The season for swimming crabs has arrived, and smiles are on the faces of the villagers.
Ye Cheng looked around and saw that almost everyone in the village with a fishing boat had gone out to sea today, with 3-4 people on each boat, often with their families.
Upon arriving at the dock, the scene became even more lively, with a sea of people that made Ye Cheng's eyes dazzled.
grass!
Are you sure this is a dock, not a train station during the Spring Festival travel rush?
"Second brother, just follow the main group in a bit, there are too many boats." Duan Chunsheng said before boarding the boat on his own.
A thousand sails race, ten thousand horses gallop—damn, it's really crowded!
Ye Cheng cautiously followed the main group out to sea. Xiao Hu glanced at the other boats, which each had only three or four people, and began to worry.
"Brother, can the two of us finish this? Should we call your brother over?"
Ye Cheng scratched his head. It seemed he should have called for help, but there was no time today. They had already set sail, and it would be too late to call now.
Never mind all that, let's just get it done first.
Ye Cheng followed the majority of the group and drove off. The group was all heading in the same direction, and at that moment, no one could resist the allure of the swimming crab.
After sailing for 40 minutes, Ye Cheng noticed that the boats were slowly dispersing, some to the left and some to the right, while others continued forward. Ye Cheng didn't know which one to follow.
Seeing that there were quite a lot of people here, he simply drove forward a bit, where there were fewer people.
However, the fact that there are few people here definitely indicates that this area is quite far from the core area of the swimming crabs.
So what if it's far? I mainly rely on the system anyway, and with a luck value of 100, I'm bound to get a critical hit or something.
The swimming crabs were caught in the bottom net, so the two of them increased the weight. Looking at the large mesh, it seemed that they could only catch large catches today. Even yesterday's shrimp would escape from the net.
Before casting the net, Ye Cheng observed the angle of other fishing boats' movement, adjusted the direction of the bow, and then lowered the net.
A single trawling of swimming crabs usually takes 1-2 hours. This time, it was in a densely populated area, so Ye Cheng planned to calculate the first trawling time as 1 hour.
In the past, the sea was usually deserted at night, with only the occasional ship in sight. But tonight, the sea is like a bustling market. Every now and then, you see a light, or even a whole cluster of lights. Damn, what a crazy night!
During that hour, Ye Cheng was steering the boat, while Xiao Hu was preparing other things, tidying up the plastic crates and the area so that it would be easier to organize when the goods were loaded.
Just an hour later, Ye Cheng felt some pulling force from behind. He decisively called Xiao Hu to pull up the net. These were swimming crabs, not a school of fish. Since they were pulling force, it must be full.
As the winch slowly pulled up, Ye Cheng saw that the trawl net was halfway in when he saw the catch inside. The swimming crabs were frantically crawling around inside, trying to escape.
When the entire trawl net was brought up, Ye Cheng couldn't suppress his smile. Half a trawl net full of swimming crabs, probably weighing several hundred pounds, and this was only the first trawl.
"Brother, the net exploded!" Xiao Hu exclaimed happily. The net exploded on the very first try, what a good omen!
He skillfully untied the trawl net, and instantly, everything slid onto the deck.
Everywhere I looked, there were swimming crabs, some green and some blue. Some were still turning over, while others, taking advantage of their long legs, had already started looking for places to escape.
Apart from swimming crabs, there were none of the sea snails commonly found in bottom trawls; the mesh was too large to catch them.
However, some unlucky tongue soles were also caught in the net.
Ye Cheng was both delighted and worried about the large number of crabs. No wonder others brought more people; he only had two people. How long would it take?
Fortunately, Xiao Hu had made some preparations beforehand, placing a small stool on each side of the deck, along with a plastic basket, and the two of them got to work.
Ye Cheng casually picked up a swimming crab and examined it. This crab was over ten centimeters long, quite large indeed. However, there's a trick to choosing swimming crabs; some crabs, despite their size, might just be empty shells.
Generally speaking, to determine whether a swimming crab has meat, you mainly look at three aspects:
First, examine the crab shell. It should be a shiny, bluish-gray color, hard to the touch, and spring back quickly without denting. Next, check the protruding spines on either side of the shell. A meaty crab should have meat growing in these areas, not just an empty shell.
Secondly, check the crab legs. Pinch the longest leg of the blue crab; it should feel firm and solid. Also, the gap between the crab leg and the shell should be as small as possible.
Thirdly, weigh them. Of course, you should compare them with other animals of the same size; the heavier one is, the fatter it is.
The crab in Ye Cheng's hand is plump in every part and is a female crab with roe; it can definitely fetch a good price.
"Little Tiger, look at mine, it's even yellowish," Ye Cheng boasted.
Xiao Hu chuckled dismissively. Though he casually kicked a swimming crab that was trying to escape, he picked it up and showed it to Ye Cheng.
"Well, who hasn't turned yellow yet, right?"
Sure enough, there were yellow ones on his side too.
"Okay, then separate the yellow ones, it'll be easier to sell them."
After finishing speaking, Ye Cheng started tying up the swimming crabs. Tying up swimming crabs is relatively simple because they are relatively small and weak. Just hold down their two pincers and put one on each side.
These rubber bands are specially made; the opening is smaller, so they fit perfectly. If they were regular-sized rubber bands, you would have to wrap them 4-5 times.
Once one was done, Ye Cheng put the finished product back into the plastic basket behind him, and then arranged them layer by layer. As for them trying to climb out, well, they couldn't.
There were so many swimming crabs on the deck that it was impossible to count them all. Ye Cheng became more and more skilled as he worked, and his speed increased considerably. Even so, it still took the two of them nearly an hour to tie up most of the swimming crabs.
Ye Cheng threw the remaining smaller crabs back into the sea.
The remaining fish were five tongue soles. Although they weren't worth much, we couldn't bear to throw them away. Xiao Hu simply tossed them into a basket, thinking, "Let them die if they want, it doesn't matter."
The two of them filled nine baskets in this net. If each basket weighs 20-30 jin (10-15 catties), then this net yielded more than 200 jin (100 kg).
With this part mostly tidied up, Ye Cheng started setting up the second net. There was no other way; time was precious.
The first haul took an hour, and the cleanup took another hour. It takes about two hours to haul in one net. Adding the travel time, you can only cast three nets in one night.
Because we have to get back around 5 a.m. and arrive at the dock around 5 a.m., so that the goods can be guaranteed to arrive at the major vegetable markets before 7 a.m.
Ye Cheng didn't strictly adhere to the one-hour time limit for the second net; instead, he relied on his intuition and started hauling in the net when the trawlers behind him were pulling on it.
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