Reborn in the Millennium: Building a Fortune from Fishing

Chapter 168 The purpose of collecting loaches?

The two returned home and put the fish in a fish basket first, and then went to sell it tomorrow.

"Mom, the kids are having lunch at home. I'm going to go and get a duck."

"Okay, go ahead." The old lady asked the silly kid to wash his hands and the meal would be ready soon.

"Thank you, Auntie." The silly kid said embarrassedly.

"Why are you being so polite to me? It's just a matter of adding some chopsticks." The old lady went to serve the dishes with a smile. She cut the duck very quickly and came back in a few minutes.

We cook a lot of food for every meal at home now. With four people in the family and four little ones, it won’t be enough to feed the dogs if we don’t cook more.

The kids are eating at home today, so just feed the dog some bait. I’ve made a new batch of bait. Sometimes when the dog acts like a spoiled child, Yanyan and Qin’s mother will go get the bait to feed it. It’s quite luxurious.

When they got to the dinner table, Yanyan kept asking them about their fishing.

"How can there be black carp and grass carp in such a small pond?"

"Yes, the water exploded before it was drained out, haha." Qin Dahe said with a proud smile.

"Can you take me there in the afternoon?" She looked at Qin Dahe. It was a bit far from here, and he definitely didn't dare to let her ride on a motorcycle tricycle.

The road over there is full of mud and stones. If a pregnant woman has a miscarriage while sitting on it, she will have no place to cry and can only walk over.

"It's going to be a long walk, you should rest at home."

"No, I just want to watch you catch fish."

"Okay, you're the boss, so I'll listen to you." He said helplessly, "Kid, after dinner, you go and pump water on your bike, and we'll go over there by boat."

"I knew you had a way, brother." Yanyan happily took a big mouthful of rice.

Qin Dahe definitely wouldn't walk there and back. Their village is a long strip, and it would take more than 20 minutes to walk there, which means it would take almost an hour to go back and forth.

"Son, are there a lot of wild vegetables over there? If there are, I'll go pick some taro and stir-fry it with bacon."

"There are a lot of them on the roadside. Come with us this afternoon. After Qingming Festival, I think they will be too old to eat."

There is a saying here, "Taro in March is used as firewood."

It is quite old now, so I have to pick a large piece when I get home. I can only eat a large bag of it for two meals.

But this wild vegetable is really delicious, and it has a special aroma when fried with bacon.

The rice in the house was eaten up in one meal. I guess the silly kid kept some for himself because he usually eats rice like crazy.

In the afternoon, Qin Dahe and Hanwaer set off first, and Yanyan and the others will come over by boat later. I am also very good at driving a boat.

She could easily crank that five-horsepower diesel engine.

The electric pump was lowered and the two men continued to dig the trench.

This pond is about the same size as Hanwaer's house. It is an irrigation pond for the farmland next to it. The water will have to be released back after it is pumped out.

There is no rush to release water from the other two ponds, so anyone who needs silt can go and take some away.

Although this work is hard, many people do it to save fertilizer.

The water had not been pumped out yet, but Yanyan, who was sitting at the bow of the boat, started calling him, saying that he had to go and drive the boat piles first.

"Yan'er, hold on to me. If you fall, I will definitely get beaten."

"Hehe, then how about I fake a fall and try it?"

"Don't." He said angrily, "Even if you fake a fall, I will beat me up."

The pregnant woman is the most important, and she is a college student. The old couple has high expectations for their grandson.

After getting ashore, I started looking for taro, trying to pick the tenderest ones.

"Yan Yan, don't come over. A pregnant woman can't squat for a long time. It's slippery here." Seeing that her daughter-in-law was about to come over to pick wild vegetables together, she hurriedly stopped her.

"Oh." Yanyan could only look back at her brother and the others pumping water.

When I was bored, I put on my MP3 player and listened to music. I took off my headphones only after Qin Dahe and the others went into the water.

"Are there any big fish?" Qin Dahe asked. He had just been busy taking care of his wife.

"No, little fish, there are more." The silly kid smiled and pointed to the center of the water.

The fish have been diving and are now in the shallow end.

Since there were no big fish, he was no longer in a hurry and went down from the edge with the silly kid to start catching fish.

The most numerous fish is always crucian carp. Even if the pond is newly dug and no seedlings are put in, there will be a lot of this fish in two years.

Because crucian carp is very good at laying eggs, a crucian carp can lay tens of thousands of eggs a year, and the survival rate is high.

Then crucian carp eggs are also amazing. They can survive for several months without water, and the population can be spread by wind or bird pecks.

This small pond is almost full of small crucian carp, with very few large crucian carp, probably because there is not enough food.

"Yan Yan, throw the scoop net to me." He shouted upwards.

We can’t waste so many small crucian carps. We’ll release the water from the outer pond later, and these seedlings will be just the right time to replenish the water.

"Oh."

Yanyan did as she was told and threw the scoop net down from above. She definitely couldn't come down, otherwise she would be scolded.

Qin Dahe took the scoop net and started catching small crucian carp. There were so many of them, almost as many as minnows.

As soon as the net was cast, the ratio of mud to fish was almost one to one.

As a result, when he was fishing for crucian carp seedlings, he actually caught a turtle. Qin Dahe happily threw the turtle into the transfer box.

The transfer boxes his family uses to store fish all have high sides, so there is no need to worry about the turtles running away when they are placed in them.

There are also some big crucian carp, and Hanwaer has been catching ondansetron and big crucian carp.

Qin Dahe stopped after catching some fish. The outer pond was so small that it would be useless to catch too much if there wasn't enough food to eat.

Then I followed the kid to catch fish, mainly loaches.

I finally met a wealthy dog seller, and it's rare to see such a high price of ten yuan.

After the pond was drained, more than two kilograms of loaches were caught, making a total of nine kilograms of loaches. The loaches alone were worth ninety yuan.

There are also two soft-shelled turtles and some miscellaneous fish. With just a simple job, I can earn a few hundred today.

Yanyan looked at the loaches in the basin curiously, and even reached out to grab two to take a look.

"Why are they charging this? Ten dollars." Yanyan asked curiously.

"How would I know? This is the only way to catch loaches in this season." Qin Dahe shook his head.

Silly Kid thought of what his elder brother said about fishing and immediately said, "Brother, do you know how to fish?"

Qin Dahe was shocked when he heard this. Yes, it is possible that these people buy loaches at high prices just for fishing.

The migration season of the Yangtze River has begun. The number of predatory fish has increased sharply, including in its tributaries. It is a good time to find loach nests.

Even though loaches are hard to catch at this time, you can still get them as long as you are willing to spend the money, just like the kids who cast nets for the high price.

This morning he caught more than a pound of loaches in his traps. Although it is a small amount compared to the number in the traps, it is still valuable when accumulated. Other catches can also be sold for money.

"Come on, let's go back and sort out the catch first. You can come with me to sell the fish tomorrow."

Then the two of them began to pack up, pour the crucian carp fry into the outer pond, and open a gap to let water in.

There are still more than two hundred meters of wires to be cleaned up. These wires are all thick copper cores with low resistance. He specially matched them for pumping ponds.

Copper has good conductivity, and the thicker it is, the lower the resistance. It can power the electric pump for more than 200 meters. When I got to Erye's house, I took a look at the meter and paid the bill directly.

It cost more than 40 yuan to pump the two ponds. The large electric pump consumes a lot of electricity. No wonder no one wants to pump ponds for fun.

If we can't get soft-shelled turtles and black carp, it would be all in vain.

He helped to pick the vegetables before my mother finished. There were some other edible wild vegetables on the slope, but they were too difficult to find so we didn't pick them.

Like the special vegetables sold in some big restaurants in later generations, which cost thirty or forty yuan a plate, now they are almost all used to feed pigs and chickens.

Among them, ground greens are a classic. Ground greens will grow wildly when cow dung meets rain. In later generations, fried ground greens with eggs cost 38 yuan per plate, which is outrageous.

The kid rode his bike to take the things back first, and the whole family spent a long time picking up things before they gave up with a big bag.

Then Qin Dahe carefully helped his wife onto the boat. She had come here to do nothing but watch the fun.

"Brother, when the baby is born, can you take me fishing? It's so fun."

I was so envious when I saw them catching fish just now, I wish I could go and catch them with them myself.

"We'll talk about it later. It's not good for women to go into the water." He was at a loss whether to laugh or cry. She was still a wild girl.

"Hey, if you don't want to bring it, just say so."

"Okay, take care of it. After you finish your confinement, we will come back to pump water from the pond." He touched the little girl's head, like a child.

He was completely unaware that the stupid things he often did were the same as those done by the child. Both the husband and wife were greedy and playful.

After moving the things onto the boat, he saw that most of the water in the outer pond had been drained, so he went over to block the hole.

Just use a few stones to block the gap, shovel some harder mud on it, step on it a few times, and you're done.

It’s okay even if the bank of this kind of outer pond collapses, as no one comes here anyway.

Only the people from the east end of the village come back to the shade of the graves here. His family’s grave is in the middle, a little behind his father-in-law’s house.

"Mom, we're going to have a drink at my kid's house tonight. Can you please prepare some wild vegetables for me?"

"Well, I'll give you half. We can't eat much at home." The mother nodded.

The purpose of eating wild vegetables is to enjoy their freshness. There are so many juicy vegetables in the vegetable garden that we can’t eat them all.

It is already past three in the afternoon. As we row the boat, the wind on the river feels quite comfortable. The leaves on both sides are emerald green and rustle in the wind.

The family was chatting about village gossip on the boat, without worrying about being overheard, and the little girl was chatting excitedly.

Recently she occasionally goes back to her parents' home, well, it's just a few minutes' walk, and then she plays with Amei and the others.

It was the first time for both pregnant women, and since they had a good relationship with the men, they often visited each other's homes to play.

Amei was very envious of the small attic in his family, but unfortunately, if her family wanted to build a big tiled house, they had to wait until the flower-making factory made a profit.

After returning home, the family started picking wild vegetables. The stems were too old now, so they had to pick more.

The kid took the rabbit home and burned it. It was very troublesome to clean up.

"Dahe, what should we do with those two yellow-skinned ones?" The old woman pointed at the weasel next to her.

"You can work leather?"

"No, my family doesn't hunt." Mother Qin shook her head. "You're the only one who does a little bit of everything."

"Then leave it here. If no one wants it in town tomorrow, I'll sell it to a shoemaker." He said indifferently.

Seeing Yanyan working with his mother, he went out and burned paper money at the grave, and also called Erhu and others to have dinner in the evening.

In the evening, the four brothers gathered together again with the baby.

The rabbit stew was fragrant, with plenty of spices, and some vermicelli and mushrooms were added to it to be eaten hot.

We drank beer today. Young people who are not addicted to alcohol rarely drink liquor.

"I caught this rabbit by the river. It's really fat."

"Awesome, haha, I can finally take a breath. I've been so busy these past two days." Erhu came up and showed off a bottle of beer.

"It must be done well." Qin Dahe said and started eating meat.

The rabbit meat is not fully stewed yet, but it tastes great.

It had already been bled once, so the silly kid took it home, cut it into large pieces, and soaked it for a while. After the blood was removed, there was no fishy smell.

Put a piece of meat in your mouth, chew it twice, and then take a sip of wine. It’s so delicious.

"Kid, how are you doing in your studies now?" Qin Dahe turned to look at the silly kid.

"Master, let me get the axe." The kid had also drunk a few bottles at this time, and his speech began to stutter again.

"Haha, that will be soon."

The carpenter's axe is the chef's knife. Being able to hold a big axe means you are starting to do big work.

"Brother, have a drink." The kid raised the wine in his hand, and the two brothers clinked their glasses and drank it all in one gulp.

One rabbit was not enough for them to eat, and there were also fried shredded pork with taro and a portion of braised crucian carp, all caught during the day.

"Let me tell you, there might be a group of loach gangs coming to Yuxi River. You two need to work faster." Qin Dahe looked at Erhu and the others.

"Loach gang? Is that the one you mentioned that hunts hundreds of kilograms of loach nests at a time?"

"Well, it's very likely. I'll go check it out tomorrow after I sell the fish. If we run into any loach gangs, we might be able to make some money."

If you want to go fishing at the loach nest near the Phoenix Bridge, at least the fishing spot in Sancha River will be useless.

But he couldn't stop it. Now we live in a society ruled by law, so he might as well go up and grab the nest.

"Then we'll work overtime, and if we really run into the loach gang, we'll go and intercept them." Erhu said without any psychological burden.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Most of the people who play with loaches are guerrillas, not locals. We just need to go there in the morning and occupy the nest."

Apart from catching mandarin fish last year, he himself was reluctant to play with loaches locally, as catching too many would ruin the Yuxi River.

Such a small tributary cannot withstand the presence of predatory fish.

The four of them were a little excited. Since Qin Dahe said that loaches can catch a lot of big fish, then it must be true.

Nowadays, carnivorous fish, except for alligator, are not cheap.

"Eat, this crucian carp is a bit fishy, I'll have to raise it a little bit next time."

“You have to raise it.”

After eating the rabbits, everyone started eating crucian carp. The wild crucian carp from the small pond was not of good quality.

The taro and bacon shredded pork was quite good, but it had been eaten up long time ago.

"I should have killed some duck earlier. How come you two still eat so much after your wedding?" Tiedan said contemptuously.

"We are getting married, not old, damn."

"That's right, I'm eighty years old and still eat so much."

What the hell, getting married will only reduce your physical strength a little, but it won't affect your appetite.

"Haha, I don't know who went to the meadow to chase rabbits and tore his pants. What a loser."

"Who knew there were so many rabbit holes over there?" Erhu said angrily.

(End of this chapter)