1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 290: Porcupine can also turn into cash

The number of floating fish this time was no less than last time. Several boats once again kept casting and pulling in nets and caught a large number of blackfin mullets.

Liang Ziqiang took a closer look and found that almost half of the fish on the boat had several thin yellow lines on their sides. Because there were more yellow lines than in the "double-banded black-tailed winter fish", this fish was called "multi-banded black-tailed winter fish".

Suddenly his eyes lit up.

"Oriental grouper?" Liang Ziqiang muttered. He didn't expect that among the floating fish he caught in the net, there were also eastern groupers in addition to the blacktail snapper.

After a careful search, I found not just one, but two! Although they have lost their vitality, the two red snappers are still bright red and quite eye-catching.

Liang Ziqiang reached out and put the two groupers into a bucket separately, and then heard Li Liang shouting excitedly in his ear. It turned out that he had also caught two groupers.

"It's a fortune," Li Liang said happily, "It wasn't long after the explosion. The newly-dead grouper should be able to be sold at a high price. Brother Qiang, do you want to go to the restaurant with me to ask?"

"It's still fresh, probably cheaper than live ones, so they should be sold!" Liang Ziqiang guessed, "But we have to hurry, we have to go to the city today!"

In fact, even if some groupers are caught alive, if they are not stored properly during the journey, they will become dead fish when shipped.

As long as it is still fresh, or is kept fresh with ice, it can still be sold.

"Then let's go back to the shore early and sell these two groupers!" Li Liang planned.

Going to the city just for two fish would be unreasonable if it were ordinary fish. But if it were grouper, it would be a different story. After all, its value is there, and it can be said to be the highest-end among high-end seafood.

Several people searched carefully again, but apart from these four groupers, they found nothing else.

"Fuck, they missed out on four groupers. Just think about how many valuable groupers the fish fryer took away!" Li Liang sighed.

It is indeed true. Liang Ziqiang dared not even imagine how many valuable groupers were hidden in this reef!
The other party might have blew out all the groupers hiding deep in the cracks of the rocks, caught as many as they could, and wanted to sell them while they were fresh, so they left in a hurry and missed out on several groupers!

After catching all the floating fish, Liang Fu and Lin Baixian's boats continued to fish on the sea, while Liang Ziqiang and Li Liang's boats went directly back to the shore.

When he arrived at the dock, he first sold the blacktail to Zheng Liu at a discount.

Normally the price of blacktail winter squid is 70 cents, but this kind of squid that is fried and then fished out is 40 cents. Liang Ziqiang earned more than 40 yuan.

After selling all the black winter melon quickly, Zhu Tianpeng and Deng Zhaocai went home first, while Liang Ziqiang and Li Liang continued to drive the boat to the city.

As usual, we moored the boat at Sham Shui Po and quickly walked to Yue Hai Restaurant.

"What did they bring today? It's not time to catch the chicken snails yet. I'm afraid they caught the grouper again?" Du Ziteng guessed when he saw them.

In the past, every time Liang Ziqiang came over, he would ask, "Is there any grouper?" But now he has completely given up and doesn't even ask anymore.

"I haven't been fishing for grouper recently," Liang Ziqiang walked up and replied, "this time it's a few groupers!"

Du Ziteng paused for a moment after hearing this, wondering why this guy always plays cards in an unconventional way. He didn't mention grouper this time, but he brought grouper to his door.

He was quite pleasantly surprised:
"What kind of grouper? Let me see!"

As a result, when I looked at the bucket, I was even more surprised:
"There are even Eastern Star Spots?!"

After being happy, I realized something was a little different from usual: "Not alive?"

"Someone fried fish and found a bargain!" Liang Ziqiang felt that there was no need to hide this, so he told the truth, "But it's not long ago. You can take a closer look. There's absolutely no problem with the freshness!"

Du Ziteng really picked up the spotted snapper and looked at it carefully, and even smelled it:
"Fried fish? The taste will be affected to some extent. Coincidentally, one of my supervisors received a batch of fried grouper two or three hours ago, but we didn't take all of it. We only took part of it. The main reason is that we are worried that the fried fish will not taste good!"

Liang Ziqiang estimated that the man who came to sell grouper two or three hours ago must be the fish fryer at the reef.

Yuehai Restaurant was only willing to accept a portion of it, and no one knew where the man sold all the remaining fried grouper.

After hearing what Manager Du said, Li Liang's face suddenly showed some trepidation. It looked like Du Ziteng might not want to buy it. In this case, wouldn't it be a wasted trip to the city? If he went to find a fishmonger again, he wouldn't be able to sell it at a high price.

Liang Ziqiang still understands Du Ziteng better. He has been dealing with Du Ziteng for such a long time, and he believes that the other party is sometimes quite humane.

Sure enough, Liang Ziqiang asked a few words about friendship, and Du Ziteng said carefully:
"Alright, alright, you're all here now. It's just a few anyway, I'll take them from you, but I have to make it clear in advance that I can't give you the high price of twenty dollars like I usually do!"

Li Liang felt like he had come back from the dead, and said happily:

"It doesn't matter if it's lower, as long as it's not a wasted trip!"

"Usually it's twenty, but this one will be... thirteen! To be honest, the grouper we blew up earlier also included red snapper, and I asked my men to buy it at only ten yuan per pound!" Du Ziteng revealed.

There was nothing much to say about the price of thirteen, and the deal was made on the spot.

Liang Ziqiang's two grouper fish totaled one pound and six ounces, and cost twenty yuan and eighty cents.

He also had two tiger grouper fish, which he also bought at a discount from the usual price, selling for five dollars and twenty cents.

All together, it’s exactly twenty-six yuan.

Because Li Liang had no tiger stripes but only a blue stripe, his income was slightly less, but it was still over twenty.

After taking the money, Liang Ziqiang remembered something and asked Du Ziteng:

"Brother Teng, does your restaurant usually serve pufferfish? I can get some pufferfish, the brown-spotted pufferfish from our Yanghai area. They are actually completely non-toxic!"

Liang Ziqiang asked this question specifically because he thought that puffer fish actually tasted quite delicious and Yuehai Restaurant was good at producing all kinds of strange and rare seafood dishes.

Unexpectedly, Du Ziteng frowned:
"We don't usually cook pufferfish in Yuehai, mainly because it's risky. We need a chef who is good at cooking pufferfish, but Yuehai doesn't have such a chef. Even if the brown-bellied porcupinefish you mentioned is not poisonous, ordinary chefs don't dare to cook it. There's really no way to deal with this!"

But then, Du Ziteng thought for a moment and said:
"I do know of a restaurant that has a chef who specializes in cooking puffer fish. As far as I know, they are probably the only restaurant in Yanghai that serves puffer fish, right? If you have one, I can introduce you to them!"

Liang Ziqiang has been thinking about the pufferfish island that was robbed recently. Those pufferfish are actually not poisonous and are also a very good seafood resource. It would be a pity to leave them there without using them.

Just now he heard Du Ziteng say that Yuehai would not accept the goods, and he was quite disappointed. But when he heard that he could introduce other restaurants, he was immediately excited:
"Okay, then I'll have to trouble you to tell the restaurant. Which restaurant is it? Is it far from here?"

"The name is easy to remember, it's called Hexinyi Restaurant. They don't sell high-end seafood like chicken claw snails and grouper. They mainly serve ordinary seafood, but they have a special dish, braised puffer fish. The place is not too far from here, you can go directly there and say that Manager Du from Yuehai introduced you!"

Du Ziteng then told them the address of Hexinyi Restaurant, saying it was easy to find.

Liang Ziqiang thanked him, and immediately left the Moon Sea with Li Liang, following the direction Du Ziteng had mentioned, and searched all the way there...

Speaking of which, the Hexinyi Restaurant was not particularly far away. The two of them asked as they walked and soon found it.

The "Manager Fan" mentioned by Du Ziteng is a woman, probably in her thirties, but definitely younger than Du Ziteng.

After Liang Ziqiang explained his purpose, Manager Fan adopted a businesslike attitude, not too enthusiastic but not cold either:

"As you know, pufferfish are not in short supply in the South China Sea. They are not rare seafood. We don't have to worry about the supply. If the brown-bellied porcupinefish you mentioned is really not poisonous, it will be easier for our chefs to handle it. We can accept some." Liang Ziqiang understood what the other party meant. That is, whether it is poisonous or not, in fact, their chefs have the ability to handle it safely. It is estimated that they will not accept pufferfish with highly poisonous blood, and those with poisonous internal organs are relatively easier to handle. Therefore, the brown-bellied porcupinefish Liang Ziqiang mentioned does not have much advantage in other aspects except that it does not require special treatment.

The two sides chatted for a while, and finally the female manager said that their restaurant usually purchased ordinary puffer fish at 1.2 yuan per catty, and she did not intend to increase the price for the brown-spotted porcupinefish that Liang Ziqiang and his friends mentioned, and would also purchase it at this price.

Seeing that the other party had no intention of raising the price, Liang Ziqiang stopped arguing. After all, one dollar and twenty cents per catty was already much higher than that of ordinary sea fish.

"By the way, although puffer fish is the specialty of our restaurant, the daily production volume is not that large. We can't collect too much, so you just need to bring in a few dozen kilograms every ten days or half a month!" Manager Fan emphasized.

After Liang Ziqiang and the other two agreed, they left the restaurant and headed back without staying for long.

On the way, the two of them discussed that they should find an opportunity and go to Pufferfish Island separately by two boats.

After all, they had some special experiences on that island, and they didn't want more people to know about it.

We went out to sea for a few days in a row with relatively light fish catches, and then an opportunity came.

It was already late May, and Liang's father and Lin Baixian had things to do that day and were unable to go out to sea with Liang Ziqiang.

There were only two boats, Liang Ziqiang and Li Liang, that set out from the shore.

There were a total of four people on the boat, Liang Ziqiang, Zhu Tianpeng, Li Liang and Deng Zhaocai, all of whom had personally experienced robbery incidents.

"Today is a good day. Why don't we go to the island again today and catch a batch of porcupine fish to sell in the city?" Li Liang suggested immediately.

"Okay, it should be quick to catch dozens of kilograms of puffer fish. We can use the remaining time to look for fish nearby and try some longline fishing!" Liang Ziqiang suggested.

Although the location of the Pufferfish Island was remote, the four of them were familiar with the road, so they drove straight there without turning much.

The island gradually came into view. We slowly approached the characteristic pebble beach, and then the two boats stopped, dropped anchor and tied up.

The four were just about to make their move, but to their amazement, they didn't expect someone to be faster than them.

Duobao came to his legs and hummed twice, which actually served as a greeting. Then he jumped up and splashed into the sea.

The water here is relatively clear, so Duobao likes it more, which is understandable.

What is difficult to understand is that the sea lion, which always stayed in the corner of the wooden boat and refused to leave, suddenly took action as soon as it reached the edge of the island when the sun rose from the west.

This guy has a round body and shiny fur, but his legs and feet have degenerated into fins, which are extremely inconvenient. He just uses his four fins to flap the board and move forward towards the bow.

The swaying look on his body made him look inexplicably stupid and yet inexplicably cute.

He came to the bow of the boat, jumped onto the pebble beach without hesitation, and got off the boat.

Zhu Tianpeng was surprised:

"Hey, what do you mean? It's been staying on our ship for almost a month, and now it just runs away without being chased away? What's so special about this island that it has such a strong attraction?!"

Deng Zhaocai laughed out loud:
"It's easier to invite a god than to send him away. It's been lingering for so long. Brother Qiang, you can finally get rid of it today!"

Liang Ziqiang was also a little curious and kept watching the sea lions get off the boat and flutter forward on the rocky beach.

This is not a fine sandy beach, but pebbles scattered under the sea lion. Liang Ziqiang felt sorry for it, but the sea lion made that unique low growl and seemed to be in a good mood.

I saw it come to a place with many small stones, and it actually used its front fins as hands to rummage through the stones, picking and choosing.

Seeing this, Liang Ziqiang suddenly understood what it wanted to do.

Sure enough, the sea lion seemed to be quite satisfied with the quality of some of the stones and moved its head closer.

He opened his mouth and ate several pieces!

"Fuck, Brother Qiang, you are abusing the sea lion. You haven't given it any fish to eat for such a long time on your boat? Look how hungry the dog is, it's even swallowing stones!" Li Liang exclaimed, expressing his great enlightenment.

In fact, Liang Ziqiang would throw some worthless small fish to the sea lions every day. He also believed that after the sea lions' wounds had almost healed, they would definitely go off the boat at night to catch fish and shrimps to eat. However, after eating, they would stay on his boat during the day to enjoy the sun, recuperate, pretend to sleep, and have a good time.

Fur seals are not common. Li Liang and his team had previously mistaken them for seals, so they didn't know much about their habits.

But what strange marine creatures had Liang Ziqiang not seen in reports? He had just seen a sea lion pick up a small pebble and stuff it into his mouth, and he immediately remembered:

Fur seals have a very confusing and peculiar behavior – they love to eat small stones!

There is a saying that it is because their teeth are bad and they have no chewing function, so they swallow everything whole, so they need to eat some stones to rub and digest the food in their stomachs.

There is also a saying that eating stones is to regulate the body's balance, and stones in the stomach can reduce the buoyancy of fat.

Liang Ziqiang couldn't be sure which one it was, but he now understood why the sea lions were so excited that they rolled and crawled as soon as they arrived on the island.

So many small and round pebbles, they are top-quality ingredients!

While Liang Ziqiang and the others were talking, the sea lion grabbed another handful of pebbles and stuffed them into his mouth. It was obvious to the naked eye that more than a dozen pebbles had already been eaten...

A few people took a look at it and ignored it, picking up their nets to quickly catch the puffer fish.

In fact, pufferfish live and swim in the upper, middle and lower layers, and there are more of them in the lower layer than in the upper layer.

If longline fishing is really used, it is estimated that more pufferfish will be caught with the lower iron hook than with casting a net.

But the female manager of the "He Xin Yi" restaurant said that she didn't need much.

If you are only going to catch a few dozen pounds, there is no need to go through so much trouble. Casting a net is more direct and saves time.

Although there were not that many pufferfish on the surface, each net could still catch about ten kilograms. After a while, Liang Ziqiang's boat should have caught about forty or fifty kilograms.

In order to keep them fresh, these dozens of kilograms of brown-bellied porcupinefish were all placed in a large basin and kept in water.

We had almost finished fishing and it was time to leave. We barely spent any time at Pufferfish Island this time.

"It's still early today, only in the morning. Brother Qiang, where should we go next? Let's see if we can catch some other fish!" Li Liang asked while standing at the bow of the boat.

"Let's just look around here." Liang Ziqiang had no idea what other fish there were in this area, but he suddenly remembered something. "Didn't we come here to look for lampreys last time? Why don't we continue to look for them this time?"

"Yes, I believe my grandfather was right. There is an island nearby with lots of vampire eels. I don't believe we can't find it!"

The two immediately decided to continue their trip to search for Blood Eel Island, which had been accidentally interrupted last time.

There is no way. The price of this ugly thing called lamprey is too attractive. As long as we can find their nest, the income will definitely be higher than going out to sea these days!
(End of this chapter)