Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1124: They collected over a hundred kilograms of fish!

When Li Long woke up the next day, he didn't feel the dizziness and headache he usually had after a hangover; instead, he felt quite comfortable.

Yesterday, the father and his two sons drank two bottles of Laojiao liquor. The father, Li Qingxia, drank less; the two brothers drank most of it.

Even after finishing the drinks, I wasn't drunk; on the contrary, I was very happy and quite sober.

Li Long came back to sleep without needing anyone to help him. Before going to bed, he drank a cup of honey water that Gu Xiaoxia had made for him. He didn't wake up in the middle of the night and is now well-rested and recovered.

The room was quiet and warm, with a glass of honey water on the desk by the window, still feeling lukewarm.

Li Long smiled. Feeling thirsty, he got up, dressed, and got out of bed. He picked up the honey water, felt that the cup was warm, and the water temperature should not be too high. He took a sip, found the taste just right, and drank it all in one go.

After drinking the honey water, Li Long felt that his mouth tasted a little off. Thinking that he hadn't brushed his teeth the night before, he put down the cup and went to wash up.

As he came out with his cup, he saw Li Junfeng squatting in the yard repairing a snow shovel. He looked up at Li Long, smiled, and asked:

"Uncle Xiaolong is up? I heard you guys were drinking last night?"

"Yeah, I caught some old sparrows yesterday and drank some wine with them. When is your wife due?"

"It'll be soon. I went to the township health center a few days ago, and they said it would be in the next few days. I plan to drive Uncle Jianguo's car to the health center tomorrow. Today, I'll go to Xiaohaizi to break the ice and catch some crucian carp so that I can have more milk after the baby is born."

“Is the small lake still frozen over?” Li Long waved his hand. “If you go to the small lake to catch fish now, you might not be able to catch any. The fish in the small lake are very clever. It will take at least another month or two until it freezes solid and the reeds on top are covered by snow and can’t breathe.”

"It won't work? I went to check it yesterday, and the ice on top seemed really solid, so I was thinking of breaking it open..."

Li Junfeng looked disappointed.

“Hey, if we don’t go to Xiaohaizi, we can go to other places.” Although Li Long doesn’t spend much time at the Fourth Team each year, he still knows the team’s situation very well. He said with a smile, “There are several places where you can get fish. After breakfast, I’ll take you there.”

"Hey, sure!" Li Junfeng immediately perked up. "Then, Uncle Xiaolong, what do we need to prepare?"

"Here's the net you're holding, and also the bag, to put the fish in. Oh, and put on your rubber boots, they might be a bit bulky."

This "bag" actually means cement mixed with something to stick to your feet.

“Okay, okay, that’s easy to arrange.” Li Junfeng was very concerned at this moment.

After brushing his teeth and washing his face, Li Long went to the backyard feeling refreshed.

When Li Junfeng entered the house, his wife was cooking rice porridge and asked him, "Who are you talking to?"

"Uncle Xiaolong said that you can't catch fish at Xiaohaizi, the time is wrong."

"what is it now?"

“He said he’d take me somewhere else, where I could catch him.” Li Junfeng was quite excited.

"Are you going to do anything about it?" Li Junfeng's wife asked, sensing that things weren't going to go smoothly.

"Hey, don't worry about that. Since Uncle Xiaolong said so, he'll definitely be able to get it." This wasn't the first time Li Junfeng had come, and he trusted Li Long completely. "Hurry up and get ready to eat. After you finish eating, don't worry about the bowls, I'll take care of them. After that, I'll go catch some fish. I'll ask Auntie to help look after you, or you can go to the backyard, it'll be better."

Since her husband had said that, the woman didn't say anything more.

When Li Long arrived at the backyard, they were already preparing to eat. Li Qiang, Mingming, and Haohao were playing with an old cow on the road when Li Juan came over to call them to eat. When she saw Li Long, she said she was also going to call him to eat.

In the morning, it's cornmeal porridge with sweet potatoes, red dates, and other ingredients added, making it a kind of mixed grain porridge.

Liang Yuemei cooked two dishes: pickled vegetables and stir-fried green peppers with eggs. The green peppers were actually left over from when the chili stalks were removed in October. They were stored in the kitchen storage room, and because they were in the shade and didn't see the sun, they hadn't turned completely red. She picked a few of the better ones and stir-fried them into a large plate.

The steamed buns I made the day before yesterday, I heated half of them and sliced ​​the other half and toasted them. The kids have already started eating the toasted bun slices.

The adults ate and talked about drinking yesterday, while Li Long said he would take Junfeng to catch fish later.

“We can’t catch any fish at Xiaohaizi now, can we? The ice is 20 centimeters thick, but there’s plenty of air underwater, so fish aren’t gathering.” Li Jianguo and Li Long shared the same thought: “It’s probably impossible.”

“I plan to take him to the reed ditch to the east. The ditch next to the reed ditch is always full of water. We can find a fork in the ice and lift it up. There will definitely be crucian carp underneath. If that doesn’t work, we can go to the drainage ditch to the east.”

“Don’t go to the alkaline drainage ditch, the water there is deep and troublesome. Let’s go to the reed ditch over there,” Liang Yuemei said from the side. “The water there is fertile and the fish are big, but they don’t see the sun often, so the fish may be darker.”

"Any big fish will do," Li Long said. "It's for lactation, so bigger is better."

"Uncle, can you take us there?" Li Qiang heard this from the other end and came over with a bowl to ask.

“You want to go? You’d better dress warmly. It’s not like Xiaohaizi. It’s not easy to walk in there. The reeds can prick your feet.”

"I know, we're wearing rubber boots, we're not afraid," Li Qiang said. "My sister and I will definitely take good care of Mingming and Haohao."

"They're going too?" Li Long smiled. "Then let them go."

Actually, Li Long brought the children here so that they could relax and experience rural life, so he had the idea of ​​bringing the children from the beginning.

Gu Xiaoxia decided not to go this time, and he said, "Then I'll go to the front yard. Junfeng's wife is about to give birth, so I'll keep an eye on things from there."

“Sure,” Li Long said. “Then I’ll catch the fish and cook it.”

“She needs it to help with lactation, what are you going to eat?” Gu Xiaoxia said.

"Don't worry, we'll definitely catch a lot more, and there will be plenty to eat," Li Long said confidently.

After dinner, Gu Xiaoxia helped Mingming and Haohao put on their cotton-padded coats, making them look like bread rolls.

Li Long was thinking about whether he should get some down jackets. This county town was too small; there weren't any for sale.

Looks like I'll have to go to Yanjing again and bring back some good stuff.

Li Qiang and Li Juan were also dressed warmly. According to them, they had finished their homework and were just relaxing on the weekend.

With Li Juan looking after Mingming and Haohao, Li Long felt at ease. Mingming and Haohao were quite obedient, unlike those unruly kids later on; they were smart and knew what they could and couldn't do.

To his surprise, his father was going along, as was his older brother.

“It’s not easy to get things done in there, it’s sticky. I’ll go with you, it’ll be faster to flip the ice,” Li Jianguo said. “Anyway, I don’t have much to do at home.”

When Li Junfeng arrived, everyone else was ready and had already started getting into the van.

There's a simple path leading to the farmland over the reed ditch. It's the dead of winter and the path is icy and hard, so it's a bit bumpy, but you can get through.

Li Junfeng greeted the elders one by one, then sat down at the back, jokingly greeting Li Qiang and giving Mingming and Haohao two pieces of candy.

These candies are Soviet candies that Li Long left here. Mingming Haohao thought they looked familiar, so he called him "brother".

I knew Li Junfeng when I was in kindergarten here, so we were acquaintances.

The Li family's minivan headed east, and many villagers saw it and wondered what they were doing.

Some children wanted to come and play with Li Qiang and Mingming and Haohao, but after watching the van drive away, they chased after it for a while before giving up.

When guests come to the village, the children are usually quite curious.

These were times when "travel and mail were slow, and one could only love one person in a lifetime." It was news whenever someone in the village had a guest. Children loved excitement and were curious about people from the outside world.

Although Li Long wasn't an outsider, Gu Xiaoxia and Mingming Haohao were already considered city dwellers receiving government-subsidized food rations. At this point, the rural people were already clearly aware of the differences between urban and rural areas, so when they came to watch, they felt a sense of envy.

Of course, the main reason is that people come and it makes the place lively.

The van didn't drive fast, mainly because the road was dirt. When Li Jianguo and his team returned from plowing the fields in the autumn, the road had been cut by the plow and rake, turning up the soil. In addition, after the first snowfall, some people, cattle and sheep had walked on it, making the dirt road muddy and uneven.

As a result, the roads became icy after the snow fell, making them difficult to travel. Moreover, with elderly people and children in the car, Li Long could not drive fast at all.

Fortunately, the road itself wasn't very long, less than three kilometers, and they quickly reached the edge of the reed ditch. Since the car couldn't go any further, Li Long turned off the engine.

"You guys take your time, I'll go over and see where to start," Li Long said, holding a shovel in one hand and a net in the other. "I'll call you over when I've got a good look."

There were elderly people and children in the group, so they definitely couldn't walk fast. Li Long asked Li Junfeng to look after them.

The reeds in Weihu Lake have all been cut, and the exposed reed stubble is very sharp. If you fall, you might get pricked, so you still need to be careful.

Li Long told them to walk along the edge of the reed lake, while he quickly walked to the head of the lake, soon putting a distance of two or three hundred meters between himself and the others.

There is a bend there. Because of its low elevation, whenever there is floodwater or excess water from irrigation ditches flowing into the reed lake, it gathers here and then overflows into the lake after filling this area.

After each flood, the reeds in the lake grow better.

However, after the flood, the terrain in Weihuli becomes higher. Originally, this area was several meters lower than the plain, but after several decades, it became level with the ground, and the reeds disappeared, and the land was developed into farmland.

However, the reed roots that have grown underground for decades or even centuries become nutrients for the mushrooms. Then, every year in spring and autumn, villagers dig up reed mushrooms of all sizes here, which is another kind of harvest.

Li Long looked at the bend in the ice. There was snow on the ice. He smashed it with a shovel and found that the ice was very thin and could not withstand a person.

The bend is quite large. If you open it up, you can catch fish with a net. The water under this bend has never dried up, and the fish have never disappeared.

However, because the waterside is relatively barren, not many people come to catch fish.

Li Long looked around, then at his family who had followed behind him, and decided to change locations.

He walked upstream, where there was an opening at the head of the reed lake, and further upstream was a branch canal. After irrigating the winter wheat in winter, the remaining water was in this canal, and then flowed into the reed lake through this opening, so it wasn't wasted.

He went up to the branch canal and found that there were many reeds and other weeds growing in the canal, but after they withered, few leaves remained, and ice could be seen at the bottom of the canal.

Li Long used a shovel to clear away the dry grass and went down to the bottom of the ditch. As soon as he stood on the ice, he found that the ice surface was a bit unstable. He knew that even if there was water under the ice, it wouldn't be deep. Since he was wearing rubber boots, he squatted down and stomped down, and the ice broke. After stepping on it, he found that there was about ten centimeters of water under the ice.

Right beneath his feet was a crucian carp, which he stomped on, bursting its belly open, and a stream of fish blood stained the black water red.

"Hey, there's a fish!" Li Long was quite excited. He quickly squatted down and lifted the layer of ice.

The ice was difficult to lift because reeds and other grasses grew on it. Li Long was strong and tried to lift it by force, but the ice was torn to pieces.

As soon as the ice was lifted, the crucian carp struggling to survive underneath began to thrash about!
Hey! There are big crucian carp!
Li Long was even more excited; there were quite a lot of fish!

This isn't catching fish, it's practically picking them up!

Clutching the large crucian carp, which weighed about three or four hundred grams, he darted up the ditch bank, holding it up and shouting to his father, older brother, Li Junfeng, and the children who were walking to the side:

"Come on over, there are plenty of fish here!"

Seeing the fish in Li Long's hand, the group of people fifty or sixty meters away became excited and quickened their pace. By the time they reached the canal, Li Long had already used a shovel to clear away a lot of the weeds along the canal and even shoveled away the snow, creating a better "path" for people to walk down.

"Come down and look under this ice, it's full of fish!" Li Long pointed and said, "Just pick them up!"

The people standing on the canal bank held their breath when they saw the densely packed fish under the ice that Li Long had uncovered!

Li Qiang actually saw the most fish among all of them, in the fourth team. Every spring and summer after watering, swarms of small crucian carp would gather in the remaining water in the ditch, eventually drying up and rotting.

When he was in elementary school, he would often take a net and follow the canal during the holidays, and he would find that there were many living creatures, but also piles of dead ones.

So he saw quite a lot of them, but they were all small fish, the biggest being only the size of a palm.

Look at the canal now, these fish with bluish-black backs, the smallest of them are the size of a palm, and there are quite a few bigger ones too!

"What are you standing there for? Come down and pick it up!" Li Long said with a smile. "Come on, come down, Mingming and Haohao. Wait a minute, I'll shovel a spot for you and your sister and clear the ice for you. Come down and pick it up too. After you're done, hurry back. The temperature isn't high here!"

Li Junfeng immediately said:
"Uncle, I'll shovel too. I brought a shovel." As he spoke, he walked seven or eight meters to the south, and like Li Long, he shoveled the grass along the edge of the ditch, piled it up with the snow, and then made a path down to the bottom.

Without Li Jianguo saying a word, he had already cleared a path with a shovel, carried a bag down, and shoveled up a block of ice. When he saw the fish underneath, he smiled.

"Dad, come here!" Li Jianguo called to Li Qingxia. The old man didn't bring a shovel, but a bag. Seeing his eldest son calling him, he followed him downstairs.

The same thing happened when the ice was lifted; there were many fish. The deeper the water, the more fish there were, and in the shallower water, some fish had frozen to death.

"Wow! So many fish!" Mingming finally exclaimed. "Dad, you're amazing!"

“That’s right! Dad, you’re the best!” Hao Hao added.

Li Long laughed. What did this have to do with his own prowess?
Hao Hao probably thinks he's pretty amazing for being able to find these fish.

If these fish don't notice, they will freeze completely in the ice within half a month, and when they thaw next spring, they will become rotten fish.

Li Juan went down to the bottom of the canal first, found a place to stand, and then took Mingming and Haohao down one by one, holding a bag for the two children to put fish into it.

"I caught it!" Mingming bent down and grabbed a big crucian carp with both hands. The fish was longer than his face. After being grabbed, it naturally struggled desperately, resulting in Mingming's face being covered with many black mud spots.

But he kept squeezing his eyes open while trying to put the fish into the bag, refusing to let go.

Hao Hao followed suit, grabbing one but not holding it properly, and the fish slipped into the water. He immediately tried to grab it with both hands, catching a slightly smaller one, and held it up to show Li Long, completely ignoring the mud splattered on his face and mouth.

"Alright, alright, hurry up and put them in." Li Long was both amused and exasperated. It was a rare moment of joy for the two kids to catch fish, so he decided to let them play.

Anyway, it's Gu Xiaoxia who'll be annoyed when they get back; in just a short while, they've already covered themselves in mud.

Li Qiang didn't stay there; he ran over too. He and Li Juan stood to the south and north of the canal, protecting Mingming and Haohao. Li Long kept picking fish into the bag. Li Long felt relieved. He carried his shovel and walked around, discovering that this section with water and fish was more than 20 meters long, and he could catch quite a few fish.

Li Qingxia said cheerfully, "This is the first time I've picked up fish like this, and they're all quite big! This must weigh over a hundred pounds! Junfeng, you're in luck!"

"I didn't know Uncle Xiaolong was so skilled," Li Junfeng said as he squatted down to pick up fish. "There are so many places with fish in these four teams. Don't the others come to catch them?"

“How could we possibly catch them all?” Li Long chuckled. “It’s like me and Qiangqiang, who spend their free time wandering around the various canals in the team, that’s how they know about these places.”

Just like when they first broke ice holes to catch fish, did the team members not know that fish could be sold for money? Of course they did, but firstly, they had never done it before, and they couldn't be the first to try something new.

The second is that people don't think about the fish in the remaining water in the canals; people have fixed mindsets.

Li Long also joined the fish-collecting effort. He went to Li Junfeng, took an extra bag, went directly to the southernmost end of the ice, used a shovel to clear a path, went down to the bottom of the ditch, shoveled up the ice, and started collecting fish from the beginning.

If only I had a sickle, I could cut the grass and clear the ice much faster.

But he couldn't think about that too much right now. A little trouble was fine; he could just use more effort. He had already seen Li Qiang squatting down to lift the ice so that Mingming and Haohao could catch the fish.

Hey, even at such a young age, he already knows how to take care of his younger brother. Good job, Qiangqiang!

Li Long was much faster at collecting fish. At this point, he picked them up regardless of size, since they would freeze to death if he didn't. Even if he didn't eat the smaller ones, he could feed them to the chickens. It was early winter, and the chickens were still laying eggs; feeding them more nutritious food would encourage them to lay even more eggs.

When he had collected half a bag, weighing thirty or forty kilograms, it had already reached Mingming and Haohao.

Seeing that Mingming and Haohao had also collected seven or eight kilograms of fish, and that their father, older brother, and Li Junfeng had already joined up and started walking this way, Li Long knew that there would be nearly a hundred kilograms of fish in the canal today!

This is quite a bumper harvest!

I don't know if these fish were washed down when I was planting winter wheat, or if they were small crucian carp that were left over from the spring. They've been raised for more than half a year to grow this big.

It's estimated that the latter is more likely, but in any case, it's a win-win situation for them.

If that's the case, we can come again in early winter next year!
Picking up fish is much faster than catching them!
(End of this chapter)