Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1153 Grilled Fish by the River Has a Unique Flavor

Li Long not only saw this large group of carp, but several other people in the river also saw it.

Two people were freezing in the water and were shivering as they tried to get up to warm themselves by the fire. But when they saw the group of fish swimming upwards, splashing and splashing in the water, they stopped feeling cold and immediately started catching them.

People with landing nets chased after fish in the water, while others swung sticks and slapped the water wildly. One man, who was holding a large grass carp weighing four or five kilograms, grabbed the grass carp by the tail and used it as a weapon to smash it hard into a swimming carp in the water!
Even Liu Gaolou and Bieke on the bank couldn't resist picking up stones and throwing them into the river—in the shallow water near the bank, you could see gray-black fish heads and backs swimming upstream, one after another, and it felt like you could knock them down if you just threw them in!
Of course, this is all an illusion. Even though you think you've aimed perfectly, when you hit the target, you only see a splash of water, and the fish is still swimming peacefully in the water.

As for the others in the water, only one managed to catch a large carp weighing eight to nine kilograms with a landing net; the others caught nothing.

As Li Long called out to the fish, he had already thrown off his coat and dashed out.

He had already planned to get dressed. He had caught a big carp, a big grass carp, and a big sturgeon today, and felt that his life was complete. But when he saw this large group of carp passing by, his spirits immediately returned!

He didn't blindly try to catch it; catching a big fish in such a fast-flowing river without the right tools is simply a joke.

He went straight for the net bag of the river-blocking net.

This net blocked most of the river's tributaries, so if this large group of carp wanted to swim to the upper reaches of the water, they either had to go from either side or jump in front of the net. This was the opportunity they were waiting for.

The fish were quite clever; most of them swam to both sides, especially the side away from the crowd. When Li Long jumped into the water and looked over there, he found that a large group of fish had already swum past the net and darted upstream.

But he wasn't in a hurry. He walked into the river and waited in front of the net. Sure enough, it didn't take long before he saw fish constantly touching the net, trying to swim upstream, but the net blocked their way.

Most of the fish swam to the sides after being blocked, but a few, relying on their strong bodies, tried to push forward by flapping their tails, and ended up in the net, feeling a bit like they were about to fall.

The fish immediately sensed something was wrong and began to thrash their bodies, one of them leaping upwards.

Li Long had already spotted it. When the fish jumped up, he stepped forward to meet it, letting the fish crash into him. He grabbed the fish with both hands and, before the fish could struggle, precisely grabbed its gill covers. With a forceful movement, he threw the fish onto the shore!

The one that was thrown ashore wasn't very big, only about two or three kilograms, but it was very pretty.

Next, this carrying pole, bobbing up and down on the net, lay flat, slapping its tail, seemingly trying to use the buoyancy of the net to propel itself forward.

However, it was unaware that the net had already left the water; the harder it struggled, the closer it got to death. Li Long leaned forward, and the fish, upon seeing him, immediately thrashed its tail violently.

However, Li Long was even faster. Before it could escape the net, he caught the big carp weighing five or six kilograms. Hey, with that hug, he squeezed out all the fish droppings.

Li Long threw the fish onto the shore as well, and when he turned to look at the others, he found that they had all caught something, more or less.

The fish came and went quickly. Li Long waited a while longer and, finding that no more fish were coming up, went ashore.

After going up and down several times, his body went numb, and he could no longer feel the water temperature.

After getting ashore, Li Long rubbed the water off his underwear again. This time, instead of putting on a coat, he simply put on his clothes.

While getting dressed, Liu Gaolou asked:

"You're not going to catch him?"

"I'm not going to catch them anymore, I'm freezing to death." Li Long said as he went to the No. 69 truck to change into his spare shoes, found a towel to dry his head, and then went back to the fire to pick up his coat and put it on.

Only then did I feel like my body was truly my own.

He quickly warmed himself by the fire, thinking that he would soak his feet in hot water when he got back, and it would be even better if he could find a place to take a hot bath.

At that moment, he missed the wild hot spring in Nanshan very much.

Suddenly an idea struck him, and he asked Wu Yongbo, who was flipping the grilled fish next to him:
"Mr. Wu, are there any hot springs nearby? I'm freezing and would like to soak in one."

"Yes," Wu Yongbo said with a smile. "Don't call me 'boss' like that, Mr. Li. How could I dare to call myself 'boss' in front of you? Just call me Lao Wu."

As he turned the fish meat over, he said, "Speaking of hot springs, there are quite a few around Yili. After you've eaten the fish, I'll take you there?"

"Sure," Li Long replied, then turned to Liu Gaolou and asked, "Boss Liu, after we finish our grilled fish, how about we go for a soak in the hot springs? Are you coming?"

"Okay." Liu Gaolou, still a little disappointed at missing his fish, walked over and said:

"You've had a good haul today, catching several big fish."

“There are more resources here,” Li Long said. “So many fish, in schools. We have quite a lot of fish where we live, but it doesn’t feel like there are as many as here.”

Wu Yongbo smiled, and although he didn't say anything, you could see the pride on his face.

"Come on, Mr. Liu, Mr. Li, have a taste. This fish is cooked, and the meat is very tender!"

Wu Yongbo gave Li Long and Liu Gaolou two pieces of fish belly meat. While grilling, fish oil kept dripping down. When they were done, they looked golden brown on both sides, with the aroma of chili and cumin, which was very tempting.

"Try it, try it." Li Long took the piece without hesitation, blew on it with the wooden stick, and took a bite.

First it's spicy, then slightly salty, followed by the tender and fragrant fish flavor.

good smell!

The fish fillet belly meat has only a few large bones and the oil from the fish belly makes it easy to absorb flavor. After grilling, both sides are slightly charred and fragrant, and the taste is really good.

"Not bad, not bad at all. I never expected you, Lao Wu, to have such skills." Liu Gaolou enjoyed the food and kept praising it as he ate. "Hey, if I hadn't come along today, I really wouldn't have experienced this."

"I'm glad you like it, Mr. Liu. Anyway, Horgos isn't far. Come often in the future, and I can grill for you here frequently."

Liu Gaolou nodded, clearly sharing the same thought. As he ate, he said, "It's a pity the Khorgos River is a border river; otherwise, catching fish there and grilling them would be quite nice."

Li Long thought to himself, "You really dare to dream. You could get arrested just by getting close to that place, and you think you can catch fish in there?"

That's nothing like the upper reaches of the Sumubai River or the Tekes River.

The others who were catching fish in the water also came ashore. Wu Yongbo distributed the grilled fish to them one by one, joking as he did so:

"Look at you all, you're all frostbitten and blue! Hurry up and eat something, and warm yourself by the fire! Otherwise, your balls will freeze and shrink in so much you won't be able to get out!"

One of them, while eating fish, retorted, "Even the one that's shrunk in is bigger than yours!"

"Go to hell!" Wu Yongbo laughed and cursed. "You eat my grilled fish and then curse me. Be careful, or I'll throw your clothes into the river and make you run back naked."

"If you dare, I'll push you into the water and beat you to death."

They were all joking around, and nobody took it seriously. Li Long could tell that these people had a good relationship with Wu Yongbo.

Perhaps because he had consumed a lot of energy in the water, after finishing a piece of fish that weighed nearly a kilogram, Li Long took another piece of grilled fish and ate it.

The fish meat still roasting by the fire was dripping oil. Although it was spring fish, which are usually leaner than summer and autumn fish, these big fish still had a lot of fat on them, which meant they didn't lack food in the water during the winter.

Consider the major tributaries of the Ili River: in winter, the river doesn't freeze, and the shallows along the riverbanks are covered with reeds, sand willows, sea buckthorn, and other plants. There are also plenty of small fish, so both herbivorous and carnivorous fish have plenty to eat.

Liu Gaolou ate slowly, savoring the taste of the fish.

"This fish tastes really good. Although it's wild fish, it doesn't have a muddy smell. It's quite plump and very fragrant." Liu Gaolou nodded and said, "Compared to the stewed fish yesterday, the charred edges of this grilled fish are even tastier."

“Each has its own merits,” Li Long said with a smile. “I liked the stewed fish head yesterday, and today’s grilled fish is also good. I saw there’s a net in the truck bed. I’ll cast it out a couple of times later to see if there are any small fish. Grilled small fish should taste pretty good too.”

After hearing what Li Long said, some people finished eating the grilled fish and went to get a casting net, which they then cast into the river.

Li Long originally planned to cast the net himself, but he found that these people were also quite skilled at casting nets. Although the current was very strong, the area they cast the net over was large and quite round. When they pulled the net up, they saw that there were fish in it.

There's just too little.

Compared to the river-blocking net that is more than ten meters long, this casting net, which is only two or three meters in diameter, is not very big. It only catches some crucian carp, small fish, and a few whitebait.

Each net cast out only yields five or six, or seven or eight, miscellaneous fish, totaling less than a kilogram.

These people didn't mind; after scattering the meat on the riverbank, they peeled it, skewered it with red willow branches, sprinkled it with seasonings, and roasted it by the fire.

The small fish cook quickly. By the time some people went to retrieve the fish from the river net, the grilled fish were already cooked, and one small fish was even burnt.

Wu Yongbo took down the grilled small fish and gave two to each of Li Long and Liu Gaolou to try.

Compared to large fish with thick flesh, the small fish are roasted until they are charred and dry, with even the bones charred off, so you can just put them in your mouth and chew them directly.

Wu Yongbo went to get some naan bread, skewered it on a tree branch, and started baking it, saying as he did so:
"I was so focused on the grilled fish that I forgot about this."

"It's alright, it's good to have fish to eat." Liu Gaolou didn't care about the naan, but Li Long broke off a piece of naan, skewered it on a twig, and roasted it to eat.

After finishing the two pieces of fish, I ate two more small fish and felt that my stomach was almost full. Now I eat naan only because I usually eat rice and noodles as my staple food; otherwise, it doesn't feel like a proper meal.

Occasionally, the sound of fish splashing in the river could be heard, but by then everyone had eaten and had lost the initial excitement of catching fish; they would just glance at the fish and not move.

Li Long glanced at the small four-wheeled truck bed and saw that the harvest was actually quite good. In just half a morning, there were about a third of the large fish in the bed, and the smallest one weighed over two kilograms.

The variety of fish is quite diverse, including carp, silver carp, bighead carp, grass carp, catfish, and sturgeon.

Some of the fish were already dead, while others were still struggling in the truck bed, occasionally thrashing about, proving that they were still alive.

The sun was high in the sky, and the temperature was gradually rising. The wind had stopped at some point. Li Long glanced around and noticed that everyone else's complexions had mostly recovered.

They probably felt they had caught enough fish; some ate their fish and leaned against the side of the truck bed to sunbathe, while others nibbled on the fish pieces here and there.

A fish weighing over 20 kilograms – so many people couldn't finish it!
Of course, it was also because they grilled small fish and naan bread. The main reason was that the fish was so big that some people felt full after just one piece.

Wu Yongbo modified the cuts in the thicker parts of the meat, showing he's an expert; these areas are very flavorful.

Leave the leftovers there to continue grilling; they might taste even better as dried fish.

Li Long stood up and went to the riverbank. He picked up the cast net that had been set down and tried casting it twice. The results were similar. Although each cast caught a fish weighing more than a kilogram, either a silver carp or a small carp, none of them were big fish.

He originally wanted to try and catch some big fish, but unfortunately, those fish didn't come here.

Then we won't try it. We've had our fun today.

He could no longer feel the chill in his bones, but Li Long still felt he needed to soak in a hot spring. Having suffered from age-related illnesses before, he was particularly sensitive to such things.

So after catching and eating the fish, Wu Yongbo had his fill. He put two fish in a fertilizer bag, said goodbye to the others, and then left with Li Long and the others.

“There are hot springs in Daxigou, and there’s a famous Fushou Mountain there,” Wu Yongbo said in the car. “Before liberation, wealthy people used to go to Fushou Mountain and Sayram Lake to escape the summer heat, and they would also go there to soak in the hot springs in the winter.”

Li Long had heard of Fushou Mountain, which became a famous local scenic spot in later generations, but he had never been there.

At that time, it hadn't been developed yet, or rather, it hadn't been fully developed. Wu Yongbo led them to a fenced-off place where they could soak in hot springs. He told the owner about it, and Li Long realized that this person also knew Wu Yongbo.

This guy has quite a wide network of connections.

He didn't soak in it directly. Taking the opportunity to urinate, he looked around the yard and realized it was indeed a hot spring, not boiler water. He figured he was just being paranoid; there probably wasn't a place where boiler water could be used to impersonate a hot spring at this time.

The flavor wasn't as strong as the wild hot spring in his own mountains. When Li Long went in, Liu Gaolou had already started taking off his clothes.

The pool is plastered with cement, and the hot spring water flows in through an iron pipe about the size of a bowl. There is a drain in the corner of the cement to maintain the balance of the water volume.

The pool was quite large, about ten or twenty square meters. Li Long couldn't wait to take off his clothes and jump in. Anyway, we were all grown men, so we weren't afraid of anything.

In the steaming pool, Liu Gaolou let out a comfortable hum and said:

"Wu Yongbo is a businessman, and quite resourceful. Most of the fritillaria bulbs in Yili are bought up by state-owned purchasing points, and the prices they offer aren't high. But if they really wanted to buy them, they could have gotten quite a lot."

Li Long knew that there were fritillaria bulbs in the mountains of Nileke and Gongliu in Yili, which were of the same type as those in the southern mountains of Ma County.

He said:
"I'll take them all as long as they're good quality. The price of wild medicinal herbs has been rising, and there's a lot of demand outside of Xinjiang."

"Yeah, you're really something, you've really expanded your business a lot," Liu Gaolou exclaimed. "Catching some fish here for the festival can also increase your supply."

"Hehe, I was just lucky," was the only explanation Li Long could offer.

“Luck is also part of strength, that’s what my second uncle said.” Liu Gaolou suddenly changed the subject. “This hot spring is quite comfortable. Last time I went to Yili, he took me to a steam spring, that place is called Fire Dragon Cave, it feels different from this.”

"Anyway, it's good for your health," Li Long said, already feeling his body getting warmer. "Soaking in the water more often is beneficial."

"Yeah, I'll be coming here often from now on. By the way, let's go celebrate the holiday with Buick tomorrow. They celebrate for several days. Let's see how many days you can stay."

"Just stay for two or three days to experience it." Li Long felt that catching fish today was already fun enough, and as for the holiday, it was just icing on the cake.

(End of this chapter)