1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 287: The strange fish discharges hundreds of volts of electricity to attack

It is said that dogs have ridiculously good memories, but Duobao seems to have one advantage: he only remembers happy things, and almost forgets unhappy things after a good night's sleep.

The next morning, without waiting for Liang Ziqiang to call her, Duobao twisted her waist and ran forward on her own initiative, trying to get into the noose.

Liang Ziqiang was still putting bait on the more than 1,000 hooks and had no time to pay attention to them for the time being. After the bait was put on, basins of hooks were brought onto the cart.

Duobao saw that they were about to go to the beach, and became anxious, fearing that he would be left behind. So he decisively picked up the dog leash and put it at Liang Ziqiang's feet, then looked up at him and tapped his shoes with his paw:

Put it on, put it on quickly! Are you not going to take your dog out to play? !

After Liang Ziqiang fixed the noose for it as usual, Duobao ran to the front like lightning, trotting away. From a distance, it looked like it was pulling a whole cart forward.

Arriving at the wooden boat, Liang Ziqiang discovered that the sea lion had not escaped all night and was still on his boat. Moreover, after a night's rest, it was not soaked in water and looked better than yesterday, and the wound did not bleed much.

Seeing that nothing was damaged on the boat, Liang Ziqiang didn't care about it anymore and started to prepare to sail. Duobao, on the other hand, had nothing to do, so he squatted with the sea dog and barked.

Several boats set out as usual in the morning glow, first arriving near Guanqi Island and collecting the fish that had been caught on the seabed a few days ago.

The catch here doesn’t vary much each time. It’s not a lot but there’s always some, and it’s usually dominated by dragon head fish, mixed with some plum fish, plus some small white shrimps and stone crabs.

Since dragon head fish is so cheap, only a few cents, the overall harvest from the seabed fish is only about thirty or forty dollars.

After leaping into the air and throwing the fish back into the water, they continued to move forward, looking for target waters to place their fishing lines and cast their nets.

After sailing for a while, they gradually saw the shadows of a school of fish on the sea. However, this school of fish was not worth a second glance.

They were all thin and slender, like tadpoles, and very dense, like a layer of black sesame seeds sprinkled on the surface of the sea.

"Little fish? It's better not to have any fish at all!" Lin Baixian said disappointedly.

"Strange, there are such small fry, why is there not even a big fish around them?" Liang Tiancheng scratched his head.

Four fishing boats passed by the school of young fish, intending to continue searching for their target.

"Wait, who said there are no big fish?!" Liang Ziqiang looked at the young fish in the water and said loudly.

"This little fish looks like a spiny pomfret!" Then, Liang's father took a few more glances and recognized it.

"It's the spiny pomfret. There must be a big spiny pomfret under the water!"

The thorny pomfret is also a type of pomfret, but it is very different from the golden pomfret and silver pomfret in appearance, habits and taste.

A notable feature is that the water layers where the spiny pomfret lives are divided into stages.

Large spiny pomfret are typical bottom fish, usually living at the bottom of the water; but young spiny pomfret all float on the surface of the water and do not dive down.

Even when big fish bring small fish along with them and swim along with the ocean current, the big fish swim at the bottom and the small fish swim at the surface.

Now Liang Ziqiang and his team have discovered a large number of young spiny pomfret on the water surface, which means that there are probably a large number of big spiny pomfret in invisible places under the water!
"How about giving it a try?" Lin Baixian asked.

"Let's give it a try!" Liang's father agreed.

To avoid trouble, they did not start fishing on a large scale. Instead, Lin Baixian let out a fishing line to test the situation first.

It was just for a test, and there was no need to wait for an hour or two until all the fish had taken the bait on a large number of hooks. After waiting for about ten minutes, Lin Baixian lifted the fishing line.

There was only one fish on the entire fishing line, and it was on the iron hook close to the bottom. It was indeed a spiny pomfret weighing about four or five taels.

"There are really stingy pomfret underwater. Hurry up and put all the catches down!" Liang's father was already instructing Liang Tiancheng.

Liang Ziqiang also put all of his more than a thousand hooks, plus the hundreds of hooks on the oil barrel raft, into the water.

Judging from the size of the young fish, the size of the underwater thorny pomfret school is likely to be quite large as well, so of course all the hooks have to be used.

There is another great convenience in this fishing trip, that is, the movements of the fish schools at the bottom of the water can be basically judged.

Although the big fish at the bottom of the water cannot be seen with the naked eye, the young fish on the surface can be observed at any time!

It is certain that the movements of the young fish must be secretly echoed by the big fish underwater.

Wherever the young fish swam, the big fish would also swim there secretly. As they cast their hooks, they only needed to slowly move the fishing boat to follow the young fish.

After following the young fish slowly swimming for about an hour, they began to try to catch them.

The hooks on the upper and middle layers were basically empty, but when you get to the lower layer, especially the bottom hook, sure enough, they were all hanging in clusters with spiny pomfret!

There are about a dozen of them on each fishing line.

Liang Ziqiang and Zhu Tianpeng worked together to pick the fish, and it took them more than half an hour to pick all the fish.

There are hundreds of spiny pomfret in the cabin. Although they are not as eye-catching as silver pomfret and golden pomfret, the price of spiny pomfret is not lower than that of golden pomfret, so it is also a very real harvest.

They fished from morning to noon, and continued fishing after lunch until the catch became less and more fish. They had caught most of the pomfret.

They began to turn away and no longer followed the group of small pomfret.

On the water surface, the number of happily swimming young fish did not decrease at all, and continued to move with the water like scattered black sesame seeds.

These kids probably don’t know that as they swim, their mothers are basically gone…

Unknowingly, I played the role of a "traitor".

After driving for a while, Li Liang exclaimed in surprise:
"What's that on the surface of the sea, a bunch of dead shrimp?"

All I saw was a small layer of dozens or even hundreds of red shrimps floating over.

"What's going on? Is someone frying fish somewhere again?!"

The Lin Baixian brothers looked left and right and started searching again to see if there might be any reefs in any direction nearby.

Thinking of the blackfish that turned the sea surface white yesterday, Liang Ziqiang immediately thought that someone might be frying fish again, causing the dead shrimps to float over.

Seeing a small piece of dead shrimp on the water surface, Duobao became restless and patted Liang Ziqiang's rubber shoes with his claws, as if to say:
Let me go, I'll check the situation for you!

"We haven't been in the water today. Duobao, I think you want to go in and take a bath, right?!" Zhu Tianpeng looked at Duobao, who looked impatient, and said with a smile.

"Go ahead, go ahead. Da Huang rarely goes into the water, but I don't know how you get here. If you don't take a dip in the water for a day, you'll feel uncomfortable all over!"

Liang Ziqiang touched Duobao's furry head and prepared to take the leash to let it off the boat.

"Dad, do you want to cast the net? I think I see some stingrays!"

Liang Tiancheng’s voice rang out.

Soon, Liang Ziqiang also saw that there were several large cattail-leaf fans slowly flapping in the water, and also like several flat flying saucers, circling and flying low slowly.

There are many types of stingrays, many of which are edible and reasonably priced.

Liang Ziqiang, Li Liang and others all took action and started carrying the net.

Stingrays can be caught by casting nets. At the same time, stingrays that move in the lower and lower layers can be caught by longline fishing.

Relatively speaking, there are of course more stingrays in the lower layers and the invisible places on the bottom layer, because most stingrays like to live on the bottom layer.

It would be more appropriate to use longline fishing.

At this time, they were holding the net and were only preparing to go to the bow to catch a few stingrays that were visible to the naked eye floating on the water.

As they were talking, Duobao had already jumped into the water with a splash. Liang Ziqiang saw one of the rays swimming closer and closer, and at the same time, he glanced at a handful of dead shrimps floating nearby.

"Fuck!"

An idea flashed through his mind, and he tightened the dog leash, and quickly pulled Duobao back...

"Everyone, be careful, this stingray..."

Liang Ziqiang was pulling Duobao while preparing to warn the other boats.

However, just as he said half of the sentence, he saw something flashing on Lin Baixian's boat.

Lin Baixian was so frightened that he threw the fishing net onto the deck, jumped up and shouted:
"Fuck! There's electricity! It's discharging!"

Liang Ziqiang found that he still couldn't stop the anxious Lin Baixian, and then shouted:

"It's an electric ray! Everyone, be careful. It would be a big loss if you get electrocuted for a fish!"

He was not kidding. A slightly larger electric ray was enough to kill an adult instantly.

Moreover, it is not so easy to distinguish electric rays from ordinary rays. Their appearance is like a round fan, and there are only some differences in details, such as the small fleshy spines on the back of the electric ray.

In addition, electric rays are relatively large in size, usually reaching half a meter in length, and some super-large electric rays can reach more than two meters in length.

Just now, Liang Ziqiang noticed the difference through some details, and then thought of some dead shrimps floating on the sea, and suddenly thought of electric rays.

Electric rays have a complex electroreceptive and power generation system in their bodies, which includes thousands of electric plates. These plates are regulated by the nervous system and can release voltages of up to tens to hundreds of volts in an instant.

These voltages not only make up for its lack of vision and detect the surrounding environment, but also directly attack the enemy and can be used for hunting.

It now seems that the red shrimps floating on the water were not caused by the fish bombers, but were electrocuted to death on the spot by these electric rays.

In theory, his father had enough experience to identify electric rays, but Liang's father was teaching Liang Tiancheng step by step on the boat, explaining to him the important differences between casting nets from the bow and from the side of the boat, so he didn't pay much attention to the rays in the water.

Now, after hearing Liang Ziqiang's words, he hurried to the bow to take a closer look and said with certainty:

"Don't fish them out, they're all electric rays, and they're so big!"

In fact, in addition to the large electric rays in the water, there are also some smaller ones. Small electric rays are relatively safe, and the electricity they emit is only a few dozen volts, which is not fatal to adults.

So, if you really want to catch it, you can catch small electric rays and sell them for some money, but the meat of this thing is not expensive!
So, Liang's father suggested that they should give up all the fishing.

Liang Ziqiang was in a hurry to talk to his father, Lin Baixian and others when he heard a burst of wild barking from under the boat, the barking was very angry.

Duobao had just received permission and was excitedly jumping into the water. But just as he touched the water, Liang Ziqiang suddenly grabbed him back.

At this moment, Duobao was hanging in the air, neither in the sky nor on the ground, as if he was hanging.

While hanging himself, he did not forget to roll his eyes at Liang Ziqiang: What are you doing! What are you doing! Isn’t a dog’s life a life?
"Fuck, I'm here to save your life, why are you always giving me a hard time!"

Liang Ziqiang pulled him up while scolding Duobao. The way he rolled his eyes was full of resentment and contempt, which was really amazing.

Unexpectedly, while he was pulling up, Duobao struggled hard to push down, his limbs still kicking the boat, his face full of resistance: I just asked you! You approved me to go into the water, and then I jumped, what's the point of regretting halfway through the jump, don't make me think you are a treacherous villain!
Judging from his momentum, Duobao is determined to go into the water and can’t be pulled back!

"The water is full of electric rays. If you go into the water at this time, any big electric ray will hit you and your life will be in danger, do you know that?!"

Knowing that Duobao couldn't understand, Liang Ziqiang still had to persuade him patiently.

Deng Zhaocai and his companions on the nearby boat were laughing like crazy and kept encouraging Liang Ziqiang:
"Say nothing to it, just give it a beating! This dog is really looking for death!"

Liang Ziqiang felt that their words did have some reference value.

Just as he was about to forcibly lift Duobao up to teach him a lesson, a barramundi swam very close to the electric ray right under Duobao's butt, and the electric ray suddenly attacked him unexpectedly.

With two hissing sounds, the balang fish was electrocuted and jumped up and hit Duobao's butt, then fell back down, turned over on the water surface, and did not move.

Duobao witnessed the whole process. His stubborn barking instantly turned into whimpering cries for help. He grabbed the edge of the boat with his paws and rolled and crawled.

Liang Ziqiang didn't have to pull it hard, it climbed back onto the boat swiftly!

"You still know how to cherish your life. I thought you didn't want to live anymore!" Liang Ziqiang taught it a lesson.

Duobao no longer rolled his eyes. Instead, he put on a shameless face, stuck out his tongue, and circled around his legs, wagging his tail non-stop, as if trying to please him: I misunderstood you, that strange fish that looked like a palm-leaf fan, it scared me to death!
After the boat sailed for a while, we saw another small wooden boat floating slowly on the sea.

There was only one person on the boat, a tall old man in his fifties.

Unlike Liang Ziqiang and the others who looked at electric rays with disgust, this old man was using a fishing net to catch electric rays on the sea.

In a blink of an eye, one was caught, but it was obviously not big, the smallest one among the electric rays.

Put the electric ray on the boat. Then...

As Liang Ziqiang and the others were watching, the old man lay on his side on the boat, quickly lifted up the clothes on his back, and stuck close to the part where the electric ray discharged electricity!

The next second, the old man's body trembled a few times, and it was obvious that the electric ray was discharging electricity at him!
"Fuck, is suicide even popular like this now?!"

Li Liang's eyes almost popped out of his head and he clapped his hands and sighed.

"This way of death is really eye-opening! It's just a bit of a waste of the boat. After the old man dies, what should we do with his boat? Can we pick it up and use it?" Although Deng Zhaocai did not participate in the murder, he had already started to make money.

However, Deng Zhaocai was probably going to be disappointed. Just when he was about to get on the boat, the old man sat up again as if nothing had happened and looked at the electric ray.

The old man found that the electric ray seemed to be out of power, so he threw it back into the sea with some disdain. He cast the net and soon caught another one, which was also very small.

He lay down again, picked up his clothes, and got close to the electric ray. After a burst of electric shock, the old man started shaking again...

How can this be considered suicide? This is... a way to stay healthy, right?!
"Damn, this old guy is so lucky!" Deng Zhaocai said regretfully.

"Uncle Fu, should we give him a hand?" After thinking for a moment, Deng Zhaocai, who was kind-hearted, asked Liang's father.

"How do you want to help?" Liang's father glanced at him.

"The fish he caught are too small. Why don't we catch a bigger electric ray and give it to him?" Deng Zhaocai said as he went to pick up the net.

Li Liang also went to fetch the net, wanting to help the old man and be a good person.

"You don't know shit, so stop talking nonsense!" Liang's father quickly stopped them, "Kill yourself, he's just curing his bone pain!"

"Ah? Cure the disease?" Li Liang, Lin Baixian and others were all dumbfounded.

Liang Ziqiang was a little less surprised. He knew that if the electric ray was properly controlled, it could indeed be used to treat joint pain, headaches, insanity and other ailments, but he didn't expect to see someone actually doing it!
The electricity emitted by a small electric ray is only a few dozen volts, which is not fatal to a normal adult. On the contrary, it can have a special therapeutic effect.

But who can grasp such a thing? How big is a big electric ray, and how small is a small electric ray? If you don't grasp it well, the treatment will turn into self-suicide!

This old man is really brave...

"Then let's set sail and leave him alone!" Unable to see the old man off to his final resting place as he had wished, Deng Zhaocai immediately urged the boat to set sail to catch fish.

Leaving the old man there receiving electrotherapy as if no one was around, Liang Ziqiang and his four boats continued to move forward.

"Apart from that batch of pomfret, we haven't caught any other fish today. Is that the only harvest we've got?" Lin Baixian became worried on the way.

"Look, here come another fish!" Li Liang shouted.

Just when Lin Baixian was worried that he would not be able to catch any fish, a big fish appeared on the water surface again.

(End of this chapter)