Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Before dark, Li Long cut out two rocket heads, but the efficiency was not very high.

But he didn't care. There was no need to rush the work, and the tools nowadays were not as convenient as those in later generations. If he was a professional carpenter, then the tools he had now were still very good.

But he is not like that. It's just that people in later generations are used to using very convenient manual or electric tools, and now they feel a little uncomfortable using these more traditional tools.

Regardless, there was still something to gain.

The two children were also having a lot of fun. The two sticks that Li Long gave them had been thrown aside by them, and the two sharpened rocket heads had become their trophies at this moment. They held them in their arms and followed Li Long, swaying from side to side.

When Gu Xiaoxia came back from get off work, Mingming Haohao immediately abandoned Li Long and ran to show Gu Xiaoxia his trophies.

The same thing happened when Gu Boyuan came over. Gu Boyuan looked at the two rocket heads, touched the heads of the two children to show his appreciation, and asked Li Long:

"What are you doing? Are you planting stakes?"

The planting stake is used to tie up a large broom, and the tail needs to have a forked wood node, but this one is obviously not one of them.

"We're going to get some trawl nets." Li Long said with a smile, "It's hard to catch fish in the small lake right now. We can only get a few kilograms of fish a day by breaking ice holes, and there are no big fish. There's still more than a month before the Chinese New Year, so we should put a big carp on the table to celebrate."

What he said was true, but not entirely true. Catching fish was Li Qingxia's biggest concern, and Li Long just took this opportunity to bring it up.

"Then what should we do? Drag the net into the lake?" Gu Boyuan had been to college, and even if he studied law, at least he had a good command of logical thinking.

"Install the paddles at the back and use chicken intestines to tighten the paddles, just like a spring. The elasticity will push the paddles forward and carry the net along." Li Long gave a simple demonstration.

"Then one or two chicken intestines definitely won't work. They need to be twisted into two strands, and seven or eight strands should be tied together, right? Even the rubber bands used in hospitals may not be enough."

"I've actually thought about using rubber bands cut from waste tires, but they're easy to cut. If you don't cut them evenly, they'll break easily if they're stretched too tight. The longer they are, the easier it is to break."

The two people were discussing here. Mingming Haohao was a little impatient, so he went to the kitchen with the rocket head. When he saw the fire under the stove, Haohao directly stuffed the rocket head under the stove - he knew that wood could burn.

"Hehe, baby, this won't burn!" Although Sister Yang was not outside, she knew that Li Long had spent the whole afternoon making this thing. If it burned, Haohao's butt would definitely get hit. She hurriedly snatched the rocket head.

Mingming looked at the laughing boy and said to his brother, "I'll hit you."

What he meant was that dad was going to beat you. Haohao refused to accept this and tried to snatch the rocket head from Mingming and put it under the stove. The two children started to quarrel.

Hearing the children's cries, Li Long rushed into the kitchen and separated the two little ones. After knowing the reason, Li Long said to Haohao seriously:
"You can't burn this. The wood chips I just cut can be burned, but this can't."

Haohao was a little disappointed. Since his father said it couldn’t be burned, then it couldn’t be burned.

"Okay, wash your hands and eat." Sister Yang started to set the table and invited everyone to eat.

At the dinner table, Gu Boyuan discussed the principles and improvement methods of the trawl device with Li Long while eating.

Li Long felt that the college students of that era were of very high quality. He made things clear in just a few words and also gave Li Long reasonable suggestions.

"When you're done in a couple of days, my purchasing station will be closed for a day, so I'll go over and take a look." Gu Boyuan became more and more excited as he spoke, and he made a decision.

Li Long thought about it and it made sense. The purchasing station had been open for so many days. According to the original plan, there would be four or five days off a month. However, since the business was good and Gu Boyuan himself had nothing to do, he usually only took one or two days off a month.

Now that his father-in-law has this idea, he naturally supports it.

"Well, let's tell those middlemen in advance that we can take two days off." Li Long said, "Xiao Sun didn't even get a day off for his wedding, so let the couple have some rest."

"Okay." Gu Boyuan thought about it and agreed.

He hasn't been back to the team for a long time and doesn't know what's happening with his own yard.

Although I know that I will probably live in the county town for the rest of my life and it is unlikely that I will go back, the yard carries too many memories after all, and the people I know are still on the team, so it is like an anchor point.

Hometown is one of them, but it has become increasingly vague, and Gu Boyuan can hardly remember the faces of his deceased or missing relatives.

"Then let's wait until the weekend and go back too." Gu Xiaoxia said, "Let's go back and see how the team is doing. Haohao hasn't seen his grandparents, uncle, aunt, brothers and sisters for a while."

Li Long naturally had no objection to the whole family going back, and he was even somewhat happy.

He continued to make the rocket head the next day. He spent the morning making the remaining two rocket heads with the vertical sticks for the paddles and put them together. The next step was the paddle, which was more difficult. Li Long first used wood to carve and put it on the vertical stick, but found that it didn't work, so he finally decided to use iron sheets.

The advantage of iron sheet is that you can use large scissors to cut it into the shape you want, and it is easy to fix - when cutting the iron sheet, leave a little more space for inserting the vertical stick, then insert the iron sheet, wrap it around the iron sheet, turn it twice and then open it to use as a paddle, so that it can be fixed firmly.

Li Long went to Wujiaohua Store to buy some tinplate, brought it back and started cutting it - his hands got two cuts, but it was finally fixed.

The next step is the final step, which is to connect the power device - a spring device made of chicken intestines tied together.

One end of the chicken intestine was nailed to the rocket head, and the two sides were separated to make them of the same length. Li Long directly connected seven pieces of chicken intestines, which were two centimeters long, excluding the knot ends, and tied them to be about one meter long.

The two sticks are separated, and one end is nailed to the third point below the rocket head, and then the other end is nailed to the vertical stick - the way the vertical stick and the rocket head are connected is to drill a hole horizontally at the tail of the rocket head and insert the vertical stick into it, or it should be said that after the horizontal stick is inserted, the two ends are made into paddle blades.

The diameter of the hole at the tail of the rocket head is slightly larger than the horizontal stick so that the horizontal stick can rotate freely.

In order to ensure that the horizontal stick does not deviate when it is rotated by the chicken intestine rubber band, Li Long nailed two small nails at the position where the horizontal stick is close to the head of the rocket. The nails were nailed halfway in to serve as a balancing position - just like a fixing pin.

After fixing the chicken intestine rubber band, Li Long held the rocket head in one hand and turned the horizontal stick with the other hand to add force to the paddle blades.

The horizontal stick is not long, leaving a distance of fifteen centimeters on both sides of the rocket head. This length is actually a bit long, but Li Long can't make it smaller. He has strength and ideas, but lacks skills.

It’s fine if it’s a little bigger and wider, as long as it works.

It was almost spinning, and the rubber band was stretched very tight. As soon as Li Long let go, the paddle blade, which was as big as a child's fist, started to spin rapidly, bringing with it a gust of wind.

Li Long's senses were very sharp. He could feel the rocket head rushing upwards a little bit.

Ordinary people basically can't feel it, but he can.

Li Long felt a little dissatisfied when he saw the paddle blade turning for more than ten seconds and then stopped.

The power is not enough, and the speed of the paddle blade is not fast. After all, there is resistance under water. With such a rotation speed and duration, it should be impossible to carry the net to a distance of 40 to 50 meters.

There's nothing we can do about the rocket head since it's already been fixed, so the only thing we can do is lengthen the chicken intestine rubber band.

However, when the rubber band, which was originally more than one meter long, was wrapped around the stick, there was already a big lump. If it was made longer, it would get entangled in the pins and blades, which would easily cause a malfunction.

Li Long thought about it and suddenly understood.

When he turned the stick again to tighten the rubber band, he pulled the rubber band hard with one hand. In this way, the rubber band was wrapped around while it was taut and it already had strength. Once it was wrapped tightly, the paddle blade would rotate faster when it was released.

When I was wrapping it previously, the method was wrong and I didn't make full use of the function of the rubber band which was more than one meter long.

Sure enough, after tightening and releasing the paddle this time, the blades spun like a hot wheel, and the wind blew up the scattered snow on the ground. This speed should be enough, and Li Long was quite satisfied.

The next step is to try it.

Of course, the work was not done yet. Li Long nailed another nail into the tail of the rocket head, but did not drive it in completely. He then used pliers to bend the nail. Then the head of the network cable was tied here.

Seeing the time, it was almost time for dinner, so Li Long thought about trying it out after dinner. He prepared some ropes first, and then thought about it and took two nets he had bought. Whether it was a rope or a net, it could test the durability of the trawler.

After lunch, Li Long said goodbye to Sister Yang and drove the jeep to the bank of the Ma River.

The water level of the Ma River is quite high now, so this side of the bridge is not suitable, mainly because there is no place close to the water on either side of the river under the bridge.

He drove the jeep down the river - there were car tracks on the river bank, indicating that someone must have been there, but he didn't know what they did.

After driving more than 200 meters down from the east bank of the river, the tire tracks disappeared and Li Long also stopped.

I got off the car and looked at the riverside. It was already a sandy beach with footprints of people walking on the snow.

The water level of the Ma River in winter is much lower than in summer. It takes 20 to 30 meters to walk from the river bank to the river. The sandy beach was originally covered with snow, but now there are many footprints on it. I don’t know if they came to see the river or to pick up stones.

Li Long was carrying his things and walking towards the river while thinking that in his previous life, someone was picking seed materials on the other side of the Yulong River and said that every flood was the best time to pick jade.

When the water level in the Ma River recedes in winter every year, it is also a good time to pick jade - when the water level recedes, the stones at the bottom of the river are exposed, and people with a good eye can tell which are jade and which are stones.

He walked to the river and saw that some places were covered with ice. There was a one or two meter wide area between the bank and the water without any snow and there were signs of being turned over. This must be where the things were picked up.

Li Long looked around and found a slightly flat backwater bay where he planned to give it a try.

Although it is the receding water period, this section of the Ma River is still two to three hundred meters wide, but the water is relatively shallow.

He first tied a rope to the nail at the end of the rocket head, and then tied a stone to the end of the rope. The rope was more than 30 meters long, and he was worried that if the rocket head was pulled too fast and with too much force beyond his expectations, it would drag the rope away and he would not be able to get it back.

After tying it up, they began to pull the chicken intestine rubber band to tighten it.

Li Long counted silently, at least more than thirty circles, it should be about right. Holding the rocket head in one hand and pressing the horizontal stick with the other, Li Long came to the water's edge, looked at the direction and let it go - this direction must be looked at carefully, otherwise the rocket head will run backwards.

As soon as I loosened my hand, the rocket head suddenly rushed forward, and the paddle blades behind it flipped, dragging the rope as it quickly crossed the river and rushed forward with great force.

Li Long hurriedly took the stone tied with the rope in his hand. Soon, after more than ten seconds, the rope reached the end. Li Long felt a strong pulling force transmitted to his hand.

The rocket's forward momentum suddenly slowed down, and then it slowly followed the water flow downstream.

It seems that it is impossible to cast a net here. Li Long brought two nets to see if he could catch big fish in the Ma River. But the river is flowing, and the simple trawl he made obviously cannot drag the net directly to the other side. There is nothing to hang in the middle, so the net is just floating in the water, and the chance of catching fish is not high.

Li Long pulled the trawl back by the rope, replaced it and tried again.

In addition to one thing that is easy to deviate, it may be that the horizontal sticks are not aligned on the left and right, or the paddle blades are of different sizes, and the efficiency of paddling water is inconsistent. Just go back and adjust it.

After testing all four rocket heads, Li Long was still unwilling to give up. He put three of the rocket heads together and walked downstream with the remaining one carrying a net. Continuing downstream, there was a relatively shallow river with a sandy beach exposed in the middle, dividing the river into two branches.

There was some ice on the eastward extension of the sandy beach, and Li Long thought of lowering the net there. Not to mention blocking the river, at least the net could be stretched diagonally there to prevent it from being washed down the river by the water.

After looking around and seeing no one there, Li Long tied one end of a four-finger net to a large rock and the other end to the nail of the trawler and started working.

After gathering all his strength, Li Long aimed at the area two or three meters in front of the nearest piece of ice on the shore, squatted down and put the trawl into the water.

The trawl net quickly moved across the water to the other side.

Although the water flow was not fast, it still pushed the trawl net several meters downstream. This was because Li Long had reserved a position for it, otherwise the net would not have reached the expected position.

The rocket head rushed over and directly brought the net under Li Long's feet into the water. The speed of the trawl device immediately slowed down. Obviously, the towing rope and the trawl are still different.

Fortunately, the trawl device was powerful enough, and finally the rocket head dragged the net to the ice layer and got stuck in the ice and snow.

From Li Long's point of view, there was still a little bit of the net that had not yet entered the water, so he pulled the net and threw the rest into the water, then pushed the stones to the water's edge to eliminate all traces of the net on the shore.

Looking into the water, you can vaguely see a network cable, and then it slowly disappears underwater.

Li Long looked around and realized that this place was not very hidden, so he walked downstream again. After walking back and forth for a while, his footprints became messy. Then he rushed back to the place where he had just tested the trawl nets, collected them, and went back to the car.

When he drove onto the bridge, he looked to the south and found that some people were already picking up stones by the water on the south bank.

He was a little worried about the net he had cast, but then he thought about it and decided to drive back home. If someone else caught it, then so be it.

We returned to the yard and parked the car. Mingming Haohao heard the noise and ran out of the house, followed by Sister Yang.

The two children asked Li Long to play with them, so Li Long took the two children to play in the yard.

During dinner, Gu Boyuan asked Li Long how things were going. Li Long said while eating:

"Everything is ready. I went to the Ma River to test it today. The net can be dragged into place on the water surface, but I don't know how it will be under the ice. I also put down a net in the Ma River and will go there to check the situation tomorrow morning."

"You put a net in the Ma River?" Gu Boyuan asked in surprise, "Want to see if there are any fish in it?"

"Yes, that's what I think." Li Long explained, "I've never heard of anyone catching fish in the Ma River, but the reservoirs of the Ma River's tributaries and the Manas Lake downstream should all have fish. I think there must be fish in this river, but I don't know what species, or how many there are."

"Then let's see the situation tomorrow. There used to be people fishing on this side of the Ma River, but not anymore in recent years. One reason is that the water is too high during the flood season. Later, there were many places on both sides of the river where you can fish. Plus, there are not many people in northern Xinjiang, so there are no more people doing this business."

Gu Boyuan knew more about the situation before Ma County than Li Long - those fragmentary ones. Li Long knew more about the system. After all, many materials that were originally documents or legends were shown in short videos and online platforms in later generations.

People in the 1980s could not have imagined the information explosion in later generations. Many things that were originally considered secrets were simply circulated casually in later generations.

Of course, it’s hard to tell whether it’s true or not.

The next day, before breakfast, Li Long started the car and drove to the bank of the Ma River. He wanted to see if the net was still there, and if so, whether there were any fish in it.

It was already the 29th day of the ninth lunar month, and the Ma River was even colder than the courtyard in the county town. Although Li Long had thought about it and dressed quite warmly, including a fur coat, he still couldn't help shivering after getting out of the car.

He hurried to the place where the net was set with the urea bag in his hand. There was no one around, and Li Long found the stone where the net was tied at a glance.

He hurried over, turned over the stone, found the end of the net rope, untied it and pulled it, and felt something struggling in the water.

The fish is caught!

ps: Thanks to the book friend 壹蓑煙雨踏山巔 for the reward, thanks to the book friends 20240309205317791, crocodile's tears L, ren_Cd, 李彦鹏_Db and other book friends for the reward, thanks to everyone for subscribing, I went to get the medical examination form today, the doctor said I was malnourished and asked me to eat more lean meat, when I went to send dried fruits, I bought a cow tail by the way, stewed it with yam for two hours, ate the meat, drank the soup and gnawed the bones. It feels good. (The above does not count as money) (End of this chapter)