1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 323: Capturing a Ronin Scad
The calm sea surface in sight changed in an instant.

A huge wave suddenly rose out of nowhere, and the water droplets were scattered, but from Liang Ziqiang's angle, the overall shape was like a blooming flower.

The water droplets in the air were originally crystal clear, but after being pierced by the morning glow, they took on a light golden color.

In the center of the splash, it looked like a solid, thick wooden stake rising from the ground.

It was a big fish. When it jumped up, it blocked the rising sun with great confidence.

Liang Ziqiang only felt that his vision darkened, and it seemed that for a moment, the rising sun was picked away from the horizon by a huge fish that soared into the sky.

Only when the silhouette of the big fish drifted in the air did the morning sun shine again.

The big fish in the sunset glow now looked like a piece of paper cutting, moving sideways and sideways again.

With one mouth, two seagulls flying low in the sky disappeared in an instant.

It was as if there had never been any seagulls flying over that small area of ​​low sky.

"Wow, it jumps out of the water to eat birds in the air. What a cool fish! Doesn't it look like a shark?" Deng Zhaocai slapped his head. "What kind of fish is that? Ronin's scad?!"

"It's Ronin Yu!" Liang Ziqiang, who was also standing at the railing of the boat, said affirmatively.

The Ronin trevally, also known as the precious trevally and the Niugang trevally, is the largest of all trevally species and only eats meat.

From the overall oval shape, the lines of the abdomen and back, and the jumping posture, it is not difficult to judge that this is a wandering scad.

Add to that the fact that it preys on flying birds, and it becomes even more certain.

The Ronin trevally is strong and powerful. In addition to hunting various fish, shrimps and crabs for food, it also has a well-known hobby, which is to prey on flying birds.

This is different from the cat shark's sneaky approach of luring little terns. The wanderer trevally directly tracks low-flying birds in the water, and once the time is right, it flies out of the water to prey in mid-air.

"But the ronin scads aren't this big, this one looks really big!" Lin Liming said.

After all, the wandering trevally is neither a whale nor a shark. No matter how big a wandering trevally is, it usually weighs only about 100 kilograms and cannot be compared with those deep-sea overlords that weigh several tons or dozens of tons.

But the one in front of me definitely weighs more than 100 pounds, probably around 300 or 400 pounds!

"This is the deep sea, so it's not surprising to encounter an incredibly large wandering trevally!" This was the only explanation Liang Ziqiang could give.

After all, the size of this wandering scad surprised him a little.

"It's a pity that it's not convenient to cast a net on our boat. Otherwise, we could chase it and catch it in the net. This thing could be sold for a lot of money!" Zhu Tianpeng felt a little regretful.

Now this big steel ship is designed for trawling operations, and the hull is large and tall. It is not realistic to operate the hand-cast net by manpower, and it is very difficult.

It is possible to go sea fishing while sitting by the railing, but the fishing gear must be specially made, long, thick, and heavy-duty with super bearing capacity.

The fishing rods they used before on shallow-water wooden boats were completely useless here. They were not long enough, could not be stretched out far enough, and could not pull in large fish weighing hundreds of pounds in the deep sea.

As for longline fishing, it can be done in the deep sea, but it is not the kind they used to do.

The thickness of the ropes and fishing lines, as well as the size of the hooks, are completely different from those in the shallow sea.

At this stage, the most practical and effective means for this ship is still trawling.

"Forget it. There are far more fish in the deep sea than in the shallow sea anyway. Let's get on the boat and drag it all the way over. Even if we can't catch any big fish, we'll still get some small fish!"

Liang Ziqiang thought that it would be better to start early in the morning and begin today's trawling operations.

It was the first time for the new boat to go out to sea, and we didn't want to stay on the sea for too many days. After a night last night, it would be best if we could start to return at 1:00 p.m. today to sell the two days' catch.

If we start a round of trawling around six o'clock now, we will still have time to complete two rounds of operations before returning.

They acted right away. Several people worked together again. Liang Ziqiang drove the boat, while the others operated the winch to lower the steel cable or untie the water diversion plate.

After sailing for about three hours, we started to raise the net.

The net was gradually dragged onto the deck. Deng Zhaocai walked closer and hung the iron hook on the gantry onto the net while looking into the net.

"It looks like there's a big fish. It looks bigger than the ones from yesterday!" Deng Zhaocai said immediately after he vaguely saw a big fish through the mesh of the net.

"I can't see it clearly. I don't know what kind of fish it is." Lu Song also said.

At this time, the net bag was being operated by Zhu Tianpeng and was gradually suspended under the gantry.

The angle was deflected, the net mouth was facing downwards, and once again, like a storm of fish and shrimp, a large number of fish poured out.

After a while, a big fish fell and hit the deck, making a loud noise.

After the catch was emptied, several people gathered around to take a look. Liang Ziqiang also moved Zhu Tianpeng into the cab again and walked out to check the catch himself.

"Ronin Scad?"

He recognized it at a glance. The largest fish caught by the trawling net was actually a wandering trevally.

Lin Liming also looked around and shook his head, "It's not the one from this morning!"

Of course it wasn't that one. There are a lot of wandering trevally in the deep sea, and it's not such a coincidence that I saw the one catching birds in the air online early in the morning.

If it was that fish, Liang Ziqiang would be happy. This fish only weighed over 100 pounds, probably less than half the size of that fish.

"A lot of scales have fallen off. Will it affect the selling price?" Lu Song looked at it a few more times and asked worriedly.

"There are still some scratches, so I guess the price will be reduced a bit!" Liang Chun said from the side.

Liang Ziqiang squatted down and took a look: "It will indeed have some impact. It's okay, it's the same when trawling for fish."

It is said that the fish caught by fishing are of relatively high quality, while the fish caught by trawling are of poor quality.

During the towing process, it is almost inevitable that some damage to the fish's body surface will occur.

Liang Ziqiang chose the mid-layer trawl, which focuses on middle-layer fish while taking into account upper and lower-layer fish, which is relatively good.

That kind of bottom trawl scrapes directly over the rocks and mud on the seabed, causing much more obvious damage to the fish.

After all, deep-sea trawling operations are all about quantity, and money is made by volume.

The robin trevally itself is not an expensive fish, normally it is only about 40 cents. This fish has been damaged in the process of dragging and struggling, so it is estimated that the price may be slightly lower than 40 cents. We will see when it is shipped.

In addition to the largest ronin weighing over 100 kilograms, the other fish in this net are mostly sea wolf fish, herring, and bluefin bream.

Neither the sea wolf fish nor the croaker are easy to deal with. One is ferocious by nature, while the other has scales on its belly that are as sharp as knives. While dragging, they have caused a lot of damage to other fish.

Anyway, the bluefin bream and whitebait in this net obviously didn’t look as good as the ones from yesterday. Some scales were missing from their bodies or they were covered in blood, as if they had been abused and beaten during the trawling.

This time there was little rest. Liang Ziqiang returned to the cab and replaced Zhu Tianpeng to go to the deck to operate the winch, and immediately started the second round of trawling operations.

Liang Ziqiang maintained the normal speed of trawling until the empty trawl was thrown into the water again, while others began to sort out the catch of the first net.

By the time the wandering trevally and other small fish were moved into the cold storage compartment on the underground floor, it was almost noon.

Before the second round of fishing started, Liang Ziqiang and his friends hurriedly prepared and had lunch.

In addition to vegetables, there are also ready-made fish and crabs to eat.

The best thing about deep sea fishing is that you never have to worry about fish to eat, and what you eat is always first-hand, the latest caught.

In terms of taste, deep-sea fish and shrimp also taste a little more delicious.

After lunch it was already noon and it was almost time to cast the second net.

Liang Ziqiang didn't expect that what was different about this net was that it actually contained some flounder, shellfish and snails.

Normally, his trawl was not close to the seafloor, so it was not easy for these bottom-dwelling marine products to appear in the net. He estimated that the ocean currents might have brought up some of the seafloor shells and snails, so a small number of them entered the trawl.

After reaping the rewards, Liang Ziqiang no longer wanted to fight and started to sail back home.

Zhu Tianpeng was still in charge of lookout, while the other four crew members took advantage of the time to return to sort out the catch of the second net.

In the afternoon, their boat had returned to the nearshore waters and they could see the village's coastline in the distance.

But Liang Ziqiang did not drive the boat to the shore, but continued to move forward towards the county town.

The current fish catch, even after only two days of operations with four nets, is already at a different level from normal shallow-water fishing.

If it were still sold to Zheng Liu at the purchasing point in the village, Zheng Liu would probably find it difficult to eat it, and it would still be a lot of effort to transport it to the county town.

Since there are so many fish, and Liang Ziqiang's boat can keep them fresh, why not send them to the county's fishing port purchasing station himself...

(End of this chapter)