1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 339 The Real Target of the Big Steel Ship
"Is he chasing after tiny fish in the water? They're too small to be seen clearly from the boat!"

Lu Song guessed, I have no idea what these swimming crabs are doing jumping around.

Liang Ziqiang thought about it and didn't care. Anyway, it didn't look like a threatening big fish. If there were really fierce fish like sharks preying on swimming crabs underwater, it wouldn't make such a noise.

He immediately drove the boat along the vast sea of ​​swimming crabs and towed them all the way. When he almost reached the end, he turned back and towed them again.

Feeling that we had caught quite a few swimming crabs, we left the sea and continued our work.

According to the planned schedule, I still plan to spend the full three hours in the morning.

In order to save time for returning to the shore, the direction of the operation is directly changed to return to the shore. While continuing to trawle, it is actually equivalent to slowly returning to the shallow sea.

Three hours later, the net was started.

Liang Ziqiang didn't expect that there were almost no fish in the whole net, but there were a lot of shrimps.

At first, the deck was covered with the most common mantis shrimp. These were probably caught on the way back to the shore, so they were on the outermost layer of the trawl and were dumped out first.

Mantis shrimp is at the bottom of the list among all shrimps and is not very valuable, but it is better than hair shrimp.

This shrimp is found in both shallow and deep seas. I remember placing traps in tidal gullies last year, and this type of shrimp was more common.

Fortunately, the amount of mantis shrimp harvested in this trawl was amazing, which was not comparable to the usual ground traps. Seeing several hundred kilograms of mantis shrimp, even if it was a dime per kilogram, it would still make dozens of dollars.

After pouring out the mantis shrimps, the swimming crabs that were encountered earlier also poured out at the tail of the net bag.

"It's quite a lot. A swimming crab can be sold for more than 50 cents. Several hundred kilograms of swimming crabs can make a lot of money!" Deng Zhaocai was counting the money for him while standing under the gantry.

"You're probably too happy. How come this swimming crab has three eyes? A red star swimming crab? That won't be easy to sell!"

Hearing what Lu Song said, Liang Ziqiang quickly took a closer look and found that more than half of the swimming crabs had three round spots like eyes on the front end of their shells.

Liang Ziqiang was immediately in a bad mood because there were so many red star swimming crabs mixed in.

Although they are both swimming crabs, the red star swimming crab with three spots tastes relatively worse and some people may have allergies after eating it, so it is very cheap, only a few cents per pound.

Isn't this just a waste of joy? Just as I was about to complain, my eyes lit up the next second.

As a wave of swimming crabs poured out, followed closely by a group of strangely shaped shrimps jumping out of the net one after another.

These shrimps look like they are well-armored, with shells like armor. They don't look like shrimps at all, but more like crabs.

The most eye-catching thing is that these shrimps have two powerful claws at the front!
"Deep-sea crayfish!" Surprise was revealed in the voices of several people.

If there is a ferocious beast among shrimps, the deep-sea crayfish is undoubtedly it.

Langoustine is generally dark ochre green on the upper part and yellow orange or blue on the lower part. Its most distinctive feature is that it has three pairs of legs that have evolved into claws, especially the first pair of claws, which are the largest and like a sharp weapon.

Langoustine is really powerful, this guy feeds on crabs!

Now Liang Ziqiang understood that the swimming crabs he saw on the water surface were running away. It turned out that they were being eaten by the langoustines underwater!
Right before their eyes, some giant lobsters were still alive and kicking after falling onto the deck, looking very vigorous and powerful, and were actually committing crimes right in front of them.

He raised his big claw, pointed it at the crab shell, and with one claw he cut it into pieces with a snap. Then he calmly tore it open and started eating the hand-torn swimming crab!
"Hurry up and sort and pack them!"

Liang Ziqiang hurriedly gave orders, as he was really worried that if they were left on the deck, the swimming crabs would be eaten up in public by the langoustines.

The price of deep-sea crayfish is still very attractive, more than two or three times more expensive than swimming crabs. This is why Liang Ziqiang's eyes lit up and he was so surprised.

Deng Zhaocai and his friends were busy sorting the different shrimps and crabs. The 50-cent swimming crabs were packed separately from the several-cent red star swimming crabs; the 1.78-yuan langoustines were also packed separately from the 50-cent swimming crabs.

Liang Ziqiang returned to the driving seat and drove the boat back to shore. The overall catch of the four and a half days was still very impressive.

The normal fish catch reached more than 8,200 kilograms, including various common marine fish, deep-sea crayfish, more than 20 bomb fish, and more than a dozen albacore tunas and yellowfin tunas.

Of course, he would not sell the two bluefin tuna that were truly worth a lot of money at the fishing port purchasing station. He had to take them to the Yuehai Restaurant.

More than 8,000 kilograms of fish were caught, and the total profit was more than 2,030 yuan. This was mainly because more than a dozen golden tuna were sold at around 2 yuan per kilogram, which increased the income this time.

Strictly speaking, the two bluefin tunas were one and a half. After arriving at Yuehai Restaurant, the price of the relatively intact one was quite good, at 24 yuan per catty, directly exceeding the price of the grouper. The smaller one weighed just over 10 catties, and it was sold for about 250 yuan each!
The other big one is hard to describe in words.

"Why did you bring half a fish here?" Du Ziteng didn't know what to say to him.

"Look, the blood has been drained thoroughly and the internal organs have been taken out in advance, which saves your chef a lot of trouble!" Liang Ziqiang said considerately.

Du Ziteng rolled his eyes to the ceiling. If it weren't for the one-year friendship they had, he would have chased the man away.

It should have weighed nearly 100 kilograms originally, but after being torn apart, it only weighed more than 50 kilograms. Du Ziteng really couldn't give a normal price.

After some discussion, they finally made a half-price discount, 24 yuan was reduced to 12 yuan per catty, and more than 50 catties were sold for more than 600 yuan.

Half a fish was sold for more than six hundred yuan. Liang Ziqiang had to admire the "money-making power" of the bluefin tuna!
He has nothing to say about this price. If he wants to sell it at a higher price, he must directly export it to earn foreign exchange.

If the bluefin tuna from the 1980s were exported to the other side of the ocean, it could be sold for fourteen or fifteen US dollars per pound, which is about thirty yuan in domestic currency, five or six yuan higher than Du Ziteng's price.

In 1984, one U.S. dollar was exactly equivalent to two yuan in China, which is very different from the exchange rate in later generations.

Two bluefin tuna, one large and one small, sold for more than 800 yuan in total.

Add the 2,000 yuan I earned from other fish sold at the county fishing port, and the total was 2,800 yuan. I was lucky this time, as I was able to catch a top-notch treasure like bluefin fin.

Of course, I still have to add about 600 yuan of gas, pay the wages of several crew members, buy oil, salt, rice and noodles for the next voyage, as well as food for the family, so I actually only have a little over 1,000 yuan left, close to 2,000 yuan.

When I got home, I brought back two large buckets of deep-sea fish as usual, and gave part of it to my parents, eldest brother and father-in-law.

Before going to bed at night, the couple counted the money at the bottom of the box.

After buying the big steel boat at the end of June, there was basically no money left at home. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the bottom of the box was empty.

However, now, there are more than 8 yuan in the box again. What Chen Xiangbei dared not to think of was that the new ship started to sail on August 1, and now it is only September 9, less than a month and a half, and more than 6 yuan has been accumulated.

The speed at which this big ship makes money is completely unimaginable when we were fishing in shallow waters before!

"At this rate, wouldn't that be 50,000 or 60,000 a year? Are we...re really going to get rich?" Chen Xiangbei didn't know until she calculated it. After she did the calculation, she was so shocked that her jaw dropped.

Liang Ziqiang found it a little funny and reminded her:

"Your calculation doesn't take into account that it will be winter again in just over two months!"

Chen Xiangbei wakes up from a dream:
"Yes, just like last year, there will be a whole few months of off-season in winter. I can only sit at home and do nothing, and I can't go out to sea! So, by this calculation, I can only make 30,000 or 40,000 yuan a year?"

"No, what I mean is that you can't still calculate your income based on a few thousand yuan per month in winter. If I'm not mistaken, your income in winter will be more than the total income in a normal year. I can't say how much more it will be, we'll know when the time comes!" Liang Ziqiang said with a smile.

After buying this big steel boat, going out to sea can only be considered as a warm-up and practice.

There is an ideal warm wintering place in the deep sea. When winter comes, fish gather here and the resources are unimaginably rich. It even supported a private ocean-going company in later generations!

That was the target Liang Ziqiang had in mind when he purchased this large steel trawler!
(End of this chapter)