Top was standing next to me, looking curiously at the bacon rack. When it saw that all the meat on the rack had been swept away, its monkey face froze.
I never imagined that yesterday, when I thought I had arrived in heaven, I would be greeted with a pie as soon as I stepped outside.
Unexpectedly, all their hard work for a day turned out to benefit other predators. They and Top, the predator, didn't eat the lean meat, but instead ate all the scraps and scraps of their prey.
I was both amused and exasperated. Was this a stroke of luck or a misfortune?
But life goes on, and this time it wasn't all for naught.
After the lard I rendered yesterday cooled in the ditch by the stream, I tied it with a rope and hung it in front of my hammock. I also hung the python skin next to it.
This is the only loot that survived yesterday's ordeal; it's a consolation prize for my busy day.
Without food, I have no choice but to hunt. I have plenty of weapons now, and I'm confident I can take down any prey, whether small or large.
However, having learned my lesson this time, I no longer target large prey.
Large prey is troublesome to handle, and unless I build a permanent dwelling with protection, the prey I hunt may not be able to survive.
Otherwise, you'll end up like I did yesterday, where it's not only troublesome and time-consuming to deal with, but you might also end up doing all the work for someone else.
My sense of preparedness prompted me to act immediately. In the wild, you can't wait until you're hungry to look for food. This isn't a convenience store; you can't buy what you want with money.
Now all I have in my basket is that lump of lard and two pieces of skin; there's absolutely nothing to eat. While I'm still energetic and not hungry, I need to hunt some food to replenish my supplies.
This area is extremely rich in resources, and the animals have a habit of foraging and roaming near water. I think if I spend some time searching along this stream, I'm sure I can find some good prey.
I carried my shotgun and crossbow on my back, and held a delicate blowgun in my hand as I crouched and weaved through the streams; it would be enough for my hunt today.
My gaze remained fixed on those trees. I wanted to shoot down some big birds, but the trees here were nothing like the low willows by the lake.
The trees here are generally between fifteen and twenty meters tall. Although I can see birds, the branches obstruct my view, so I might not be able to shoot them.
I tried blowing a few times, but without exception, they were all blocked by the dense branches.
Or, even if a few shots do hit, they miss vital organs due to poor visibility, scaring away the injured bird and leaving only a feather behind.
The birds here are different from the silly birds I used to hunt by the lake. They are very alert, and they will fly away as soon as I get within ten meters of them.
The series of failures left me with a deep sense of frustration.
Continuing on would waste a lot of my precious energy, so in order to get some food, I had to change my strategy.
The water isn't very cold right now, and you can see some broadfin minnows, about two or three fingers wide, swimming in the stream. These fish have a beautiful red and yellow appearance, and many people in China like to keep them as ornamental fish.
This fish can grow to about half a pound, and some people have even seen a one-pound broadfin chub. But my understanding of it is mostly based on its taste.
The broadfin chub is highly adaptable and can be found in both temperate and tropical regions, as well as in small rivers and streams.
As a seasoned angler, my favorite thing to do when I was a kid was to catch this kind of fish, fry it in rapeseed oil until it was golden and crispy, then pick some cilantro, scallions and chili peppers from the field, chop them up, and mix them with soy sauce and salt.
Back then, if we could have a dish like this, the whole family would eat an extra bowl of rice. The delicious aroma, paired with a little wine, could get everyone in the house drunk.
These fish are naturally timid and will all run away when people are far away. The best way to catch them is by fishing.
However, the hooks and lines for fishing for these small fish are quite demanding. The hooks should be between size two and four; if they are too big, the fish won't be able to swallow them, and if they are too small, the fish will easily escape.
In addition, the fishing line must be a transparent carbon fiber line. Such a line is transparent in the water, and the fish will feel safe to eat the bait if they cannot see the line.
However, I don't have these things now. If I want to get them during the day, I either have to find some smartweed and squeeze out the juice to paralyze the fish, like I did before, or I can only use a trap to catch the fish.
Polygonum hydropiper is quite widely distributed in our area, but I haven't found any here yet, so the only option left is to use traps to catch fish.
The stream isn't very big, only about four meters wide. Now that I have a knife, making this kind of trap won't take much effort.
I came to the stream and easily cut down some bushes that were as tall as me. I will use these bushes to build a fence instead of stones.
The cut shrubs were cut to the appropriate length according to the deepest water level and placed in the stream in a large V-shaped fence to intercept the water.
When inserting the sticks, be careful not to leave them too sparse, otherwise the fish may escape through the gaps. After inserting them, leave a small outlet at the V-shaped tip to drain the stream water.
Downstream of the large V-shape, insert a smaller inverted V-shaped water barrier, with the tip of the V-shape offset from the tip of the first V-shape by about two centimeters.
Finally, insert two rows of wooden sticks along the edge of the small V-shape, connecting it with the outer bevel of the first V-shape to form a two-way hourglass structure that is larger at the top and smaller at the bottom.
This structure is a fishing trap that fishermen have used for thousands of years without any tools. It has a descriptive name: fishermen call it the "maze."
Don't underestimate this seemingly dilapidated structure; it was used in the 1970s and 80s when there were no new energy sources for fishing.
My uncle set up a large maze at the mouth of the river in our area, and it took him a full five days just to set it up.
The formation also has a fish exit, but the arrangement is slightly different from mine. I'm catching small fish in the stream, so I don't need the fish exit arrangement. Therefore, I set up a dead formation, where people can only enter but not exit.
But the kind of fish-mouth formation that my uncle set up was different. This kind of formation had a gradually narrowing body, and there were formations inside formations, all the way to the exit, which was a living formation.
I once heard my father say that the most fish he and my uncle ever harvested in a single day was over 1,600 jin (approximately 800 kg).
There were so many fish that they almost sank the family's fishing boat. In the end, they had to borrow another boat and make three trips to bring the fish home.
I was very satisfied with the completed miniature maze. As a child from a fishing family, I may not be good at other things, but as long as there are fish, there is no fish that we can't catch.
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