Aunt Chen was unconcerned: "It's not dangerous. Everyone wants to eat meat. We've been doing this for generations. If you come back early this year, you can still join in. It'll be so crowded and lively."
Listening to Aunt Chen's indifferent tone, Song Jin guessed that no danger had ever happened before and no one was aware of it.
But she herself doesn't quite understand how ice fishing works.
She could only go back to the space to search for information.
I just came across an article about ice fishing:
"In the Northeast during the winter, the land is covered in snow and ice for thousands of miles. The heating in the house makes people reluctant to go out. However, there is a group of people on the shores of Chagan Lake in Jilin Province who have to go out to work in the coldest time, doing a job known as "the most dangerous job in Asia."
Chagan Lake is located in Qian Gorlos Mongol Autonomous County in the northwest of Yuanshi City, Jilin Province. Its name is "Chagan Nur" in Mongolian, which means white holy lake.
Generations of Chagan Lake fishermen have lived a comfortable life relying on Chagan Lake, and have also formed a traditional fishing production method - Chagan Lake winter fishing, which is also one of the famous eight scenic spots in Jilin Province.
January of each year is the coldest time of year in Chagan Lake, with a thick layer of ice forming on the surface of the lake. This is the best time for winter fishing in Chagan Lake.
In the early morning of January, when the temperature reached minus 20 to 30 degrees Celsius and the sky was still dark, the fishermen from Chagan Lake drove a large team of horses to Chagan Lake.
They drove BMWs and sat in open carriages, without any of the arrogance of the horse nobles of a hundred years ago. They were just shivering in the cold winter, and even the horses were covered with a layer of frost.
It took me a full hour to walk from my home to the center of the lake.
Once they arrived at their destination, the fishermen first divided into four groups, each with 60 people, and went to their respective areas of responsibility. Then they hurriedly changed the horseshoes for the horses. Even the best horses would slip on the slippery ice, so re-shoeing became the top priority.
The first task of winter fishing in Chagan Lake has begun: digging holes!
Digging a hole is not an easy task. It requires not only physical strength but also brainpower.
The fishermen responsible for digging holes need to guess which piece of ice has fish gathering under it, and then decide where to dig the holes.
It can be said that their judgment determines the amount of fish caught in a net.
There are 16 fishermen responsible for digging holes. They work in groups of two. They first use iron tools like anchors to chisel open the 70-centimeter-thick ice surface, then use shovels to dig out ice chips, and then continue to chisel down with force, repeating this process over and over again. After about a minute, icy water gushes out, but this is far from enough to make a hole.
They need to dig 320 small holes and two large holes 3 meters long and 1 meter wide to serve as entry points to the net.
This type of work requires both brainpower and physical strength, but the daily wage is only 90 yuan.
After the hole is dug, the net is lowered.
A huge net was dragged down from the carriage. How big was it? It was a full two kilometers long.
Just one fishing net requires many fishermen to pull and cast it together.
The really difficult part of the netting process is how to cast a large net under the ice. After all, it is ice, the fish are under the ice, and people are on the ice.
As a traditional production method, the ancients had long thought of the method of casting nets.
Fishermen standing on the ice use a guide rope and wooden pole to pull the fishing net from one hole to another, connect the entrance and exit of the net, and a huge fishing net is spread out.
Finally, it is the finishing work of winter fishing - pulling the net.
Such a huge fishing net requires both humans and horses to pull it.
Because the ice was very slippery, people and horses often slipped. Even if the horses had just had new horseshoes, they still stumbled when they walked.
The fishermen tied the fishing net rope to the net-discharging wheel, and the horses pulled the net-discharging wheel like a donkey pulling a mill. The wheel rotated and the fishing net was pulled up.
It can be said that winter fishing in Chagan Lake is a great test for both fishermen and horses!
As the fishing net is pulled up little by little, the fish in the net are also brought ashore. This is the most exciting moment of the day.
Fishermen swarmed on both sides of the fishing nets, scooping up water with shovels from time to time and splashing it on the fish to keep their bodies moist.
These fish are all very large, and large fish weighing dozens of kilograms can be seen everywhere. There are also many types of fish, among which the main one is Baotou fish.
From dawn to sunset, this net represents a day's catch, ranging from tens of thousands of tons to hundreds of thousands of tons! This is equivalent to the average fisherman's catch in half a year.
In a joyful atmosphere, the fishermen put away their heavy fishing nets, loaded their carts with fish, and returned home with a full load.
The biting cold wind, low temperature environment and hard ice surface make this job "the most dangerous job in Asia"!
And this kind of work will continue throughout January.”
This article was published in 2022. After reading it, Song Jin had a general understanding of ice fishing.
But this is an article for the future. In this day and age, the tools are backward and everything is backward, so we definitely can't catch that many.
And the risk factor is even greater.
Holes in the ice, ice thickness, incomplete tools, and weather conditions can all be reasons for danger.
The Chagan Lake mentioned in Song Jincha's article is not here. The river they go to for winter fishing flows near the brigade. Although it is only a tributary, it is also very large.
She had to start preparing early, taking into account all possible dangers and making preparations in advance.
Seeing Aunt Chen's expectant and excited look, she knew that the idea of persuading the captain to give up ice fishing this year would probably not be feasible.
In this day and age, people rarely eat meat, and there are many people who can only eat meat once or twice a year.
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