1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 261 Go Fishing Together

"Usually we cast our nets by chance. We can only see the fish on the surface of the sea and have no idea if there are any fish under the water!" Deng Zhaocai felt helpless.

"By the way, Brother Qiang, do you know longline fishing? That thing can catch all the fish in the middle and lower layers, but I heard it is very troublesome to use!" Li Liang also felt that it was a bit of a pity to just rely on casting nets to catch upper-layer fish.

Before Liang Ziqiang could answer, Deng Zhaocai started to mutter, "Trouble? Forget it. I can't handle anything that's too troublesome. It's better to go to the bottom of the sea. It can also catch bottom fish. It's not troublesome. Just throw it to the bottom of the water and it's done!"
"You are such a stubborn person. You are long-line fishing while casting to the seafloor farther away. Can't you do both at the same time? It won't interfere!

Besides, if you release a dozen or so fish from the seabed, they will be blown away by the ocean currents and it will be a headache to find them. How many more can you release? Dozens? Hundreds? Who can rely on only the fish from the seabed to find them?" Li Liang refuted Deng Zhaocai.

"It's indeed a hassle," Liang Ziqiang replied to them, "We haven't tried it yet so we don't know how effective it will be, but we can't just not try this or that, right? I think we can try longline fishing!"

Liang Ziqiang didn't expect that Li Liang had the same idea as he had some time ago.

He then told Li Liang, "My family has been doing longline fishing these days, and we have installed hundreds of hooks. I was originally thinking of trying it out and if it works well, I'll bring you in. Now that you have this idea yourself, why don't we start together?"

"What a coincidence, we thought of the same thing. Is it possible to save some money by fishing on our own if we buy the materials in the county town or somewhere else?" Li Liang asked him immediately.

"County town," Liang Ziqiang told him the name of the store. "It depends on your time. If you want to save time, buy a set of ready-made longline fishing rods. If you want to save money, make your own."

"Actually, you can get here by hook!" Zhu Tianpeng interrupted, "When you come across a place with lots of fish on the sea, you can cast the net. If there are few fish on the sea, you can use longlines to catch some mid- and lower-layer fish. We fishermen just use whatever method works!"

"The marshal has spoken, so let's do as he says!" Li Liang joked.

After returning to the shore, Liang Ziqiang, as usual, paid some villagers who were fishing to help him pick fish from the floating nets.

This time the classification is simpler and easier, as it is mainly composed of spiny bream.

But when we got to the purchasing point, the income was a bit worrying. Even Zheng Liu was a bit uncomfortable:

"Why are there only these penny-priced thorns today? I haven't touched the other ones much?"

The result after weighing was quite scary. This time, the weight of the thorny croaker alone, added up to several carts, reached 1,638 kilograms!
Even during the most fruitful harvest of floating gillnets, the total catch of all types of fish did not reach this number.

In terms of quantity, this is definitely a record.

But calculated at five cents per pound, such a large amount of fish only cost eighty-one yuan and ninety cents.

In addition, there was another catch from the seabed, a considerable portion of which was thorny barramundi, which was put together and sold in the floating gillnet. The remaining items were some slippery shrimps and swimming crabs, which were sold for thirty-nine dollars and twenty-six cents.

Then it was the turn of the thirty or so Konoha flounders.

"There's a big bucket of flounder hidden here. Let me take a look. What kind of flounder is it? Is it a flatfish? If it's a flatfish, it's worth three cents..."

"Uncle Zheng, you might have hurt your eyes. The internal injuries haven't healed for so long!" Li Liang said angrily.

After hearing this, Zheng Liu's eyesight instantly improved:

"Puffeye fish? Deng Fei, look carefully at each one of them. Don't mix the puffer fish with the flathead fish. The price difference between the two is huge!"

Zheng Liu almost found a magnifying glass to give to Deng Fei, until he found that they were all Konoha flounder, then he felt relieved to weigh them.

There were more than thirty Konoha flounders weighing a total of 26.5 jin.

The price of Konoha flounder is 8 cents, which is much more expensive than the 3 cents of flathead fish and toothfish. They look similar but taste very different.

The fish I caught on the road were worth twenty-one yuan and twenty cents.

The mudfish was really disliked because it easily gave off a strange smell from its stomach, so Zheng Liu was reluctant to buy it. In the end, he sold it for only a little more than 1 cent per pound.

The total of today's harvest is 142.37 yuan. Compared with the previous few times of floating gillnetting, the amount of money at the end of this spring flood is much less.

Li Liang and Deng Zhaocai sold their catches for dozens of yuan each.

Zhu Tianpeng caught the least from the bottom of the sea, and he also caught some Konoha flounder on the way, so he earned a total of 35.60 yuan, and Liang Ziqiang paid him his wages as usual.

After coming out of the purchasing point, Deng Zhaocai looked up at the sky, rubbed his hands and said happily:

"It's quite early to finish selling fish today! Let's go back and have an early dinner, then go to Lin Baixian's house to play!"

"Lin Baixian, didn't he go to the city? Is he back?" Li Liang was so immersed in his own and Yuan Xiaomei's world that he didn't even know that Lin Baixian had been back for two days.

After learning that Lin Baixian had indeed returned, Li Liang was surprised again:

"What can you do when you go to his house? Play finger-guessing games with his dad or compete with him in drinking?"

"Are you really not aware? He brought back a big black box, called a tape recorder, with lots of songs in it, and the woman sang beautifully! Nowadays, some people go to his house to listen to music after dinner!" Deng Zhaocai felt that Li Liang was a little behind the times, so he asked him, "Would you like to go together later?"

Faced with Deng Zhaocai's sincere invitation, Li Liang finally shook his head:

"Fuck, the song you think is good, how can I listen to it? I'd rather stay at home and catch up on my sleep!"

Liang Ziqiang could see that there was actually a glimmer of interest in Li Liang's eyes. However, there was something subtle between him and Lin Baixian after all. Even though they were now friends, he couldn't let go of his pride in running over to get the tape recorder.

Deng Zhaocai saw that Li Liang was not leaving, so he turned around and asked Liang Ziqiang:

"Brother Qiang, are you going or not? Zhong Ming went to listen last night!"

After hearing what Deng Zhaocai said, it was not difficult for Liang Ziqiang to imagine the grand scene of a group of young people gathered around a tape recorder.

It is still the early 1980s. In two or three years, this grand scene will become a room full of villagers sitting around the TV of a certain household.

Liang Ziqiang thought it would be better not to join in the fun.

The reason was different from Li Liang's. Liang Ziqiang really wanted to go home after dinner and do some more longline fishing while he had time. It really takes a lot of time to make that thing.

Of course there is another reason. He can't get too interested in listening to music on a tape recorder!
No matter how poor or busy you are, who hasn’t watched color TV and watched various short videos? Especially when you are alone at a construction site, you get tired of watching TV at night!
How can you expect someone who slept with a mobile phone in his previous life to be curious about a recorder?

Although the songs in the tape are terribly sweet, they are actually quite classic.

"I have to go back and do some more longline fishing. I can go to his house to listen to music. Is there any day I can't go?" Liang Ziqiang replied.

Deng Zhaocai actually had the wrong idea, and with a knowing look on his face, he pointed at him and Li Liang and said:
"I understand. You and Li Liang are the same! No matter how good a song is, it can never be as good as your wife singing it at night."

As he spoke, he made a few weird noises, such as "umm" and "ah". Before Li Liang and Liang Ziqiang could work together to subdue him, he ran away because he valued his life.

Liang Ziqiang went home and put the money away first.

This time there are more than 142 yuan, plus the more than 2,000 yuan that was saved in the wooden box last time, so now there are almost 2,150 yuan.

After dinner, the family started longline fishing again. Liang Ziqiang is trying to complete the longline fishing in the next few days and start trying longline fishing at the end of April.

He felt that the fish swimming under the sea would have a dull life without his longline fishing line...

Two chapters have been published in the early morning. Happy reading!
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(End of this chapter)