Chapter 15 Fishing
In fact, she is quite afraid of insects, but earthworms are an exception.
When she was a child, Grandpa Mu’s grandson told her that earthworms are pink and actually very cute insects. They don’t bite people and can help loosen the soil for plants.
When she was a child, she was brainwashed by these praises of earthworms, but when she grew up, she really didn't think this thing was disgusting.
That’s why we say education should start from childhood.
Zhao Yeqing caught a few earthworms, pressed them on a stone and cut them into several sections with thin pebbles.
Then I dug a small pile of mud by the water, mixed some earthworm segments into the mud, crushed them, and put the mixture evenly into the fish cage.
The earthworm bait mixed with mud can maintain its attraction for a longer time, is not easily diluted by water, and is not easily eaten by small fish that come in all at once.
Because the fish cage is made of plastic bottles and is light in weight, a few holes are poked on it so that when it is put into water, the water will not float up after being poured in through the small holes.
The remaining part of the earthworm is used to catch small fish.
The fish in the small pond were not very big. The largest one she had ever seen was only the length of a palm. If she wanted to catch a bigger one, she had to go to the small lake behind the mountain, which was a bit far away. She had only been there once when she was a child.
Small fish have small mouths, so you have to use a fishhook to hang a small piece from the earthworm bait. If the earthworm segment is too big, the small fish cannot eat the bait directly and will not bite the hook.
Water that is small but deep is a pool.
This pool is round, with many large protruding rocks around it. The area of the middle pool is about 150 square meters. The area near the edge is shallower and the water is clear and transparent. The innermost part where the water falls is the deepest, which may be more than 15 meters deep. The water is blue-green.
When she was a child, she often swam in the pond in the summer. Her grandmother watched her and reminded her every two minutes not to go too deep into the pond.
She placed the fish cage in the crevice of the rocks at the bottom of the water under the shade of a tree, sat on a large rock, and threw the fishing rod into the deep end of the pool.
Fish in the mountains are much easier to catch than fish in the city. As soon as the hook is thrown out, there will be bites.
Without even a slight probing motion, he bit the fish dead and dragged it down by the line.
Zhao Yeqing was amused by this silly fish.
This is so easy to fish.
Basically, as soon as the fish hook is thrown down, there will be a small fish.
After a while, there were more than ten fish in the bucket.
Maybe because this noise happened several times, the fish had learned their lesson. This time, the hook was thrown in but there was no movement for several minutes.
Zhao Yeqing was somewhat suspicious whether the bait had been eaten. Just as he was about to pull it up to check, the fishing line trembled slightly.
It was a fish that was nudging the hook.
This was the first time today that she had encountered a fish probing, and after probing it took a light bite, she could feel the line being pulled downwards, but with little force.
You cannot lift the rod at this time because the fish has not bitten the hook yet, and if you lift the rod the hook will come off.
After a few seconds, the water rippled slightly and she felt the hook being pulled down violently.
Zhao Yeqing stood up and guessed that the fish might not be particularly small. Her fishing line was very thin and the pulling force of the fish was very great. If she didn't tie the knot well, it would reduce the force on the fishing line. What's more, the pulling force of the fish was three times its own weight.
The fishing rod was made of thin bamboo and was quite tough. She lifted the rod up and down, then put it down and lifted it up again according to the force of the fish.
When the fish was exhausted, Zhao Yeqing seized the opportunity and pulled it up in one go when the fish was resting.
The fish struggled and swung its tail, splashing water all over her.
The small fish I caught before were all willow root fish, with gray-black backs and white bellies.
This one has a dark brown back with a light golden color in the middle, a white belly, and black vertical stripes on its body.
This is a creek grouper that is nearly twenty centimeters long!
Zhao Yeqing was a little surprised. The size broke the historical record of this pond. Moreover, this is also a rare fish with very high requirements for water quality. It is even rarer in the mountains. Before, some farmers from the countryside came to the market to set up stalls, and the wild stream grouper was sold for nearly 100 yuan per catty.
This one is one and a half palms long and probably weighs about half a pound.
This size is rare among stream groupers. The common stream groupers are small fish of seven or eight centimeters, similar to the size of willow root fish.
With this, I don't have to worry about food today.
She now tries not to eat stockpiled food if she can get fresh food sources, unless it cannot be stored.
She put away her fishing rod and planned to catch some more small shrimps. The small shrimps in the stream tasted extremely delicious. Not to mention the meat content, compared with sea shrimps, stream shrimps were far superior.
It’s sweet and fresh, without any fishy smell. It can be made into shrimp cakes without changing the meat.
There are so many small shrimps that you can squat by the stream, put your hands down gently and scoop them up, and you can catch five or six.
But each one is only two centimeters long, and it is difficult to hold it with hands. She didn't prepare it this time, so she will have to use a net next time.
It’s enough to catch about thirty shrimps, which is enough to make a big shrimp cake.
This morning was a rare moment of relaxation in recent days. Zhao Yeqing lay on a big rock and looked at the sky that was revealed between the dense leaves above his head when blown by the wind.
Surrounded by broad-leaved forests, Meishan, which is located in a subtropical monsoon climate, has evergreen broad-leaved forests, which are different from the deciduous broad-leaved forests in temperate zones. This type of broad-leaved forest has a relatively complex structure and is the most complex type of forest except for the rainforest.
The vegetation is dense and it is extremely quiet, especially by the water, which is like opening the door of a refrigerator when you get close to it.
Many shrubs common in this type of forest, such as rhododendron and camellia, grow around the pond.
Now is the season when these two flowers compete with each other for beauty. Camellia oleifera is similar to camellia japonica, except that the edges of the leaves are slightly different. Camellia japonica leaves are smooth, while Camellia oleifera leaves are serrated. The flowers have open white petals, and the flowers are not large with yellow stamens in the middle.
Zhao Yeqing prefers oil-tea camellia, whose flowers are elegant and graceful, and whose seeds are very practical.
The seeds of camellia oil flowers can be used to extract oil. Tea oil has many uses, in addition to cooking. When she was a child, no matter if she fell or was burned, her grandmother would apply tea oil to her.
The oil tea trees now have no tea seeds, and even if they have them, they don’t know how to extract oil. There are no tools, and they don’t know how to extract oil using the traditional method. Who has time to study that?
So Zhao Yeqing picked two bunches of flowers, one bunch of rhododendrons and one bunch of camellia oil flowers.
Even if it is not practical, it is still ornamental.
She also did not forget the ferns by the water. She ate the ferns in the spring and dug the roots of the ferns in the winter.
Fern roots are similar to kudzu roots in that they both contain high levels of starch. They can be made into fern cakes and fern root powder, and can also be used as a staple food. Fern cakes fried with bacon are also particularly fragrant.
She can definitely lock on to the pairing of bracken and bacon.
I won’t take the fish cage back today. The harvest is already more than I expected. I’ll come back tomorrow to collect them and eat fresh ones.
——
After returning home, Zhao Yeqing planned to make lunch while the ingredients were fresh.
She hasn't been eating on time lately, sometimes she's skipping meals.
After rescuing the musk deer yesterday, she discovered that her preparations for the medicine were not sufficient and reflected that she had not been taking good care of herself recently.
In today's situation, if you get sick, you can only leave it to fate.
She put the flowers she picked in vases, one bouquet in the living room and one in the bedroom.
Then pour today's catch into a large basin. The fish are put in a bucket, and the shrimps are put in a large leaf rolled into a funnel and filled with water, which is then scooped back by hand.
If you leave it together with the fish, several of them might disappear mysteriously before you even get home.
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