-jin wild yellow croaker. Just one fish was sold for yuan;

In early 2023, a fisherman caught a 5.6 catties wild yellow croaker. Just one fish, he sold it for yuan.

Faced with such a large area of ​​wild yellow croaker in front of him, all Liang Ziqiang could do was, of course, the most common way of catching them by casting a net.

He couldn't perform that kind of grand and vigorous "beating the net" method with just one boat. At the same time, having experienced the future, he knew very well the extinction-like consequences that the "beating the net" method would eventually lead to, and he did not approve of this method from the bottom of his heart.

The two of them could only try to speed up their movements and follow the trajectory of the yellow croaker.

"Second brother, this net of mine must weigh about 70 to 80 kilograms!" Liang Zifeng pulled up the net and estimated.

"My net should also be within 100 kilograms!" Liang Ziqiang also collected the first net.

Two nets of large yellow croaker were dumped onto the deck at the same time.

The pure golden color was very dazzling, much more eye-catching than the golden pomfret next to it. In an instant, the pale golden hill next to it actually lost some of its color.

"We're going to run, drive faster!"

These big yellow croakers were not as greedy as the previous thorny fish. When passing through this sea, they did not linger to look for food such as plankton. Instead, they swam towards the particularly warm deep-sea wintering grounds with a very clear goal.

This is really true. Those who we want to persuade to leave refuse to leave, and those who we want to keep cannot be kept.

Liang Ziqiang would speed up from time to time to catch up with the fishing season, then cast a net and start sailing again.

Because he had to constantly concentrate on steering the boat, Liang Zifeng ended up casting more nets than him.

Fortunately, these fish went straight to the wintering grounds without turning around, which reduced some difficulty and saved him a lot of time in adjusting the course.

Gradually, the yellow croakers on the boat piled up, weighing several hundred kilograms, which seemed only slightly less than the golden pomfret.

Liang Ziqiang was now somewhat thankful that he had managed to resist the temptation when faced with the huge number of barramundi and dogleg fish. Otherwise, he would be too tired to catch the late yellow croaker.

After following for a long distance, Liang Ziqiang really didn't dare to follow any further, as the boat was shaking noticeably more.

They were getting a little closer to the deep-sea wintering grounds. If they went any further, he was afraid that the speed and amplitude of the deep-sea currents would cause big trouble.

This is also because his boat is relatively large and more stable. If it were Li Liang or Lin Baixian, they probably wouldn't dare to follow this place. He watched the yellow croaker flood shrink and fade, and was about to disappear in the distance that was out of reach.

Liang Ziqiang put down the fishing net and planned to turn back.

He entered the cabin, turned the boat around and started driving, but saw his younger brother Liang Zifeng sitting on the side of the boat, turning his head and looking back.

"What are you looking at? Can you look back at them?" Liang Ziqiang said.

"No, second brother, it seems like he really turned back! I'm not seeing things, come out and see for yourself!"

"You must be joking. You are just trying to make your brother happy..."

Liang Ziqiang said this, but he still walked out of the cabin and took a look. Then he saw that the golden waves on the sea, which had been gradually moving away, were actually getting bigger and bigger in the distance.

In reality, it is of course impossible to expand it. This visual effect was only created because the fish population turned back and was getting closer and closer to their boat!
"What the hell! What does this mean?" Liang Ziqiang was also stunned.

The winter floods naturally move from shallow waters to deep seas, and they move forward without hesitation. I have never seen a school of fish swimming "against the current" in the winter floods!

This scene gave Liang Ziqiang an illusion for a moment, as if in just a blink of an eye, the beginning of winter had switched to the season of spring when flowers bloomed.

A "spring flood" of large yellow croaker is heading northwards towards the coastal waters, returning as the king.

Just as I was wondering, a nimble figure suddenly broke through the water on the distant sea and flashed in the air.

Liang Ziqiang finally figured it out.

Because it was very far away, he could only look up and see a small shadow jumping in the air and doing a beautiful spin, like an aerial dancer on the sea.

But judging by visual inspection, the fish should actually be quite large.

"Bonito, or something else?" Liang Zifeng guessed.

At this time, there were not just one, but several agile figures rising and falling. Liang Ziqiang saw it clearly and shook his head:

"Bonito is just a small bluefin tuna, a fake bluefin tuna, but this is the real deep-sea tuna!"

Last time they went fishing at night, they tried to go to a slightly farther sea area, using the boat lights to lure them, and caught a lot of flat-rudder bonito and round-rudder bonito. After quickly bleeding them, they sold them to Zheng Liu for 60 cents per pound.

In a broad sense, "bomb fish" such as flathead tuna are indeed members of the tuna family.

But to be more specific, the two are very different.

There is still a chance to encounter flathead tuna in shallow waters, but the chances of encountering tuna in shallow waters are much less. Most of the time, tuna stay in deep sea areas.

For example, the tuna that are preying on the waters in front of us have not completely appeared in the shallow sea, but are only at the edge of the boundary between the deep sea and the shallow sea. In other words, they are in the transition zone between the deep and shallow seas.

In terms of price, different types of tuna have different values, but generally speaking, real tuna is much more expensive than bonito.

As for some of the best species, it is even harder to say. For example, bluefin tuna is very precious and expensive even in this era.

At the moment, because the distance is not close, Liang Ziqiang cannot tell whether the one jumping out of the water is a bluefin tuna or some other species of tuna.

Apparently, the yellow croaker season suddenly experienced an uncharacteristic "reverse flow" because it was robbed by a group of tuna on the way to the wintering grounds. Under siege from all sides, they simply turned around and attacked Liang Ziqiang and his men!
Two chapters have been posted in the early morning, happy reading, fellow readers!

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(End of this chapter)