1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 288: I Don't Like Wooden Trawlers
This time, the stingrays swimming sporadically on the water surface were still fan-shaped, round and flat.

After experiencing the stimulation of the electric ray just now, several people are now more sensitive to stingrays. But fortunately, the appearance and color of the fish in front of them are obviously different from the electric ray in front.

"It's the yellow stingray! The price of this stingray is still very good!" Liang's father concluded immediately.

The price of yellow ray can be higher than that of silver pomfret and golden threadfish, which is considered to be a relatively outstanding price.

Several boats sailed towards the water where the yellow stingray appeared, casting nets from the bow and using dense longline fishing underwater to catch the yellow stingrays in the lower layers.

After waiting for nearly two hours, longline fishing began to come in.

"Finally we caught a fish of some value!" Lin Baixian and Li Liang couldn't help but shouting with joy.

Every time Liang Ziqiang and Zhu Tianpeng pulled up a fishing line, they found that the closer the hook was to the bottom of the water, the greater the harvest would be.

It can’t be said that the harvest was very fruitful, because these yellow rays didn’t seem to gather in large groups, but at least every fishing line would have one or two rays on the bottom hook.

Duobao seemed unable to hold back and wanted to go into the water to take a bath. As a result, he walked to the side of the boat and saw several large fan-like fish swimming on the water. He did not even look at the sea and turned back to the cabin.

Whether it is the yellow ray or the electric ray, their shapes are generally fan-shaped, at least in the eyes of a dog, it is not possible to distinguish them so finely.

Therefore, whenever Duobao sees a stingray on the water surface, he feels as if his scalp is about to explode. It seems that he thinks of the scene of the croaker being electrocuted in front of him, and the idea of ​​going into the water to swim is instantly gone.

Liang Ziqiang and his companion initially put the yellow stingrays in a large basin, but later there was no room for some of them, so they started to put them directly on the boat.

This throw landed right at Duobao's feet.

Duobao's reaction was hilarious. He let out a strange cry and jumped into the air with his claws in a second, trying to avoid the "electric shock" of the yellow ray. In an instant, he was forced to use his jumping ability to fly over eaves and walls!

But the longline fish caught more than one or two fish at this moment. The two men took off one fish each time and continued to throw it onto the deck, and then they saw that the place where Duobao stood was constantly attacked, which frightened Duobao so much that he retreated again and again, and there was almost no place to retreat.

Duobao looked fearful, timid and fierce. He first yelled at the yellow ray, then stretched his neck to Liang Ziqiang and barked: "Get away! I warn you again not to bully the dog too much!"
The sea lion that was nestling nearby watched for a long time with cold eyes. It probably couldn't stand the stupid dog's performance any more, so it stretched out its front legs...

Directly on the back of the yellow ray.

Duobao's world froze for a moment. After a few seconds, nothing happened. The female sea lion was not knocked to the ground by paralysis, nor was it electrocuted. Instead, it looked at Duobao calmly, as if telling him not to be afraid, and as if silently laughing at his stupidity...

As a dog, and as a sea lion, it obviously has sufficient ability to distinguish between electric rays and yellow rays.

Seeing this, Duobao still remained cautious, stretched out his claws and quickly probed the yellow ray, then quickly withdrew.

Finding nothing unusual, he tried a few more times with his claws, and his whole body immediately relaxed, as if nothing had happened, and he began to shuttle among the yellow rays.

When Liang Ziqiang and his companion saw this scene, they picked up a few small fish that had been caught on the boat and threw them to the sea lions.

This was a reward for the sea dog. They didn't expect that the sea dog could understand Duobao's cowardice and would tell Duobao the truth in his own way and appease Duobao.

The sea lion took the small fish and continued to perform the swallowing trick by gulping it down.

Liang Ziqiang and his friends used dozens of fishing lines and caught dozens of yellow rays in one go today. When they realized that they could no longer catch any fish at the bottom of the water, they started to return.

On the way back, we passed the same water area again and found that the smaller wooden boat was still there.

The old man was still catching electric rays tirelessly, and then he lay on the boat, oblivious to the people around him, and used the electric rays to hit himself all over his body.

"Which village is this guy from? I thought he knew how to fish, but he didn't catch any real fish when he went out to sea. He just came to me?!" Deng Zhaocai asked puzzled.

When the boats had sailed further away from the old man, Liang's father finally answered:

"He's not from any village. He's from a small island called Driftwood Island, and he specializes in raising oysters!"

"Is it him? I heard that there are people raising oysters and abalones on Piaomu Island, but I've never seen them. I wonder if it's this person!" Liang Ziqiang continued.

He had heard people say that there were people raising oysters and abalones in the area around Piaomu Island. He had once sailed to the area near Piaomu Island, but he didn't get too close. "The oyster farm on Piaomu Island seems to be quite large, a little bigger than the small oyster farm in Wild Duck Bay in our village. I didn't expect this old man, who looked so gloomy, to be the owner of the Piaomu Island oyster farm!" Lin Baixian also sighed.

"Boss?" Liang's father shook his head. "He's not. He was hired by the owner of the oyster farm to help raise oysters on the island!"

"What about the oyster farm owner himself? He usually doesn't come to the island and is just a hands-off boss?" Li Liang asked.

"The owner of the oyster farm also stays on the island. He rarely comes out all year round, and few people have seen him! Anyway, he is a very strange person. This old man uses electric rays to treat diseases. It must be the owner of the oyster farm who taught him to do so!"

"Then this oyster farm owner is really a weirdo!"

A few people were curious and talked to each other, and the boat sailed farther and farther away.

Today's harvest was pretty good. There were more than 200 kilograms of thorny pomfret, and they sold for more than 60 yuan at 30 cents per kilogram. There were more than 100 kilograms of yellow skate, and the price was very good, 70 cents per kilogram, and they sold for more than 70 yuan.

Liang Ziqiang's total income reached more than 130 yuan.

Over the next few days, the income was relatively low, mainly because I failed to catch any yellow ray or skate. Instead, I mainly caught skinned fish, and occasionally some bottom-dwelling flatfish such as flatfish.

In a blink of an eye, my father's birthday arrived. Liang's father's birthday is in the fourth month of the lunar calendar, which is May in the Gregorian calendar.

They have been going out to sea too frequently recently, so on Liang's father's birthday, they took the initiative to take a day off and cooked some delicious meals at home.

My eldest brother, his wife and their family also came to Juzipo and we had a birthday meal together.

After a day's rest, we continued going out to sea for a few days. Everything was pretty normal without any big surprises. The fish catch remained in the dozens every day and never exceeded a hundred.

In a blink of an eye, it is already mid-May. According to the doctor's instructions, I should have a prenatal check-up every half a month. Now it is time to go for the check-up again.

As usual, I measured the blood pressure, listened to Chen Xiangbei's heartbeat and the baby's fetal heartbeat, and then checked the fetal position based on experience without B-ultrasound.

The closer it got to the due date, the more anxious Chen Xiangbei became. Fortunately, the doctor's examination results gave her some reassurance and made her feel a little more at ease.

After leaving the hospital, I didn’t go to the street to buy anything this time, mainly because my wife is no longer suitable to walk too far or for too long.

According to calculations, my daughter-in-law probably became pregnant shortly after her marriage, that is, between mid- to late September, and the estimated due date is around early July or late June.

Time flies so fast. The baby’s birth day is about one and a half months away.

Liang Ziqiang and his wife calculated their recent savings. Thanks to the recent income from longline fishing, casting nets, and seabed diving, their family assets have increased to a little over 4,000 yuan!
This is the amount spent as you go, excluding diesel, household and other expenses.

It’s almost as much as the family assets we had before we built the house last year.

The expenses that I am about to face this time are also an unprecedented life event, which can be said to be more important than building a house last year.

The first is to prepare for the cost of having a baby. If everything goes well, having a baby in this year may not cost a lot, but you must prepare some money for it, just in case.

Another thing is a trawler. His original idea was that if he didn't have enough savings, he could buy the most basic small wooden trawler, which would cost less than two thousand.

Now that saving money is going smoothly, he naturally has bigger ideas.

Last year, I saw with my own eyes a batch of large iron trawlers at Fengshou Shipyard, the kind that could go directly into the edge of the deep sea. I asked Lao Xu, a shipyard employee, and he said that the price ranged from 6,000 to more than 10,000 yuan.

If you try hard, maybe you can really save up that amount?

In that case, they can skip the one or two thousand kilograms of wooden trawl nets and go straight to the deep sea on the big iron sheet in one step!
If this can really be realized within this year, it would be like becoming a father and buying a big ship, two happy things coming together.

At the same time, he was definitely the first person in the entire Pomfret Village to take the lead in stepping into the vast and unknown deep sea...

(Supplementary picture: Report of a fur seal climbing onto a fisherman's boat, posted in the comments section.)
(End of this chapter)