1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 285: The Reef Was Bombed, Picking Up the Loss

Squids are not completely fixed to any one layer and often float and sink at different depths of water, upper, middle and lower.

Therefore, almost all the longline fishing lines that Liang Ziqiang and his team pulled up at this time, whether on the upper or lower hooks, contained squids.

Like Liang Ziqiang, Li Liang also took out the spare hand net on the boat and went to catch the squids in advance, basically catching them before they escaped.

After being scolded by his father, Liang Tiancheng also found the hand-copied net and cooperated with his father.

Only Lin Baixian realized that he had miscalculated. He had not been out to sea for a long time and did not have a hand net on the boat. As a result, he watched helplessly as he caught so many squids but was unable to catch them.

Finally, Liang Ziqiang asked the two brothers to wait and not collect their fishing lines. Liang Ziqiang collected all the fishing lines, and the boat was half loaded with squids. Then he lent his hand net to Lin Baixian.

In this way, Lin Baixian finally did not gain nothing today.

The four boats, all loaded with squid, began to move forward, looking for new waters to fish.

It’s great to get so many squids, but there are also some worries.

Most of the squids started to get angry and release ink when they fell into the hand net, but some of them started to make up for their loss only after they were put into the cabin, and released ink angrily.

There were puddles of ink all over the boat.

Not to mention people, even Duobao didn't know where to start. His four paws were all covered with ink, and he jumped around, leaving footprints one by one, and plum blossoms were everywhere at the bow and stern.

This is nothing. After jumping around on the boat for a while, it suddenly howled, and then howled again a little later, and the sound was quite miserable.

Liang Ziqiang was driving the boat. He looked over here and almost laughed his ass off.

These wicked squids would spray their remaining ink onto Duobao every time he passed by.

In just a blink of an eye, Duobao's torso, buttocks, and even head were covered with ink.

A good yellow dog turned into a spotted dog with yellow and black stripes, something you have never seen before!

Duobao twisted and turned, licking himself with his tongue. He probably couldn't stand the taste, so he licked twice and stopped, looking at Liang Ziqiang with a bitter face and aggrieved eyes.

"Silly thing, how can you lick it clean?" Zhu Tianpeng laughed and walked over, but he was helpless. After thinking for a while, he pointed at the sea and said, "Why don't you jump into the sea and take another bath?"

Duobao actually kept wagging his tail at Zhu Tianpeng, which seemed to be exactly what he wanted.

Liang Ziqiang felt that if it dried up, it would be difficult to wash off, so he could only let Duobao go into the water to wash it now.

"Go ahead, go ahead. When you get up here, find a place to squat down and stop hanging around in front of those squids!"

Liang Ziqiang shook the rope, Duobao jumped into the air, and went back into the water, disappearing into the waves.

As the boat slowly moved forward, Duobao swam alongside it.

At first, he swam around with his head or nose exposed, just like usual. Then, perhaps because he felt that the ink on his head needed to be soaked thoroughly, Duobao began to dive completely underwater.

"Look, look, I told you before that Duobao can dive!"

Liang Ziqiang finally saw Duobao diving, and said with a bit of pride like an old father. Although he had never said before that Duobao could dive.

Every time he dived for a while, he would see a dog head suddenly pop up from somewhere. Every time it popped up in a different place, Duobao seemed to be instantly addicted to this feeling, and it was like playing hide-and-seek, sinking and surfacing unexpectedly, having a lot of fun.

After a while, there was still no sign of the dog's head floating up from somewhere. Deng Zhaocai, who had been standing by the side of the boat watching, shouted:
"Fuck, the stupid dog must have messed up! Drowning? Brother Qiang, hurry up and pull it out, or else if it floats up by itself, you'll have dog meat to eat tonight!"

Liang Ziqiang also felt a little uneasy in his heart, and quickly picked up the long dog leash tied to the boat, ready to pull the dog back.

At this moment, Duobao's dog head emerged from the water again not far away.

"Woof woof! Woof woof!"

After letting out a long breath, Duobao immediately shouted at Liang Ziqiang on the boat.

"What's going on? What does it mean by screaming as soon as you come out?" Liang Tiancheng and Lin Baixian all asked in surprise.

"Did it discover that there are fish underwater?" Liang Ziqiang thought of a possibility.

He was still talking when Duobao, seeing that they didn't understand what he meant, dived into the water again.

After a while, it appeared again with a fish in its mouth.

"What kind of fish is this?" Liang Ziqiang couldn't see it clearly because it was in Duobao's mouth. "Duobao, come up quickly, let me see what kind of fish it is!"

Seeing him waving, Duobao immediately swam towards the boat.

Seeing that they were approaching the right side of the ship, Liang Ziqiang said anxiously: "Go to the bow and get up from the bow!"

Longline fishing has been put on the right side of the boat again, with hundreds of hooks. If one or two pieces of Duobao's skin are hooked off, he will probably scream and make a fuss on the boat all day long.

He asked Zhu Tianpeng to slow down the boat until it was almost at a standstill. He then used hand gestures to guide Duobao to swim to the bow, and then pulled it up with a rope.

As soon as Duobao stood firm, he put the fish in his mouth under his feet and wagged his tail vigorously, as if waiting for his praise.

When Liang Ziqiang saw the fish on the deck, he had no choice but to praise it.

The fish was long and oval in shape, with very smooth body lines, purple-blue on the back and light red on the belly. If you look closely at the side of the body, you can see two yellow longitudinal bands, very thin and long, extending from head to tail.

"Blacktail winterfish! It's a double-banded blacktail winterfish!" Liang Ziqiang said happily, "Good job, Duobao, you actually found a fish while taking a bath in the water. This fish is not cheap!"

Father Liang heard his words and asked:

"Is it really the black-tailed winterfish? Black-tailed winterfish are more expensive than silver pomfret and golden threadfish. It's unlikely that they will stay here, right?"

"Anyway, the one Duobao caught is definitely the one, but I don't know if there are more underwater," Liang Ziqiang guessed. "Duobao just screamed a little, so there must be some underwater!"

In fact, Liang Ziqiang was not sure. Logically speaking, this area of ​​water did not meet the habitat conditions of the black-tailed winter carp. But the fish were right in front of him, so what else could he say?

"Let's stop and give it a try!" they decided immediately.

Several boats slowed down to a near standstill, waiting on this stretch of water for the longline fishing to show results and see if they could catch any blackfin mullet.

While they were waiting, they cooked lunch.

In addition to the vegetables he brought from home, Liang Ziqiang also cleaned a squid and cut it into strips. There was soy sauce on the boat, so he cooked fried squid meat.

When eating, we also put some food in a small bowl and put it on the boat for Duobao to eat, and also put some vegetables in it.

Even though he was able to eat rice, Duobao was still not satisfied. He kept greedily looking into the bowls of Liang Ziqiang and the others. It was obvious that he was very interested in the fragrant fried cuttlefish strips.

Liang Ziqiang pretended not to notice, so Duobao pushed his dog bowl towards Liang Ziqiang with his paw and stuck out his tongue. His meaning was very clear:
"Give me some, I just did you a great service, give me some of these cuttlefish strips too!"

Zhu Tianpeng was a little reluctant and was about to give the cuttlefish strips in his bowl to Duobao. Liang Ziqiang quickly stopped him:
"No, dogs can't eat cuttlefish. They can't digest it!"

Duobao got angry and barked at Liang Ziqiang twice, meaning, "What are you doing! It's fine if you don't want to give it, but if others are willing to give it, you still stop them. What are you thinking?"

It’s okay to be angry, it’s better than eating cuttlefish and then vomiting and having diarrhea.

Zhu Tianpeng had no choice but to take back the cuttlefish strips. Duobao was extremely disappointed, his face was long, and he silently finished the rice and vegetables in the bowl.

After eating, he didn't look for Liang Ziqiang to play with him. He ran away alone and lay there in a depressed mood.

Liang Ziqiang ignored it for the time being. More than an hour had passed since dinner, and it was time to reel in the longline fishing to see if there were any results.

"Wuwei Dong, it's really Wuwei Dong!"

The voices of Li Liang, Liang Tiancheng, Lin Baixian and others were heard one after another.

Liang Ziqiang and Zhu Tianpeng also pulled up two fishing lines at the same time. The fish swaying on the iron hooks were all double-banded blacktail winterfish with two parallel yellow lines.

He found that all the fish were concentrated on the middle hook of the fishing line, while there were almost no fish on the upper and bottom layers.

This is consistent with the habits of the double-banded blacktail winter fish. This fish likes to flow in the middle layer of the water. It does not often float up or dive to the bottom of the water. Perhaps this is why Duobao was able to find their traces after diving into the water. If they were too deep in the bottom, Duobao might not be able to find them.

They are not very dense, but there are always a few on each fishing line.

By the time all the fishing lines were collected, Liang Ziqiang had hundreds of blacktail fish on his boat!
The other boats also apparently harvested a lot of blacktail winter melons. Liang Tiancheng, Li Liang and others all praised them:
"We underestimated Duobao. He has done a great service for us today. He is a good dog!"

Lin Baixian and Deng Zhaocai also echoed.

Liang Ziqiang asked them in return: "Who was that person in front who kept scolding the stupid dog, saying that it was useless to bring it on board?"

The two men felt rather sorry: "We made a mistake, we made a mistake!"

Amidst all the praises, Duobao was still lying depressed in a corner of the boat, still upset about not being able to have a bite of good food.

"No, some of the fish's scales seem to be falling off," Liang Ziqiang suddenly discovered.

I didn't pay much attention when I picked the fish earlier, after all, most of the fish were still intact and full of vitality. Only a few fish had some scales falling off.

"Was it chased by some other fish? This fish shouldn't appear in this kind of place!" Liang's father also started to think about it and said.

Indeed, whether it is the double-banded blackfish or other types of blackfish, they generally like to live in the middle layer of water in rocky reefs and coral reefs, with few exceptions.

Therefore, when they go out to sea in ordinary waters, they rarely encounter fish like the blacktail winterfish.

However, the waters where they harvested a large amount of blacktail winterfish were empty wherever they looked, and there were no rocky reefs on the sea surface at all.

"Dad, I think there should be a reef not too far from here. The black-tailed winter melon must have come from there. Why don't we look for it? If we find it, there may be many more black-tailed winter melons in the reef than these!"

Liang Ziqiang thought for a moment and proposed.

"That's what it should be. Let's look around to see if there are any reefs!" Liang's father agreed.

After analyzing the direction of the ocean currents and speculating on the source of this group of black-tailed winterfish, several ships began to move towards the speculated direction.

Before they had driven very far, several people exclaimed at the same time:

"Look at the water, there are fish floating!"

As far as the eye can see, there are a few fish floating on the sea.

What was different from usual was that these fish were lying on their backs, belly up, and dead.

Several people took out their hand nets, got closer, and scooped up one or two fish.

"Wuweidong! These dead fish are really Wuweidong, what's going on?"

Continuing to drive forward, a group of reefs finally appeared in sight.

At the same time, more dead fish appeared in front of us. It was no longer just a few dead fish, but a large area floating on the water near the reef!

When they scooped it up, we found that in addition to the blacktail grouper, there were other fish mixed in. The most noticeable thing was that there were even groupers such as tiger grouper and brown-banded grouper, which are considered high-end seafood.

What is even more shocking is that the entire reef is no longer intact, but is broken into pieces, as if it had suffered a severe impact.

"Fish frying! Someone is frying fish in this reef!" Liang's father said with certainty.

In addition to other fishing methods such as casting nets, bottom diving, fishing, floating gillnets, longline fishing, and trawling, frying fish is also a way to catch fish.

In the eyes of fish fryers, those normal fishing methods are a bit inefficient.

All they need to do is put some explosive stuff in a glass bottle and throw it into an area of ​​water. In the entire area, no matter big or small, no matter on the surface, middle or bottom, all the fish will turn white in a short while and float to the surface in large numbers.

These fish fryers only need to scoop up large quantities of fish to fill the boat.

However, this so-called fishing method is extremely destructive and poses a great threat to all living things in the ocean.

For this reason, not only was frying fish strictly prohibited in later generations, even in the 1980s, frying fish was a prohibited fishing method, but it was relatively less strict.

But no matter how it is banned, there will always be people who drive boats and secretly fry fish on the sea, frying fish here and there, and their whereabouts are elusive.

"It's so hateful. No matter how big the sea is, if they mess it up like this, all the fish will be killed!" sighed Zhu Tianpeng on the side.

"That's not right. Since they fried the fish secretly, they must have taken the dead fish away immediately after frying. They can still be sold at a high price while they are fresh. These blacktail winter fish are good fish and they are not cheap!"

Seeing such a large group of blackfin mullets floating on the water, Li Liang spoke in confusion.

"Maybe they noticed the fishing boats coming nearby and were afraid of being seen, so they didn't have time to fish it out?" Liang Ziqiang guessed, "There's another possibility, their target wasn't the blacktail grouper. There should be a lot of valuable groupers hidden in this reef. When they were fishing, they picked the valuable groupers and didn't pay much attention to the blacktail grouper!"

Liang Ziqiang himself thinks the latter possibility is more likely.

In fact, fish bombers may bomb fish on the ordinary sea surface or on the reef zone. But in most cases, they bomb fish on the reef zone.

This is because, if there are groupers hidden in the reef zone, they will be much more valuable than fish in ordinary sea areas, enough to make a lot of money.

Even if the grouper is killed by frying, there will be a discount on the price, but if it is sold shortly after being killed, the price will still be very considerable.

There is another reason: grouper is difficult to catch using conventional fishing methods.

Casting nets cannot reach the cracks in the reefs; floating thorn nets are also useless against the reefs.

Even the most brutal trawl nets are helpless against groupers hiding in the reefs.

Longline fishing is not very effective when facing reefs.

The only commonly used method is fishing, but it is obvious that the fish come too slowly when you put the fishing rod into the reef area and fish one by one.

Just blow up the reef and then wait to catch grouper on the water surface. This method may be abominable, but it is easier and catches fish faster than the above methods.

"They must be coming for the fried grouper. I took a look and saw that most of the fish floating on the water were blackfin bream. There were very few groupers and they were all caught away!" Liang's father and Liang Ziqiang had similar opinions.

"These bastards, they gave birth to sons without an asshole!" Li Liang cursed angrily, and then said, "But the bomb has already been blown up, a large piece of black winter melon is also worth money, why don't we get some?"

Although the blacktail is far less valuable than the grouper, it is better than most common marine fish.

"Go ahead and catch them. These fish look fresh. They should have been fried less than half a day ago!" Liang's father had already gone to get the fishing net.

Obviously, the reason why Liang Ziqiang and his friends were able to catch hundreds of blacktail winterfish each in the downstream of the ocean current in this area was because there was fish blasting here, and some of the blacktail winterfish that were not killed by the blast fled in panic and went to other places, where they were met by Liang Ziqiang and his friends.

Although the fish frying happened several hours ago, at this moment, there is still a faint smell of gunpowder in the air.

Amid the faint smell of gunpowder, people on several boats were busy casting nets to catch dead fish floating on the water.

In order to facilitate casting nets on the side of the boat, they deliberately pulled all their longline fishing lines back from the water to prevent the iron hooks from getting caught on the hand-cast nets.

Compared to humans, Duobao's reaction to smell is relatively stronger.

Originally, it had been lying in the corner without making a sound, but now, its nose was twitching and it sneezed several times in succession, looking like it was getting out of control.

The smell of gunpowder that seemed very faint to Liang Ziqiang and the others might be a very strong smell to Duobao.

Suddenly, the sound of the sneeze rose sharply and turned into a violent and alert "woof woof" sound.

"Woof! Awooo! Woof!"

Duobao, who had been lying quietly in the corner, couldn't help but stand up, with his tail tucked between his legs, his body tense, and full of alertness.

Amid the inexplicable barking, a wet figure slowly emerged from the side of the boat and climbed onto the boat.

It was not a human, but it was like a human. It grabbed the edge of the boat, then flipped over and climbed onto the boat...

(End of this chapter)