Chapter 17 Picking Seafood on the Beach
The morning farce ended when Zhang Wu was grabbed by the collar and given a good beating by his mother.
After eating the rice porridge with pickles cooked by his mother, Zhang Ze carried a bamboo basket and a bucket on his back, and set off with the straw rope he made last night and the line and fish hook he bought from Tong Yuanhang.
When passing a forest, he broke off a relatively straight branch, which was about one meter long and as thick as a middle finger.
The most important thing is that there is a fork in the front of the branch. He broke off most of it, and the remaining part was just like a hook that could pull things out of the cracks in the rocks.
There is no iron hook, so just make do with this!
With his two younger sisters following him, Zhang Wu had already run ahead.
The reason why they set out so early today was naturally because Zhang Ze was optimistic about the tide.
After so many years of sea fishing, he knows the rise and fall of tides just as well as any other fishermen.
Today is the fourteenth day of the lunar calendar. The low tide is estimated to be a little after five in the morning, and the high tide is around noon, so he set out early in the morning to go fishing.
The tide time difference is about fifty minutes every day, and it is different in each area.
If you understand the tides, you will understand the schedule for going to the beach. If you go to the beach when the tide is just going out, you will basically get something.
Moreover, the tide receded farther today, so there were more things to catch. Zhang Ze was looking forward to how many good things he could harvest at the beach in this era.
The beach was not very far away, but the road was muddy and difficult to walk on, so it took them more than half an hour to get there.
At first glance, it's all mudflats exposed after the sea water receded. There is a very good location on the left side, which is an undulating group of reefs, and even a small beach can be seen faintly.
Fishing over there on the reefs is pretty good, and you should be able to find a lot of good stuff in the cracks of the rocks. Zhang Ze decided to pick them up along the way.
"Brother, what are we going to catch?" Zhang Wu was eager to try and seemed impatient.
"Aqian, you take the two of them and catch whatever you want. By the way, keep an eye on Awu and don't let him step into the puddles." Zhang Ze handed them the bucket and planned to act alone.
Then he rolled up his trouser legs, took off his shoes and walked barefoot into the mud.
In this day and age, you basically don't have to worry about glass pieces or anything like that. The only thing you need to be careful about is sharp shells and pointed stones, but there are not many of these two things on the mudflats.
Zhang Qian and a few others followed suit, took off their shoes, rolled up their trouser legs, and continued to follow him.
They had only walked a distance when some small jumping fish caught their attention.
Zhang Wu's eyes lit up: "It's Lawu, brother, let's catch some Lawu!"
Lawu, the dialect name here, is actually the mudskipper, also known as the big jumping fish.
Jumping fish can be seen everywhere on the mudflats, even in later generations.
But there are two types of jumping fish. Small jumping fish can be seen everywhere even in later generations. No one eats them, and one is basically only the size of a finger.
But the mudskipper is different. It is a fish with economic value and can be farmed.
It is also the main target of rural people coming to the beach. They don’t want crabs or various clams, but only this kind of mudskipper.
He took a quick look and found that there were quite a few mudskippers, each of which was fifteen centimeters long.
"Okay, why don't you guys just catch some lawu here, and I'll go look somewhere else."
Zhang Qian and Zhang Qing had no objection because the fish could be caught and fried with pickles, which was quite fragrant.
Zhang Wu was a little hesitant. Rather than catching the fish, he wanted to follow Zhang Ze and see what he was going to catch.
But he had to take care of his two sisters, so he stayed here after hesitating for a moment.
Zhang Zeke had no idea what he was thinking and continued moving forward with the bamboo basket on his back.
The closer you get to the sea, the more you can discover.
After a while, he found a small stingray in a shallow pit that did not have time to retreat with the tide.
Small rays are edible, but he doesn't want to eat them that much.
Seafood is everywhere these days, and stingray is not high-end.
The main cooking oil now requires a ticket, and stingray is not as precious as that cooking oil.
He avoided the ray's poisonous tail, grabbed it and put it directly into the fishing space.
[Successfully caught a stingray, weighing 1.23 catties, experience +2. ]
I have two experiences, which are not bad. I will release it when I have the chance.
Continuing forward, the next moment, he was attracted by a stranded bright silver fish. When he got closer, he saw that it was indeed a cutlassfish.
And it’s not small, it’s actually three fingers wide. This size of East China Sea hairtail is just right for cooking a plate.
But when he picked it up and took a look, he was a little disappointed because the hairtail was already dead.
Without ice, the hairtail would have become rancid and inedible by the time he returned at noon, but it wasn't the middle of winter and there was no way to preserve it.
But he had no reason to regret it, as he would be able to catch live hairtail anytime he had the chance in the future, so there was no need to rush for just a short while.
He decided to take the dead hairtail with him, as it might be useful later.
We continued to move forward. The soil under our feet became softer and it became more difficult to walk.
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He looked back and saw that Zhang Wu and the others were catching mudskippers, so he began to look for blue crabs with peace of mind.
Blue crabs were one of his favorite crabs, but the price was too high in later times. A pound of farmed blue crabs cost more than one hundred yuan, so he couldn't bear to eat them often.
So he could only buy some swimming crabs to satisfy his craving during the crab season every year.
Later, I got gout and couldn't eat crabs anymore.
Every time I couldn’t resist eating it, my legs would hurt so much that I couldn’t walk and had to lie down, or if it was more serious I had to go to the hospital.
The tide had just receded and there were many small fish and shrimps stranded on the mudflats, and all kinds of crabs crawled out of their burrows to look for food.
Zhang Ze walked towards the reefs while scanning the mudflats.
Just then, a crab with long claws caught his attention. It was a swimming crab. He hurried over and held down the swimming crab that wanted to run away.
Then I picked it up and held it under the sun for a look. The edge of the crab shell did not let in light, so it was very fat. Then I put it into the fishing space.
[Successfully captured a three-clawed swimming crab, weighing 0.87 catties, experience +2. ]
Oh, crabs can also gain experience, he thought only fish can! It seems that upgrading the fishing space should be much easier than imagined.
Then he looked at the situation in the fishing space again and found that the swimming crab was crawling around below, and the fish swimming above did not attack it.
Under normal circumstances, let alone the mandarin fish in the space, at least the black fish will definitely attack the crabs that look much smaller than themselves.
But the fishing space should have special capabilities that can allow all aquatic creatures collected into the space to live in peace, so as not to cause him indirect losses.
Especially when he saw that stingrays could survive in this space, he could only sigh at the magic of this space.
He stopped and walked along the way and found quite a few fish stranded on the mudflats. He even saw a yellow croaker.
Unfortunately, it had already started to stink and they arrived a little late.
When Zhang Ze arrived at the reef, he had already caught five swimming crabs weighing between 8 taels and more than one kilogram.
Three octopuses and a small blue crab weighing 6 taels, a pretty good harvest.
This is how you go fishing in this era. Just walk around and pick up things. There’s no need to dig everywhere like in later generations.
Climbing onto a reef, Zhang Ze looked at the terrain of the reef group.
When he saw a tall and flat reef, his eyes lit up. This was a good location and very suitable for fishing.
Before he had a boat, he could come here to go sea fishing.
In fact, Zhang Ze wanted to try it now, but the tide had just receded and these reefs were full of treasures, so he had to collect them first.
(End of this chapter)
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