Reborn in the Millennium: Building a Fortune from Fishing

Chapter 620 Ten Thousand Jin of Fish Enter the Market

The next morning, as soon as the fish truck arrived, Qin Dahe and Erhu were already waiting.

The digging of the fields by the scoundrels has only just ended, mainly because it's scattered and needs to be covered with new soil.

"Boss Zhang."

"Dahe, you've struck it rich!" Boss Zhang greeted him with a smile.

"Let's weigh them first. I have a fish basket that won't hurt the fish, so let's pour them in first."

In the middle of the yard, a fish basket was made using thick plastic sheeting and placed on wooden stakes in the open space.

It has many holes poked in it, so that the water can be drained without harming the fish.

Then came the release of the fish. They were delivered in five transport boxes using five oxygen pumps. It was a professional truck for hauling live fish; I think only Scarface's place nearby has one. I can borrow it next time I need to buy fish.

Today I'll clean up three crucian carp ponds later to make them high-density ponds, because I'll have to go out and collect the fish in the next couple of days.

One pond is stocked with grass carp, another with silver carp and bighead carp, and the last one is used to raise crucian carp together.

The fish catch here very quickly: 700 catties of bream, 2,200 catties of grass carp, 1,100 catties of black carp, and about 400 catties of crucian carp.

The four types of fish were weighed separately, and the prices were different. Qin Dahe personally checked the entire process to prevent the introduction of farmed fish.

It's easy to tell farmed fish from wild fish; their scales and bellies are different.

"These bream are good, each one weighs about three pounds. Six yuan should be fine, right?" He took out a black pine branch and handed it over.

Boss Zhang took the light, lit it, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled.

"This price is too high. You can raise fish in your own lake. Why buy wild fish?" he asked curiously.

"Let's hold a competition. My lake is deep enough to catch some wild ones and teach those competitive masters a lesson." Qin Dahe chuckled, full of mischievous amusement.

He aims to create the most professional fishing competition, combining the challenges of reservoir fishing with the density of commercial fishing ponds.

Once everything is set up, the competition will be incredibly entertaining.

The grass carp weighed 1,100 jin (approximately 650 kg), with an average weight of around 15 jin (approximately 7.5 kg) and the largest weighing around 30 jin (approximately 15 catties).

The price he offered varied depending on the size.

The fur is beautiful, so the price is a bit higher.

All the fish were placed in a large fish basket and acclimated to warm water to prevent stress.

As for disinfection, it's unnecessary. The oxygenators will be put in place immediately, and the lake's water will be completely revitalized.

His aerator is not an air-filling type, but a water-filling type, which pumps water directly from the large lake to the high-density ponds to form a water circulation aeration system.

With a drop of one meter, the impact of the water caused the dissolved oxygen level in the aquaculture pond to rise.

Moreover, it's done in a tiered manner: the first pond is oxygenated by the large lake, the second pond is oxygenated by the first pond, and the third pond is oxygenated by the second pond.

While increasing oxygen, the water circulation is also activated.

The ditch near Xiwantang will also be repaired and a filtration pond will be built.

From now on, it will be completely blocked off, and small cement boats will not be able to enter the big lake.

The principle is the same as raising fish, but his "fish tank" is larger and consumes a lot of electricity.

Fortunately, because of our bait production last year, we got a dedicated power line from the power supply station, otherwise it really wouldn't be enough.

In the future, the four fish ponds—one large and three small—will serve as the bait testing base and competition venue for Dahe Fishing Gear.

After all four thousand catties of fish were placed in the container, he settled the bill for the customer.

The total cost is 35,000 yuan. Even if there are two fish that aren't very lively, they'll still be considered live fish, and we can eat them ourselves later.

These wild fish are usually hard to buy; only the local fishermen can get so many in a day.

It should only take two or three days.

After seeing the people off, he and Erhu got busy again, starting to lift nets for the crucian carp pond.

Since things aren't busy in the fields right now, several relatives have come to help. Of course, we have to provide a meal of wine at noon.

After lifting the net, pull it in again. Clean out two of the three crucian carp ponds and concentrate the crucian carp in one pond.

These two crucian carp ponds need their water changed again, so we're just pumping the water directly into the reservoir using electric pumps.

After two or three days of treatment, it will be basically clean.

Raising crucian carp easily pollutes the water. Crucian carp eat and excrete a lot, resulting in more silt accumulating in the water than in other fish ponds.

In the afternoon, Qin Dahe went to check on the fishpond again. Of the four thousand catties of fish delivered in the morning, six large fish and about twenty small ones had died, which was within his acceptable range.

Then he opened the fish basket, allowing all the fish to settle in the big lake.

However, there are too many grass carp in the pond. We released 2,200 catties today, and another 5,000 catties during the Chinese New Year, so we've already released an extra 7,000 catties.

I believe that the fish Zhang Laoda will bring in tomorrow and the day after will mainly be grass carp.

Although grass carp are rarely seen in ordinary wild rivers, they are abundant in large rivers, and fishermen often catch them.

Rapid rivers are the best places for grass carp to breed.

We also need to get a lawnmower. I went directly to Alibaba and found a lawnmower manufacturer that does export business.

I ordered one for 20,000 yuan.

The embankment is already green, and in at most a week, the grass will grow to knee-high.

Based on a yield of 10,000 catties of grass carp, even cutting 10,000 catties of grass every day wouldn't be enough; it would be incredibly difficult to do it manually.

Just get a lawnmower and hire a worker to do it.

The lake, which covers at least a hundred acres on the side closest to the dike, is more than enough for grass carp to eat.

There aren't many grass carp yet, but once we've harvested a few thousand kilograms more, we'll also need to add snails.

Fortunately, snails are cheap, costing only two cents per pound.

What's annoying about carp is that they eat everything—snails, grass, fish, shrimp—anything that can be put into their mouths.

The lake is teeming with small fish and shrimp, which are meant for mandarin fish, but carp have also come to join the fun.

Yesterday's underwater camera footage showed that many of the fish that came to the fishponds were carp.

Of course, the largest ones only weigh three pounds, and they are all small cripples.

But these little cripples eat just like pigs.

I estimate that this batch of carp fry came in last spring, which is why they've grown so big.

After the mandarin fish grew to maturity this year, Xiao Guaizi (a nickname) gave them extra food.

Qin Dahe wondered if he should add some pouty lips.
However, wild mandarin fish are prone to dying once they come ashore, so they're a bit difficult to handle.

Two days passed quickly, and as he expected, half of the 10,000 catties of fish were grass carp.

There were about 3,000 catties of grass carp in total, and the fewest wild crucian carp.

This thing is a hot commodity in the countryside, and the price is no lower than in the city, or rather, people in the city don't know its value.

Wild crucian carp have no trouble finding a market in rural towns.

In addition to the 10,000 jin of grass carp and crucian carp, Boss Zhang also gave away 30 local catfish fry.

Qin Dahe was placed directly into three crucian carp ponds, which is the best way to clean the bottom of the ponds.

The money spent was indeed a bit too much; 100,000 yuan was gone just like that. Qin Dahe then asked Xiao Liu to come and install surveillance cameras.

The large platform has a night camera powered by a power source salvaged from a forklift, and six other cameras are strung along a cable on one side of the farmland to prevent fish theft.

Rural people can be really unscrupulous sometimes. Which fish farmer hasn't had their fish stolen? When Third Uncle was managing the pond, his fish were stolen more than once, and Qin Dahe even helped catch the thieves.

(End of this chapter)