1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 304: Stone Clam, More Expensive Than Grouper
In the following two days, Liang Ziqiang and his crew went out to sea with a clear goal, heading straight for the Snapper Island.

They had already agreed to catch all the snappers on this side of the island first.

In fact, there are fewer snappers on this side, and the fish caught in the past two days have dropped significantly. From now on, we will probably have to go to the other side of the island.

After a few days of fishing, it was already early June. According to the doctor's instructions last time, Chen Xiangbei had to go to the hospital for a prenatal checkup every two weeks.

Each family had their own things to do, so they decided to take a day off.

The day when Chen Xiangbei got pregnant was the time when Liang Ziqiang was working hard every night after marriage. According to calculations, the expected date of birth is probably in late June or the end of this year.

There are only about twenty days left until the due date. The closer it gets, the more nervous Chen Xiangbei can't help but become.

Fortunately, there was no problem with the fetal heart rate and fetal position during this examination. The doctor told me that I needed to come to the hospital again before the due date, and I would have to add an additional examination item, blood type test.

On the way back, Chen Xiangbei was not so nervous anymore, but she kept asking him to guess whether it would be a son or a daughter.

Liang Ziqiang would definitely not give a clear answer to this question. If the baby turned out to be different from what he had guessed, wouldn't Chen Xiangbei be greatly disappointed?
"No matter whether it is a boy or a girl, I only know that he won't have to occupy the land next month. Then you won't be so tired, and neither will I!" Liang Ziqiang said with a smile.

"What made you tired?" Chen Xiangbei sat on the boat, rubbing her waist and looking at him with interest.

"My beautiful wife lies beside me every day, unable to move, and it's been almost three months. Do you think it's hard for me to endure it?" Liang Ziqiang said with aggrieved tone.

Chen Xiangbei didn't expect that he would say this. Seeing his resentful look, she was also somewhat amused. Not only did she not comfort him, she even added insult to injury:
"Then don't be too happy. Who says you can move around as soon as the baby is born? I heard from mom that you need to wait at least a month and a half, otherwise why is it called confinement?"

Liang Ziqiang's face suddenly darkened. Of course he knew that they couldn't spend the confinement period together, but could you please stop bringing up irrelevant issues? This was simply adding insult to injury and rubbing salt into the wound.

It seems that I have to put all my energy into going out to sea recently. Fishing is hard, so I can bear some things.

After returning home, thinking that the water in the shrimp pond had not been changed for several days, Liang Ziqiang went to the beach east of the village, started the water pump, replaced part of the water in the shrimp pond, and checked the situation of the shrimps carrying eggs.

It is estimated that in about ten days, in mid-June, all the shrimp eggs will be separated from the mother and become shrimp fry. Everything is going well, including the broodstock ponds at my father and brother's place.

After resting, we continued to head to Snapper Island the next day.

Liang Ziqiang discovered a phenomenon: in recent days, there is a small puddle of wet water on the deck of his boat every morning.

Although it was impossible to confirm, Liang Ziqiang could guess that it must be the sea lions that sneaked into the water every night to catch fish to eat.

The little fur seal has been born for some time. Every day, except for coming to hug Duobao in a daze, it spends most of its time nestling in the mother fur seal's arms, sleeping and drinking milk.

In order to ensure the supply of milk for the big sea lion, it is not enough to rely on the few small fish Liang Ziqiang throws to it during the day. He must go into the water at night to prepare some special food for himself.

As soon as he arrived on the boat today, Liang Ziqiang saw two motionless small fish lying on the deck, which further confirmed it.

"How long will this little sea seal need to drink milk? I only know that the local dogs in the village will drink milk for more than a month after they are born. I guess the sea seal will need a little longer than the local dogs, right?" Zhu Tianpeng asked, looking at the mother and baby sea seals on the boat.

"It will take a while," Liang Ziqiang thought for a while, "It takes about four months for a baby sea lion to suckle. After four months, it has to go fishing on its own!"

"Damn, this female sea lion is quite resourceful. Does she want to stay on our boat for another four months, until she raises the little ones, and then leave together?" Zhu Tianpeng suddenly found that he seemed to have seen through the sea lion's little thoughts.

"You just thought of it? Isn't it obvious enough? The bastard has been staying on the boat the whole time, so he just thought so!"

Liang Ziqiang had seen through this a long time ago. He estimated that when the baby sea lions were four months old and were old enough to try to catch fish, the mother and baby sea lions would naturally run away and never come back, without even having to be chased away.

As they talked along the way, the fishing boat once again arrived at Snapper Island.

This time, the eight of them were very decisive. They did not stop the boat on this side of the island, but went around to the back of the long and narrow island, and then found a place to anchor the boat.

The snappers on the front of the island have been caught almost completely, so now it's time to move the fishing rod to the back. Sure enough, the back is also a narrow and long reef belt, but the area seems to be slightly smaller than the front.

They found a convenient place to stay, quickly prepared the bait, and started fishing.

There seemed to be more red snappers on this side. Several people caught red snappers in a row, while four-line snappers and purple snappers did not appear.

Later, it was Liang's father who broke the silence and caught a snapper weighing about five or six kilograms, with a back that was higher and more curved than other snappers.

"Why is it like a hunchback? Dad, what kind of snapper did you catch?" The eldest brother Liang Tiancheng was already asking his father.

"You can see it looks like a hunchback. It's called a humpback snapper!"

When Liang's father took the fish, he couldn't help but grin.

Humpback snapper is more expensive than red snapper and four-line snapper, and its price is about the same as purple snapper, so he is naturally happy.

"Uncle Fu is very lucky today. We all caught red snappers. It would be great if we could get a few hunchbacks too!" Deng Zhaocai's eyes were full of envy.

"Forget about you, it's good enough to have fish to catch! I think you should prick up your ears and listen more. If Lao Xie suddenly comes nearby, he can break your fishing rod and beat you to death, believe it or not!" Li Liang laughed at him, "You hunchback snapper, it's almost like you've been beaten into a hunchback by Lao Xie!"

"Damn you, you jinx! Don't really invite Old Xie here!" Deng Zhaocai became nervous when he heard it.

When Old Xie first brought them here to fish, he had sternly told them not to let the fat boy Deng Zhaocai participate in fishing, and that he would be slapped if he caught one fish.

Deng Zhaocai was very depressed. Later, when he saw that Lao Xie was not around, he dared to start fishing secretly.

If Old Xie really showed up, considering that Deng Zhaocai had caught dozens or even hundreds of fish, wouldn't his face be slapped like a pig's head?

Speaking of Lao Xie, everyone became curious about some things.

"So many days have passed, and I wonder if Old Xie has finally caught the man who fried the fish? Did he really beat those two people half to death?" Liang Tiancheng seemed to be very curious about the outcome of the incident.

"Who knows? Anyway, those two are very cruel and dare to kill. They deserve a beating!" Liang's father continued to put on the bait and said with a chuckle.

The father and son were talking when they were suddenly interrupted by Deng Zhaocai's shout:

"Fuck, what kind of fish is this that Brother Qiang hooked? Why is it brown, purple, and orange?!"

At this time, Liang Ziqiang was lifting the fishing rod from the water, and a fish weighing three or four pounds was hanging in the air.

As it was being pulled up, the angle of the fish changed in the sunlight, and accordingly, the color of its body changed several times, sometimes yellow, sometimes purple!

Even the beautiful bright yellow fins under the fish's belly will instantly turn orange-red.

When Liang Ziqiang reached for the fishhook, his eyebrows couldn't help but tremble with laughter.

“It’s a spotted snapper!” he replied, taking the fish off his hands.

"It's really a stone clam!" Liang's father looked over and said in surprise and affirmation.

They had been to this island several times and had caught many different kinds of snappers.

However, I have never encountered a single species of snapper, the stone clam, which is truly unique among snappers.

Even Liang Ziqiang began to conclude that there were no stone clams on the island. Unexpectedly, after turning to the back of the island, he caught some stone clams shortly afterwards.

The stone clam is even better than the top-quality grouper!
(End of this chapter)