1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 242: The Giant Mackerel
Among so many kinds of fish and shrimp, there are no hairtails or conger eels.

The reason is actually very simple. It is impossible for the fins of hairtail and eel to get caught in the mesh of the mesh, so they can turn around and swim away calmly when facing the floating gillnet.

Ten or twenty meters, as more and more fish were brought onto the boat, the closer we got to the middle of the strait, the richer the catch became.

But at the same time, they also felt a force underwater, as if it was fighting against them, and the nets in their hands would be pulled and tremble from time to time.

This made them curious: were there more fish hanging on the nets under the water, or was it an illusion caused by the undercurrents in the ocean?
They continued to collect the fish. Every time they pulled up a section, they would throw the net and the fish directly onto the boat.

This is very different from the usual way of casting a net, in which the fish are immediately dumped out onto the deck after the net is pulled up.

The special fishing method of the floating gillnet means that the fish caught cannot be poured out and must be taken home together with the fishing net. It also takes time to pick the fish off the net one by one.

Therefore, although the floating gillnet has many advantages and conveniences, it also has a significant disadvantage, which is that it is troublesome, time-consuming and laborious to pick up the catch, and sometimes the fish body will have some scratches, but fortunately it is not to the extent that it affects its survival.

Another obvious disadvantage of floating gillnets is that they are more wasteful. The fish hang on them for so long that they will always damage some of the net surface in the process of trying to break free.

"A Qiang, is your net still usable? There are so many holes in it!" While helping to collect the net, Zhu Tianpeng noticed that there were more and more holes on the floating thorn net.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to buy a new network again!”

Liang Ziqiang found that the fish caught in the most holes were herrings. When the herrings were caught in the gillnet, the hard scales on its abdomen came into play during its struggle, scraping the net to pieces.

Some herrings fought desperately but still could not escape, the more they struggled, the more they got entangled. Some herrings scraped through the net and successfully rushed forward, leaving only empty holes on the net.

Of course, pomfret, bluefin bream, and black carp also caused considerable damage to the nets during their struggles.

Continuing to pull the net, when it was almost in the middle of the water flow, about thirty meters from the entire net, several people exclaimed:

“So many half-dead fish!”

It was more than just half of the fish. For some fish, only the flesh near the fins was left, hanging in pieces on the mesh of the net.

Liang Ziqiang took a look and felt that this section of the web page was horrible, just like a murder scene.

It seemed as if all the fish in this area were attacked by some big fish.

The answer emerged in an instant.

The pulling force that seemed to be struggling under the water became more and more obvious. Liang Ziqiang pulled hard, and what emerged from the water was a broken net with thousands of holes.

The net was tangled like a knot, and wrapped tightly in the middle was a large fish weighing more than twenty kilograms.

"Mackerel?! This mackerel is quite big!" Several people were a little surprised.

Liang Ziqiang never expected that while intercepting the spring flood, he accidentally caught a big fish.

When the big fish was pulled onto the boat along with the net, it turned out to be a rather large Spanish mackerel.

This fish is a typical long spindle-shaped fish, with a gray-blue back with a green sheen and a gray-white belly. There are many irregular gray-blue horizontal stripes on the sides of the fish, and the round scales on the body are very small.

Perhaps due to the struggle, many of the small round scales on its body fell off.

Now that it has been salvaged and out of water, the fish is still flapping against the boat board, unwillingly moving a few times. When it opens and closes its mouth, you can see its teeth, which are very sharp.

To be precise, this is a Spanish mackerel.

The blue-spotted Spanish mackerel, which is more common in the north, is extremely rare here. There are two other types of Spanish mackerels in the South China Sea: Conroy's Spanish mackerel and Spotted Spanish mackerel.

Both the northern swordfish and the southern swordfish are very good sea fish.

There is a folk saying, "There are partridges and deer in the mountains, and mackerel in the sea", which means that mackerel has more bones than meat and is tender and delicious.

Among them, several types of swordfish in the south taste more delicious and superior than the blue-spotted swordfish in the north, so the price of swordfish in the South China Sea is slightly more expensive than that of the blue-spotted swordfish.

Now the answer has really come to light - apparently, this passing giant mackerel was also entangled in the floating gillnet. The mackerel fought hard and kept trying to break through, but the net only made it get tighter and tighter.

He couldn't get away, but he had to eat. So, all the small fish and shrimps hanging near the net were eaten by him...

It was also a good way to use local materials. But Liang Ziqiang had to pay for it. The net was torn to pieces and many fish were eaten. No wonder there were more than 20 fish floating on the sea.

You know, the swordfish is known for its ferocity. When it preys on other smaller fish on the sea, it is like a dangerous bandit.

Fortunately, the only fish it can eat are those in the nearby area, otherwise Liang Ziqiang’s entire large floating gillnet would have been prepared for it.

The price of swordfish is still reasonable. It's such a big one, you should sell it to atone your sins.

After passing the middle section, we continued to collect the nets towards the right island. It was similar to the left island, with bluefin bream, thornfish, golden pomfret, goby, small yellow croaker, herring, swimming crab, blue crab, white shrimp, smooth shrimp, six-line fish, toothfish, black carp, and all kinds of cheap and expensive ones.

Finally, all the more than 60-meter-long floating thorn nets were collected on board, and they came to the foot of the cliff of the small island on the right and untied the thick rope tied to the stone pillar.

According to preliminary estimates, the catch is at least several hundred kilograms of fish, and possibly even over a thousand kilograms.

It’s different from the usual catch of fish which is piled up like a small hill, so it’s hard to estimate.

This time all the fish were caught in the net, which was rolled into circles inside the boat.

It doesn't look like a small mountain, but like a...super big flower roll. This flower roll has stuffing, and the content of various fish and shrimp stuffing is so touching.

After the floating gannet is collected, drive the boat forward a little to the waters near the reef and start collecting the seabed minnows under the water.

"Damn it, why is the thornfish joining in the fun!"

Deng Zhaocai was the first to find his own sea cucumber and pull it up. He was in a bad mood when he saw that the most common fish in it were the cheap thorny fish as cabbage.

Liang Ziqiang also quickly found his own fish on the seabed and pulled it onto the boat. He discovered that there were indeed more thorny fish and bluefin bream, but there were also some valuable ones.

There were some silver pomfret wrapped in it, and there were also a few plum fish.

Overall, it is definitely not as good as the usual harvest from seabed fishing. After all, the situation here is special. There are too many spring fish passing by, and some cheap fish have drilled in and occupied the space.

The second picture shows a similar situation, except that there are no plum fish, but there are a few more silver pomfret.

When he saw the third picture, Liang Ziqiang's eyes lit up. A large six-line fish!

This entire seabed has become a nest for six-line fish, with a large nest of six-line fish.

In order to increase the chance of catching fish, all the bottom baits were thrown at a certain distance. It seemed that this one was thrown at the best position, just in time for the six-line fish to move along the way.

"Oh my god, this is great. There are so many six-line fish in this dive. I'm going to get rich. This dive is equal to the previous two or three dives!"

Deng Zhaocai, who was on a nearby boat, also became excited. Then, Li Liang discovered that there were more six-line fish on the seafloor nearby.

Zhu Tianpeng had the least number of underwater trolls, making only two in total. At this moment, he also found one of his own, and when he pulled it up, he found some six-line fish in it, and he was immediately surprised.

Since this small area is the easiest to catch six-line fish, of course we will continue to release it there.

One by one, they poured out the fish from the sea urchin and placed them on the back of the boat, then threw the empty sea urchin back into the water.

No one can say for sure. This time we caught a six-line fish in this area. Maybe next time there is a six-line fish season, they will pass along this route. It depends on luck.

Leave this location and continue looking for other seabed snakes remaining in the water.

Liang Ziqiang found his fourth card and laughed again. Although there were not so many six-line fish this time, there were more valuable figures than six-line fish appearing in the seabed.

Two chapters have been posted in the early morning. Happy reading, fellow readers!
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(End of this chapter)