Chapter 251: Floating Barbed Nets Can Also Attract Fine Goods
On board, Liang Ziqiang brought one of his newly purchased floating barbed nets for rotation. At the same time, there were also two newly made seafloor slings, and two seafloor slings that Zhu Tianpeng also added.
On Li Liang's boat, Li Liang himself took advantage of the rain yesterday to make another underwater slither, but Deng Zhaocai did not add any more. He already had ten, and if he added more, he would have to search all over the sea and might not be able to take care of them all.
It rained a lot yesterday morning and the waves were pretty big. It was the first time for Liang Ziqiang to leave such a large floating net in the wind and waves, and he didn't know what would happen.
He had no idea whether the floating thorn net could withstand the wind and waves, and whether it would be washed away by the waves. He was thinking on the way that he should have tied the rope tighter earlier...
Gradually we arrived at Longju Ridge.
As soon as we entered the strait and arrived at the mouth of the gorge, we saw the buoy like a long white line stretching for dozens of meters, still floating on the water, and we finally breathed a sigh of relief.
At least, the entire net is still there and was not washed away by yesterday's wind and waves.
Moreover, there were not too many broken fish bodies floating on the water this time, which should indicate that there were no giant mackerels weighing more than 20 kilograms like last time, which ate many fish in the net to pieces.
I drove the boat to the floating razor net and first untied the thick rope tied to the stone pillar of the small island on the left. Just like last time, I started from the left side and gradually pulled the net towards the small island on the right.
The first few meters of the net were brought onto the boat first. There were some fish, shrimps and crabs, but some were stuck in the mesh or had their fins caught on the net.
But the difference is that this time the net was twisted more severely. It was twisted when it was pulled up and had to be adjusted several times.
After pulling them apart and spreading them out, the catch seemed less dense and obviously more sparse than last time.
"A Qiang, look, there are quite a lot of holes this time, even more than last time!" Zhu Tianpeng pointed to several holes on the net and showed them to him.
Liang Ziqiang squatted down and naturally saw it.
He picked up a piece of the network cable and took a closer look. This time the hole was not so neat, and it seemed that it was not entirely cut by the belly of the herring.
Judging from the messy torn parts, it looked like some other ordinary fish had fallen off while struggling, causing damage to the net.
"Look again!"
Liang Ziqiang stood up and continued to collect the net.
The net became more tangled as you moved toward the middle. It was precisely in the twisted areas that some fish were tightly entangled, while fish in other areas were relatively sparse.
"What's going on? The closer we get to the middle section, the fewer fish there are!" Zhu Tianpeng shook his head.
Li Liang and Deng Zhaocai also looked at it and said, "What's going on? It looks like there are much less than last time!"
"There's nothing we can do. The waves were big yesterday and washed down many fish hanging on the net, causing them to escape!" Liang Ziqiang smiled bitterly.
The entire net was more than twenty meters long, almost halfway completed. Various signs enabled him to clearly determine what had happened.
It was the big waves that distorted the net, entangled some of the fish in the net, and at the same time washed more fish down, allowing them to escape.
Whether it was curling and entanglement or falling and escaping, the whole process caused great damage to the net surface. Compared with the last time, this time the net was even more riddled with holes.
Although the amount of fish caught was smaller, the species were still rich, including golden pomfret, bluefin bream, thorny fish, swimming crab, small yellow croaker, large yellow croaker, six-line fish, toothfish, and slippery shrimp.
Unexpectedly, there were even cutlass fish. Normally, with its body shape and lack of long fins, it would be difficult for the cutlass fish to be caught by this kind of floating gillnet. If it encounters a cutlass fish, it cannot swim through, so it can just bypass it.
But this time the net was tangled so badly that some of the hairtails were trapped. It is estimated that when the hairtails passed by, they were washed onto the net by the waves and then twisted by the waves, and got tangled in the net like a zongzi, and could not get out.
Deng Zhaocai suddenly saw a large hairtail fish twisting in the net and immediately shouted:
"Oh my god, how come this hairtail is so fat? It must be five or six kilograms. Hairtails this big can't be found in shallow waters. I heard they can only be found in deep seas far away!"
Li Liang also said: "Brother Qiang, you have entangled a king cutlassfish!"
They were all right. Most cutlassfish weigh only a few taels, and a cutlassfish weighing over a kilogram is considered a relatively large cutlassfish. The cutlassfish in front of Liang Ziqiang was more than one meter long and weighed more than five kilograms. It was not an exaggeration to call it the king of cutlassfish.
Liang Ziqiang smiled bitterly again: "There are no Spanish mackerels today, the biggest one is this hairtail fish!"
Unfortunately, no matter how big it is, it is still just a cutlassfish, and the cutlassfish in the south are not very valuable.
The reason why this hairtail was trapped in the floating gillnet was that it was entangled in several threads, like being tied up, and no matter how hard it struggled, it could not escape.
There is no time to untie it now, so we can only leave it trapped for now. We have to wait until the boat returns to the village, then we will have time to slowly take the fish off.
He continued to pull the net forward. When he reached the middle and rear half of the strait, Liang Ziqiang felt the heaviness in his hands again, as if something was struggling under the water.
Deng Zhaocai obviously felt it too, and couldn't help but say:
"Here we go again! Judging from the situation, it's probably the same giant mackerel that was caught in the net again!"
Zhu Tianpeng felt that this was a little uncertain: "If it was a Spanish mackerel, there should be a lot of chopped fish floating up this time, right?"
"Maybe the broken fish got washed away by the waves? The wind and waves were so strong yesterday!"
The two men were guessing, but Liang Ziqiang ignored them and continued to pull towards the boat.
After a while, the truth finally came out.
A round and heavy thing was entangled in the net, and its head was trying to get out of the mesh. It was clearly a turtle! This turtle was not small, and it looked like it weighed about 50 or 60 kilograms.
The giant mackerel that was entangled last time was actually only about 20 pounds, which was small compared to this turtle.
No wonder Liang Ziqiang felt it was a little heavier than last time when he pulled it. Fortunately, the turtle didn't struggle as fiercely as the giant mackerel, so it didn't seem difficult to pull it up.
This section of the net was not as badly damaged as the last time by the swordfish.
The turtle was very nervous after being salvaged. Before, it just twisted its neck and kept sticking its head out, but now it was using its legs to push and scratch hard, as if trying to tear the net apart.
"It seems that the sea turtle can't be sold for much money, right?" Zhu Tianpeng looked at the sea turtle in front of him and immediately considered the economic value for Liang Ziqiang.
"Forget about the turtle." Liang Ziqiang shook his head and went into the cabin.
When he came out again, he was holding a chisel and a hammer.
"Come, help me get it out!" Liang Ziqiang signaled Zhu Tianpeng to stop collecting the net, and squatted down to help him untie the net wire entangled on the turtle.
"Are you going to release it? I guess the stuff on it is worth some money," Deng Zhaocai reminded loudly.
"You want me to tell you? What do you think Brother Qiang is going to use the chisel and hammer he took out from the cabin for?" Li Liang rolled his eyes at him.
"The little things on its shell are more valuable than the turtle itself." Liang Ziqiang said as he untied the turtle from the tangled netting.
The turtle was lying on the deck, confused about his situation. Seeing that Liang Ziqiang had a sharp weapon and a hammer in his hands, he seemed to think that he was in great danger and wanted to run away.
Liang Ziqiang aimed the iron chisel at the turtle shell, found the right oblique angle, and tapped it lightly with a hammer.
The turtle looked at him with a friendly look. At the same time, several barnacles fell down...
As long as you have the tools, it is not difficult to knock the barnacles off the turtle's back shell.
It didn't take much time. Liang Ziqiang had basically knocked all the barnacles off the turtle shell in no time.
But he did not release the turtle immediately. He planned to deal with all the gillnets in the strait first, and then sail to a farther place to release it.
He was worried that if he left it near the strait, the turtle would get entangled in his floating gill net again. Not only would it be difficult to toss, but it would also waste his net! After putting the turtle aside in the cabin, Liang Ziqiang took out a snakeskin bag and put all the barnacles he knocked off into the bag one by one.
Unfortunately, they were not chicken claw snails, but ordinary barnacles. The price difference between the two is huge. He sold the plump chicken claw snails for 18 yuan in Yuehai, and the barnacles were also sold in Yuehai for 4 yuan per catty.
And this turtle looks big, but there aren't too many barnacles on its body. It looks like it weighs only about 3-4 kg. I remember the turtle that Da Huang caught last year. The barnacles on its body weighed 5 kg! It seems that this big turtle is well maintained.
No matter what, three or four pounds of barnacles are worth a lot of money. Liang Ziqiang put the snakeskin bag aside and continued to collect the net.
In the second half of the floating gillnet, various kinds of fish continued to be entangled in it, but we never encountered big cutlassfish or big sea turtles like the ones just now.
After everything was collected, I got off the boat and went to the stone pillar on the right side of the island and untied the ropes tied to it.
The floating gill net on the fishing boat is like a giant flower roll again, but this time there are not so many fish and shrimp in the flower roll. We still have to wait until we transport it back to the village to pick it slowly.
Without rushing to put out new floating gannets, the two boats immediately headed for the waters near the reef belt of Longjuling to look for their own submarine bait.
The approximate location of the buoy was known to everyone. Liang Ziqiang came to the approximate location of the last buoy, looked left and right, but could not find the buoy for a long time.
I finally found the first one, but it was too far away from where I dropped it! Obviously, it was hit by the big waves yesterday and had deviated too much. Even though each seabed has two small anchors fixed to the muddy bottom, those small anchors are not very effective in the face of strong currents.
Once it is collected, the content inside is a bit hard to describe.
Usually, the fish that swim on the seabed are mainly plum fish, dragon head fish or slippery shrimp. In the Longjuling area, plum fish and dragon head fish are obviously very rare. In this net, the most common fish is green croaker.
In addition, there are some blue crabs, swimming crabs, mantis shrimps, white shrimps and green shrimps.
These are all normal and you will encounter them during normal seabed exploration.
The key point is, there are so many clams, Manila clams, Chinese snails, as well as various types of conches, fragrant conches, spinning snails, and phoenix conches that it is impossible to count them all at a glance.
The seabed has been there for so long, but has anyone ever seen a whole nest of clams and snails collected? They take up at least half of the space on the seabed, and they are quite heavy.
It seems that the waves here yesterday were bigger than expected, so much so that they lifted up all the clams and snails in the mud layer on the seabed and poured them into the seabed.
Don't expect this bunch of food to be worth much. Clams and snails are the cheapest, and bluefin bream is also relatively cheap. The only ones that are worth some money are those swimming crabs.
Not only the first dive is like this, but the three subsequent underwater dives are basically the same.
It was not until the fourth picture that Liang Ziqiang fished it out and took a look, and he finally felt that his hard work had paid off.
Although there are still a small number of clams in this net, fortunately there are very few bluefin breams in it, but silver pomfret.
Silver pomfret is a fish that likes to swim deep under the water. It is not surprising that it dives into the seabed, but it is still rare to catch so much in one dive!
Silver pomfret always fetches a good price, and this catch did not disappoint him.
Then we found the fifth net, and unexpectedly this net had an even richer harvest. In addition to a few clams, the most abundant thing in it was toothfish.
Another thing is the red octopus. Whether it is red octopus or tooth slices, the price is not bad.
Last time, Liang Ziqiang had increased the number of underwater eagles, not the previous four, but a full six. He had only collected five so far, and he had to keep looking.
The strange thing is that after wandering around the entire sea for quite some time, I couldn't find any trace of the sixth photo, as if it had evaporated.
Until the two underwater traps released by Zhu Tianpeng were found and fished out one after another, Liang Ziqiang's sixth trap was still not found.
Finally he had to accept the fact that the remaining one could never be found as it had been completely washed away by the waves and no one knew where it had gone.
When Li Liang and Deng Zhaocai finished collecting their nets, they found that he was not the only one who lost his net. Li Liang and Deng Zhaocai each lost a net.
There is no way. When encountering this kind of weather, sometimes being carried away by the waves is unavoidable.
A few people did not give up. They poured out the old sea breams, found a new place to throw them down after they were airborne. At the same time, they also threw the new sea breams on the boat into the sea.
When preparing to turn around, they saw a bulky object in the cabin constantly crawling towards the side of the ship. It was actually trying to climb up the side of the ship by itself and roll into the sea.
Liang Ziqiang then remembered that there was a big turtle on the boat, but he had been too busy to take care of it. This guy was so anxious that he even planned to escape from prison himself.
Anyway, this area of water is quite some distance away from the mouth of the strait, so Liang Ziqiang picked up the turtle and put it into the sea.
The turtle seemed a little bit unable to believe that he would be so kind as to give it a chance to live. It spread its limbs and flapped in the water like a child, revealing a sense of joy.
Instead of swimming away immediately, it circled back and forth around his boat several times, as if to express its gratitude.
Finally, it swam away. Without the interference of barnacles, the turtle swam very fast and turned into a small dot in the blink of an eye.
They also drove the boat back to the strait. Liang Ziqiang once again tied the brand new floating razor net prepared on the boat to the stone pillars on both sides of the strait.
They drove the boat all the way back to the village and moored it at the pier. Liang Ziqiang saw many fishermen walking on the shore, so he spent some money and invited them to come and help pick fish.
The adults were naturally more skilled and methodical at their work than the children. This time they spent less time than last time. It was still early in the morning, but they had already removed all the fish, shrimps and crabs from the floating nets.
If some of the fish hadn't been so entangled, it would have been even faster.
When selling the fish, Liang Ziqiang deliberately kept two of the "essence" fish.
One was a barnacle, which he did not intend to sell cheaply to Zheng Liu.
The other thing was the big hairtail fish that was picked from the floating barb net. Hairtail fish is a common commodity, only two cents, so Yuehai Restaurant definitely has it in abundance.
But such a fat and big hairtail fish can be considered the "king of hairtail fish". He thinks it is somewhat rare and the price should be different.
Apart from these two delicacies, all the remaining fish caught by Zheng Liu weighed 857 kilograms.
Compared to the 1,400 catties of fish caught last time, the catch was much less. The amount of fish washed away by the wind and waves should not be underestimated.
A total of more than ten or twenty kinds of fish and shrimp were sold for two hundred and seventy-three yuan and twenty cents.
Of course, it is much less than the last time when there were more than 410.
However, Liang Ziqiang's original worst-case scenario was that he thought the entire large floating net might have been swept away by yesterday's waves.
Compared with getting nothing at all, this harvest is actually a huge income.
Zhu Tianpeng's two Haidizhan tickets brought in over 20 yuan, slightly less than last time. Li Liang made over 70 yuan, and Deng Zhaocai made over 80 yuan.
On the way home, Liang Ziqiang thought that the tattered old floating lanceolate net might be of some use, so he loaded it on a cart and pulled it back home.
Place it on the gentle slope beside the house and let it dry.
When Chen Xiangbei saw the good floating gill net was rotten like this, in tatters, with holes of all sizes, he couldn't help but come over and ask him: "The net is so broken this time, I'm afraid it didn't catch any fish, right?"
"Today's income is really not much."
As Liang Ziqiang spoke, he took out some money from his pocket and handed it to her.
She did a rough count and said, "That's not a lot. There are at least two hundred or so!"
Judging from her tone, she was not disappointed at all. On the contrary, she seemed to be overjoyed.
It seems that she is more content than him. It is good to be content. A contented wife is more likely to be happy...
A few days ago, my savings had reached over 1,500 yuan, plus the more than 270 yuan I got from the floating net today, now I have saved up about 1,800 yuan at the bottom of the box!
There is no need to worry about the expenses that will be faced soon, such as the birth of my wife, the purchase of clothes and supplies for the children, and the second floor of the house.
Not only that, even the trawler he had been dreaming about for a long time did not seem so far away. At least, he could start planning to save money for the trawler.
As a fisherman, who wouldn’t want to go to deeper and farther seas, and catch countless fish from the deep sea…
The two chapters in one have been sent out. Happy reading, fellow readers!
(End of this chapter)
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