1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 230: Half a Day's Catch Is a Day's Catch
Anyway, the strait is quite wide, and there is no pressure for two boats to fish side by side, so they are not in a hurry to go to the reef area. They just block the channel of the strait, wait for the herrings to come to their door continuously.

Herrings like to live in groups, especially during the flood season, so there seem to be a lot of these spring fish in front of us.

But at the same time, this kind of fish is really fast. Looking at a wave of fish far ahead, in the blink of an eye, it is at the bow of the boat; in the blink of an eye, it swims towards the shallow sea behind the boat.

In order to seize the opportunity, the four of them put in all their efforts and competed with the herring in speed.

It is obvious that although herrings like to gather in groups, they are not particularly dense. Perhaps they are afraid of being hurt by each other's "serrated bellies"?

So each net only holds about 70 to 80 fish. Since the size of these croakers is close to one pound but less than one pound, each net is estimated to hold about 60 to 70 pounds.

In a blink of an eye, Liang Ziqiang and his companion had caught about seven or eight nets in total. It was preliminarily estimated that the amount of croaker on the boat must have exceeded 400 kilograms.

But at this time, the "bubble pattern" on the sea surface near the Longjuling reef in front of us also completely dissipated, and it returned to tranquility. Obviously, all the breams had disappeared like a gust of wind.

"Let's turn around and chase them in the shallow sea!"

This time, Li Liang took the lead, ran in front of Liang Ziqiang's boat, turned around and chased in the direction of the shore.

In the past, during the winter flood season, Liang Ziqiang would chase the fish in the front, while Li Liang's boat was smaller and followed closely behind, unable to go too close to the edge of the deep sea.

It’s different now. When fishing in the spring, everyone is heading towards the shore, so the disadvantage of Li Liang’s small boat no longer exists.

They thought they could chase the fish far into the shallow sea, but they miscalculated.

Following the tail of the herring, I caught just two nets before the fish school automatically dispersed and swam in different directions in the shallow sea.

Longjuling is like a distribution center. After passing here, the fish begin to disperse in all directions. It is no wonder that it is difficult to encounter large schools of spring fish in the vast shallow sea area.

Since the fish had already dispersed, Liang Ziqiang and his friends didn't have to chase them in vain and could just have lunch on the spot.

I cooked two herrings. The round scales of herrings are small and compact, so they can be scraped off lightly. Only the jagged scales on the belly need to be carefully cut off, and then the belly needs to be opened, the internal organs and gills taken out, and the black membrane on the abdomen needs to be torn off.

Liang Ziqiang cooked braised herring this time. Although his cooking skills were average, the meat of herring was tender and delicious, and both of them thought it tasted OK.

However, you can't eat it too fast, and you have to spit out some bones from time to time. This fish has too many small bones. It's okay for adults to eat, but it's basically not suitable for children.

As for the staple food, Liang Ziqiang cooked some rice, as well as steamed buns and sweet rice cakes made by Chen Xiangbei.

Deng Zhaocai saw that there was another sweet rice cake on the boat, so he asked Li Liang:
"Li Liang, you didn't bring anything with you, did you? When you went fishing, didn't Yuan Xiaomei even make you some food to bring on board? Damn, I thought you were married and the food on board would be better. I didn't expect she was so lazy!"

Because of a sweet rice cake incident, Deng Zhaocai was very disappointed with Li Liang's marriage.

"Fuck!" Li Liang couldn't stand hearing people talking about his wife like that, so he immediately shot back, "You pig, all you do is eat. There are so many things to do at home, she's so busy, how can she have time for these!"

"Yes, I am busy. Look, you have dark circles under your eyes..."

The two of them kept talking while eating, but Zhu Tianpeng on the boat was getting more and more surprised as he listened, and interrupted to ask:

"What are you two talking about? Yuan Xiaomei really...married Li Liang?!"

He had been making bricks in another town. He came to help for a few days when a house was being built a while ago. He never talked about Li Liang's marriage, so he didn't know that Li Liang had married Yuan Xiaomei.

"Now you know! Look how strong Li Liang was before, but now he has lost a lot of weight. Who else except Yuan Xiaomei could suck him into this state?!" Deng Zhaocai replied to Zhu Tianpeng.

"Do you think everyone likes to look like a pig like you? I lost weight on purpose!" Li Liang made an excuse in a way that made things even more obvious.

Although they quarreled, once lunch was finished, the two of them worked together in perfect harmony.

The boat returned to Longjuling again. There were many spring fish in the sea near the reef. This time, it was not fish or shrimp, but squid.

Although squids also gather in groups, they are not so compact, with small groups in the east and small groups in the west.

Several people try to choose places with dozens of fish together, and then cast the net.

This common squid was not very big and was definitely different from the diamond-fin squids he had encountered during his previous night fishing trips.

But one thing is that no matter how small the squid is, it can also release smoke bombs.

As soon as the net was pulled onto the boat, Liang Ziqiang couldn't help but mutter: "Now I have to wash the boat again!"

Some of the squids became very nervous after being caught in the net, struggling and using their trump cards to spray ink desperately.

You can imagine how spectacular it would be if dozens of squids sprayed ink at the same time. It made it look like a small bucket of ink had been overturned on his deck.

It was fine at first, but then the two of them caught a few more nets and the ink flowed out, staining the pile of herrings nearby, affecting the appearance of some of the herrings...

Squids themselves are not expensive, and after catching a few squids with the nets, the number of squids caught in groups of dozens became fewer and fewer, so Liang Ziqiang and the other man stopped and did not continue to fish.

By this time the sun had risen directly overhead. Zhu Tianpeng wiped the sweat off his face with a towel, groaned twice about feeling hot, then took off his coat and put it on the boat.

Liang Ziqiang also felt a little hot. The weather in Longjuling at noon didn't feel like spring weather, so he took off his outer coat and kept on his inner clothes, which were not much different from what he wore in summer.

On the other boat, Li Liang and Deng Zhaocai also took off their outermost clothes.

"Hey, six-line fish, the valuable six-line fish is finally back!" Deng Zhaocai's voice came.

After the squids dispersed, the water surface, which had just been calm for a while, began to roll up with layers of small waves.

In the ripples, a wave of six-line fish swam over from the warm wintering grounds in the deep sea, passed Longju Ridge, and then headed straight for the shallow sea.

The four of them didn't think much about it, they immediately picked up their tools and started fishing for six-line fish.

"The six-line fish are really good, even more expensive than the herrings we caught earlier!" Zhu Tianpeng sighed, "There are so many fish on the first day of the new year, Aqiang, you will definitely have a good year from the beginning to the end!"

Even as he was talking, he was already casting the net towards a small school of six-line fish nearest the boat.

After all, six-line fish is not as abundant as other common fish and is relatively rare. This time, about thirty or forty kilograms were caught in the net.

After casting several nets, the fish in the water gradually swam away and became fewer and fewer.

But strangely, the ripples on the water showed no signs of disappearing, but instead became even bigger.

Before the six-line fish season completely disappeared, Liang Ziqiang and his team quickly added two more nets.

Now, there are squids, croakers and a considerable number of six-line fish on the boat, so the harvest is quite good.

And the key thing about today's catch is that the prices are relatively attractive. Except for squid, which is a little cheaper, the herring and six-line fish are all affordable.

It’s not even afternoon yet, but the harvest is already very satisfying…

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



(End of this chapter)