1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 289 Finding Fish with Your Nose
In a blink of an eye, it is already the middle of May, and Liang Ziqiang, Li Liang and others have gradually adapted to the days of combining several ways of going out to sea.

In the past half month, the most common fish that appeared in their cabin were the more common and popular catches.

Fortunately, Duobao really helped them several times. He went into the water and surfed around, and in a relatively short time he helped them find fish underwater.

In this way, the chances of them returning empty-handed are greatly reduced.

We sailed on the sea for a while as usual that day.

"Duobao, do you want to take a bath?" Liang Ziqiang was not sure whether there were any fish hidden underwater in the water, so he started to encourage Duobao again.

Generally speaking, as soon as he opened his mouth, Duobao would respond enthusiastically, sticking out his tongue and wagging his tail, looking ready to go, as if waiting for him to speak.

What was a bit strange today was that Duobao was lying there with his nose sticking out, and he didn't show any immediate reaction.

Liang Ziqiang was just wondering when he heard Duobao barking repeatedly, sounding a little excited.

At first, Liang Ziqiang thought that it and the sea lion had a quarrel. Recently, these two like to lie together, usually humming incomprehensible sounds, and chatting quite well. But often, after a short chat, they would suddenly snarl at each other without warning.

Basically, their relationship mode is similar to that of the kids in the village. When things are going well, they can wear the same crotch, but they will become incompatible once or twice a day for no reason, and when they get angry, they can kick each other's crotch off.

However, looking at the confused look on the sea dog's face, it was obvious that the two of them did not quarrel or fight this time.

"What do you mean? I told you to go into the water and play, why are you shouting?" Liang Ziqiang was also confused.

"Woof, woof!"

Duobao shouted, climbed up from the ground, and began to run to Liang Ziqiang, turning his head and wagging his tail vigorously.

Liang Ziqiang became more and more confused by the cramp-like body language.

Based on experience, Duobao's reaction must mean something is wrong, but Liang Ziqiang doesn't know animal language, so he can't figure it out for a long time.

Seeing that he had no tacit understanding, Duobao became a little anxious. He scratched his rubber boots with his claws, and then shook his head to the left side of the boat.

Zhu Tianpeng guessed: "Does it mean that there are fish in the water on the left?"

"Is there?" Liang Ziqiang looked to the left of the boat. There was definitely no sign with the naked eye. "That's not right. Normally, we can only tell if there are fish by diving into the water. When did it know if there are fish underwater just by lying on the boat? If it has this ability, it would be amazing!"

"If there really are fish, go into the water and pick one up for me so I can see what kind of fish it is and whether you want to stop and let go." Liang Ziqiang pulled the dog leash and wanted Duobao to go into the water.

However, Duobao did not jump into the water this time. Instead, he glanced at him sideways: What are you doing?

After glancing sideways, he stretched his neck again, his dog nose twitching as he looked at the sea surface beside the boat.

"That's not right. It seems to be barking towards a direction far to the left? Is there something in that direction and it has sensed it?" Liang Ziqiang felt that he understood Duobao's meaning this time.

"Could there be dangerous things over there, like big sharks or something?" Deng Zhaocai speculated.

"Why do you keep expecting a big shark in the shallow sea? Have you ever seen one?" Liang Ziqiang thought for a moment. "I think it's just barking in excitement, not scared. If it was really dangerous, it wouldn't react like this, it would probably have tucked its tail between its legs!"

"Duobao has found the right fish a few times recently. It keeps barking in that direction. Let's drive over and take a look!" said Liang's father.

"I saw it sniffling. It must have smelled something." Liang Ziqiang judged, "Do you all smell anything? How come I don't smell anything at all? This is just the smell of normal sea water and sea breeze!"

"Apart from the fishy smell of sea water, we didn't smell anything!" Liang Tiancheng, Lin Baixian and others also shook their heads.

Although they were all confused, the four boats began to adjust their directions and headed in the direction where Duobao was barking.

Gradually, a small reef that was not too high above the sea level and not too conspicuous appeared in the field of vision.

"Could it be that Duobao is barking at this reef?" Zhu Tianpeng asked suspiciously. Almost at the same time, several people's noses twitched at the same time. They all smelled a different smell mixed in the sea breeze - the smell of sulfur.

Although it is very faint, you can smell it as you get closer to the reef.

"No way, someone is frying grouper again? Otherwise where would the smell of explosives come from?" Li Liang speculated.

It has come to this point and it is actually not difficult to guess.

Now that I think about it, the smell that allowed Duobao to detect something strange from a long distance must have been the sulfur.

At a long distance, none of Liang Ziqiang and his friends could smell the slightest odor, but Duobao was different. Dogs are too sensitive to smells, especially those with strong irritation and obvious characteristics such as sulfur and explosives.

It must have smelled a similar smell to last time and knew that there were plenty of fish to catch, so it urged them to come and catch the "floating treasure".

Sure enough, the boat continued to move forward, and soon they saw a school of fish floating on the water, all with their bellies turned up.

Another batch of fish were killed by the explosion.

"I don't know how long they've been fried. Are they still fresh? I'll catch two and see what kind of fish they are!"

As Liang's father spoke, he asked Liang Tiancheng to bring a hand net, move it to the side of a few floating fish, and scoop up two of them.

"Blacktail winter squid! Let me see, it's a little different, this time there are more blacktail winter squid!" After taking a look, Father Liang smelled it and judged, "It shouldn't have been fried for too long, it's fresher than the last time, we can catch it now!"

Liang Ziqiang had already scooped up a fish with a scoop net and it was fresher than last time, just as his father had judged.

Yes, this time even the smell of explosives has not completely dissipated, and the floating fish have not drifted too far away, which in itself shows that the explosion was not too long ago.

“Drive over and take a look!”

Several boats approached the reef. This reef was smaller than the last time, but the extent of the rocks being blown up was even greater than the last time.

On the messy edge of the reef, apart from the black-tailed winter carp, there are also occasionally one or two blue-spotted and tiger-spotted carps.

Of course, these two groupers are far less plump than those from Wuming Island last year. After all, Wuming Island may be blessed by nature due to its special environment and microorganisms, whether it is chicken claw snails, abalone or grouper, they are all plumper than those in other places.

“Needless to say, these guys came here to fry the valuable grouper, and they succeeded again!” Liang’s father sighed.

No matter how much they lamented, they couldn't get the grouper, but Liang Ziqiang and his friends could still make a big catch of the blacktail winter melon, which the fish fryers disliked catching.

After all, the blacktail winterfish was not a cheap fish. Moreover, they didn't need to waste bait or set hooks, they could just fish the floating fish directly, which was as easy as picking up money for them.

It always feels like others are eating meat, and they smell the meat and follow behind to drink the soup...

“I don’t know which village he is from, but this guy who fries fish is quite skilled!” Liang’s father sighed.

"That's right. If I hold dynamite in my hands, I will be stunned. I am afraid of this dangerous thing..." Liang Tiancheng continued his father's words.

"What a talent! Do you think I'm talking about their courage? There are many courageous people," Liang's father glared at his eldest son, "I'm talking about their ability to find groupers! There are so many reefs in the South China Sea, and there are even more small reefs like this one. But where there are reefs, there are not necessarily groupers! This guy who frys fish is always accurate, and he can always find the reefs with many groupers. Where can you find such a skill? No one in our village has this skill!"

Liang Ziqiang thought so too. Although he sold a lot of grouper last year, it was purely by chance that he came across the nameless island, not by his own initiative.

If he were asked to judge which reefs might hide a lot of groupers and which might not, he would have no idea and no ability to do so.

In fact, there are not many groupers hidden in most reefs, otherwise all the fishermen would go looking for reefs.

Thinking about it, it has been almost half a year since I last caught a grouper. Liang Ziqiang couldn't help but envy the fisherman's ability to find groupers...

(End of this chapter)