Chapter 224

"Hey? There's a small one on its back."

Ye Yaodong put it on the ground, watching its mouth open and close. Why did it look so familiar?

"Damn, this is a toadfish!"

He looked at it carefully for two seconds and instantly thought of what it was. No wonder he felt the rod on its head was so familiar; it looked just like the face of a toadfish. This damn thing was a toadfish.

Common toadfish are brown; this one was suddenly black, no wonder they didn't recognize it for a moment.

"A toadfish? Aren't toadfish all brown?"

"There are also black ones, which are rarer, a different variety. So disgusting, that wide-open mouth is still moving, it's not dead yet. I'll give it a whack with a stick to let it die first."

Generally, they would kill the big fish they pulled up first, to avoid some fish that weren't dead yet from lashing out and hurting people.

They hadn't recognized this fish before, which was why they were curious and hadn't moved for a moment.

After killing it, Ye Fu wanted to take the small one on its back off, but found it was stuck and couldn't be taken off. The small one was estimated to be only three or four centimeters big.

Ye Yaodong explained, "This tiny one is the male, and the big one underneath is the female."

When a male toadfish meets a female, it will parasitize, attached for life until death, commonly known as eating soft rice!

Toadfish is what the locals call it; its official name is anglerfish, or monkfish. It is a near-bottom carnivorous fish, generally most abundant in winter and spring.

Their bodies are short and conical, but their heads and bodies are wide and flat, looking just like a toad. Their mouths are large, filled with uneven sharp teeth, their eyes are on the top of their heads, and their bodies have no scales.

But they have low and round tubercles on their forehead ridges, and it is these tubercles that make them look "unrefined" and ugly.

The longline fishing he placed last time also didn't have a float, but was sunk to the bottom to fish for bottom-dwelling goods, which was why he could catch this black toadfish.

The characteristic of this fish is that there is a fleshy protrusion above the head, like a small lantern, which is formed by the gradual extension of the first dorsal fin of the anglerfish. The reason the small lantern can glow is because there are gland cells inside the lantern.

Many fish in the sea are phototactic, so it often uses its small lantern to hunt.

It has a lot of sticky mucus on its body, which feels disgusting to touch, but it is a kind of colloid. The meat fibers inside have very high elasticity, and the skin is rich in colloid, which beautifies the skin and increases skin elasticity.

But also because it looks ugly and feels disgusting, the price is very cheap.

"Ugly fish make trouble, wasting time, continue pulling the line."

This one was so big, it wouldn't exceed five cents a pound at most, and the small ones might only be two or three cents a pound.

After Ye Yaodong muttered a sentence, he continued to pull the line, but it was an empty hook. The bait on it had long since disappeared; it must have been too long since they came to collect it, and it had run away.

He hadn't held much hope in the first place; it was good enough to be able to pull these lines back.

He continued to pull the line, only to find another toadfish. This one looked normal, brown.

Maybe it was because they were fishing for bottom-dwelling goods, but apart from most of the hooks being empty, the remaining hooks caught toadfish one after another, and the freshness was quite good.

Although cheap, it was better than nothing.

As he pulled, he found the hook was a bit heavy, and he immediately regained his spirit. As the line became shorter and shorter, the father and son both saw a large white long-shaped fish, shaking the water spray as it was pulled and floated up.

Ye Fu was also surprised. "Big tarpon!"

This fish can not only be caught in the sea, but also in some freshwater rivers. Big tarpons have migratory habits, and they are distributed in nearshore waters and freshwater-seawater junctions.

Ye Yaodong grinned. Finally, there was a big fish. "Father, help me get the hand net. This one is several dozen pounds, it's not easy to pull."

Maybe because it had been hooked for too long, the activity of the big silver carp wasn't that good, and it felt like it was breathing more than it was inhaling.

He had heard before that when a big silver carp is hooked, it easily jumps 2-3 meters out of the water.

Just as he shortened the distance of the line and let the fish get close to the side of the boat for his father to net, he saw a large group of big tarpons jumping continuously on the sea not far away, one after another.

"Father, look over there."

Ye Fu was holding the hand net and preparing to lean over to net the fish, but when he heard his call, he looked in the direction he was pointing with doubt and was also surprised. "Are they all big tarpons?"

I saw that they had actually jumped out in patterns, and they were constantly changing directions while flying.

The body of the big tarpon is slender and laterally flattened, like a clumsy saber, shining with silver light, and the whole body exudes a cold air.

This kind of slender fish is very good at jumping and can use the extended fin rays at the rear edge of its dorsal fin to change direction from time to time while jumping.

"Net this one up first, I'll re-release the buoy. It just so happens that this fish is pulled up, just at the interface of a basket of branch lines. Untie the line and pull it back, re-tie the buoy and throw it down to make a mark, and we'll drive the boat over there to take a look."

This big silver carp is also very cheap. Although it looks delicious, in fact, its meat is soft and rotten with many thorns, and the meat tastes poor. It is usually pickled into salted fish.

However, although it is cheap, the size is there, and one can be worth a few yuan. If they can catch a few more, they can earn back some oil money. The harvest situation today was not very good in the first place.

But things went against their wishes. The father and son worked together to drag this big silver carp to the shore, and when they finished the fishing line and went over, they found that the group of big tarpons had stopped jumping and had all dived into the water.

Ye Yaodong didn't give up and increased the horsepower to drive the boat to the sea where they had just jumped.

Looking at the figures getting smaller and smaller under the sea, Ye Fu quickly spread the hand net to its maximum. When he drove the boat over just now, he had already organized the fishing net. When he came over and found them diving to the bottom of the water, he threw it at high speed.

After staying for a little while, the two worked together to pull it up, and the biceps on their arms bulged high.

"Damn, so heavy."

Each one weighed several dozen pounds, and it wasn't easy to pull even if you caught a few.

He felt he needed a net hauler. Pulling such heavy goods every few days, his arm strength couldn't take it. He had originally thought that winter was coming and the opportunities to go out to sea would decrease, so it wouldn't be too late to get it in the spring of next year. Now it seemed it was better to prepare it in advance and put it there.

In case a big cargo or a big fish came along from time to time, his arms couldn't take it.

The father and son gritted their back teeth and moved this net up little by little. There were only four fish in this net, but each one was over a meter long, probably between 1.3 and 1.5 meters, totaling two or three hundred pounds.

"I'll throw another net to see if there are any more."

"There should be none left, they might have all swum to the depths of the seabed."

Ye Fu felt it was better to try. Unexpectedly, there were really none left. This net only caught 4 squids and 9 prawns.

"Not bad, it's okay, didn't come up empty. These can be brought back to eat tonight." Ye Yaodong happily picked these up from the deck and put them in a bucket, placing them separately.

These squids and large prawns were good goods for him, and their family of four liked them.

Ye Fu looked at him with disgust; he was only thinking about eating!

Ye Yaodong also saw his father's eyes, but didn't care. Where would he understand the joy of this simple eating and drinking?

After trying a net and finding nothing to catch, they returned to collect the longline hooks.

As a result, two sea breams were already rotten. They had been left for too long, and the hooks were swallowed relatively deep, so they had died early.

The lines collected subsequently were also mostly empty hooks, and many fish had struggled free.

After collecting to the end, a few flatfish also came up, which were turbot, also known as multi-treasure fish.

Because left-eyed turbot, right-eyed sole.

Flatfish are peculiar in shape because both eyes are on one side of the head, and the other side has no eyes, which easily attracts attention.

Lay the fish flat and let the fish belly face yourself. The one with the head to the left is turbot (multi-treasure fish), and the one with the head to the right is sole, also called opium fish.

After Ye Yaodong collected two in succession, he threw them directly into the basket.

It only took him more than an hour to collect 1000 hooks. It was also because there were many empty hooks, so it was a bit easier today. There was no need to engage in a tug-of-war with big fish, and the speed was faster.

After dismantling all the ropes, he checked the goods. In addition to the 4 big tarpons caught by the hand net, the longline fishing also caught 3, plus two baskets of toadfish, a few small devils, a few flatfish, all of which were bottom-dwelling fish, and a few squids, which was barely acceptable.

"Father, let's eat first. After eating, dragging two more nets will be about enough."

"What time is it?"

In the past, when there were no watches, they didn't look at the time. Anyway, they ate when they were hungry, and returned when the sun tilted west. If there was no sun, they returned according to the situation. If the wind picked up, they returned early.

Now that there is a watch to check the time, it is much more convenient.

"11 o'clock."

"Yeah."

The two went to the cabin to block the wind, took out their already cold lunch boxes, and ate them in big mouthfuls. There were no conditions, and they weren't particular. It was enough to fill their stomachs.

Fortunately, although it was cold, the food was really delicious, and the portion was sufficient. Going out to sea was hard work in the first place, and eating enough was the most basic requirement.

While eating, Ye Yaodong started to ponder. When he went back, he could perhaps buy a coal stove and put the lunch box on it to heat it up. Otherwise, in the middle of winter, eating cold food into his stomach wouldn't be comfortable.

He could also bring a small pot and a little freshwater on the boat. When eating, he could throw some shrimp and crabs he just caught into it to cook as an extra meal. If he brought a small pot of rice wine and heated it up to drink two cups to warm his body, thinking about it felt quite beautiful.

Suddenly, the cold food in his hand didn't taste good, but he had to eat it, so he accelerated his eating speed.

Seeing this, Ye Fu also accelerated his speed.

After the two finished eating, they rested in the cabin for a while before going out to continue releasing the net.

After it got cool, you never knew when the wind would pick up on the sea. Take advantage of this moment to release the net quickly and strive to drag two more nets.