Chapter 158 The Wind Rises

Chapter 158 The Wind Rises

Chapter 158 The Wind Rises

Second Brother Li covered the live tank, pulled the two men who were squatting there watching the fish, and went over to grab the yellow croaker, swordfish, and other small fish in the fishing net and put them in the live tank and bucket, so that Li Changle could take advantage of the opportunity to catch another net.

After catching a big rice fish, Li Changle's confidence increased. He didn't even move and cast another net in the same place.

I don't know if it was because that net had used up all its good fortune or for some other reason, but this net only caught a few knife fish, sole skins, and a few pounds of mantis shrimp, but not a single fish weighing more than a pound.

Second Brother Li drove the boat forward a few miles and asked him to cast the net again. This time the net was even worse, with only a few small fish, almost an empty net.

Chen Yongwei cast a net, but only caught a slightly larger fish. He said to Li Changle and his brother in frustration, "Forget it. Lord Hailong thinks that giving us a large fish is enough, so we should return to the voyage."

"Maybe. Let's collect the nets!" Li Changle raised his wrist and checked the time. "It's almost twelve o'clock. Let's eat our dry food and drive the boat over to collect the longline fishing."

"Yes, eat. Only when you are full can you have the strength to work!" Brother Li went to the cab and took out the lunch box. "Your sister-in-law made some fried rice with fried eggs and some salted vegetables wrapped in rice balls."

"I have some too. My grandma made some rice cake rolls for me, and she also boiled some turtle eggs!" Chen Yongwei quickly ran to search his backpack.

Li Changle didn't expect that the three of them had brought dry food. He smiled and said to Li Erge: "Anan fried wheat cakes, which also have eggs and salted vegetables in them."

"Eat mine, eat mine." Chen Yongwei said as he opened the lunch box. "My rice rolls are delicious. They also contain mushrooms, dried tofu, carrots, shrimps, and eggs."

Li Changle and his brother looked at the rice cake rolls in his lunch box, then looked at the wheat cakes and blown rice in their own lunch boxes. The two brothers looked at each other and sighed.

"Ah, it seems that grandma still loves her grandson!"

"Hehe! Then you can eat mine." Chen Yongwei proudly picked up a rice biscuit roll and a turtle egg and put them in Li Changle's lunch box. He also took the same one and gave it to Li Erge, "Brother, you can try my grandma's cooking."

Brother Li took a big bite of the biscuit roll and said, "No, I have to give them some advice when I get back. Next time, I can't be so careless with men who work hard to earn money outside."

I was very happy to see the blowing rice in the morning, but now compared with the food prepared by Grandma Chen, it is far inferior.

Li Changle nodded, forgetting that he had said hello to his wife in the morning and even fried wheat cakes for her early in the morning.

The three men finished all the rice biscuits and turtle eggs that Chen Yongwei brought with him, wiped their hands on their bodies a few times, put the lunch boxes they brought back into the cab, started the fishing boat to the longline fishing position, and started to work.

Brother Li was worried that Li Changle couldn't control the speed well, so he walked to the driving seat, shouted at the top of his voice, and even gestured to him and Chen Yongwei to reel in the longline together, while he would steer the ship.

The machine was too noisy, so Li Changle didn't say anything. He just nodded and walked towards Chen Yongwei. When he walked over, he saw that he had already hooked up the buoy with an iron hook and started pulling the line.

"How does it feel, Awei? Do you have any catch?" Maybe because of the big rice fish, Li Changle always felt that today's longline fishing did not yield much.

"It's a bit light. Even if there is any, it's not a big deal." Chen Yongwei slowly pulled up the fishing line, and a half-foot-long sea bass was hung on the hook.

"Good, there is no empty hook!" Li Changle put the fish into the bucket, sorted out the line group, and waited for him to pull the next hook.

Chen Yongwei thought of the sea bass that was even bigger than this one yesterday. He didn't even bother to look at it. "Brother, you are satisfied with a small sea bass. When did your requirements become so low?"

Li Changle smiled and said, "It's not that I have low standards, but I think we have to learn to be content. We already have a big fish, and if we are still not content, I am worried that Lord Hailong will not take care of us in the future."

"That's right!" Chen Yongwei turned his head and glanced at him. "Just now on the island, I was worried that you were getting carried away and looking down on small money!"

"Look at it. Small money or big money, it's all money. There's money coming in every day, so you can't count it too much." Li Changle looked at the empty hook he brought up, shrugged, took off the half fish head on the hook, and put the line group away in the bamboo basket.

As he expected, after three rows of longline fishing, he only caught a few yellow croakers weighing about one kilogram each, two black sea breams, five yellowfin croakers, a dozen pike, redeye fish and water mullets weighing about ten kilograms each.

Compared with yesterday's catch, the difference is really not a little bit. Li Changle thinks that it might be that big rice fish that used up today's luck.

"Let's go and see how the traps turned out." Second Brother Li patted Li Changle on the shoulder, started the fishing boat and headed towards Concaodao Island.

When they arrived at the buoy of the first group of ground traps, Awei asked Li Changle to go first. He felt that the line just now was the first group, and it was because he pulled it first that the two groups behind had no gains.

When Li Changle hooked the fish with the iron hook and float, he prayed silently in his heart that the traps would yield a better harvest. He was worried that the six groups of sixty-six traps would also yield as little as the three rows of longline fishing.

The traps lowered into the sea were much deeper than the grove. It took Li Changle a long time to finally pull up the first trap. He and Chen Yongwei stared at the traps nervously. When the traps emerged from the water, they both smiled after seeing them clearly.

"I saw sea eels, blue crabs, orchid crabs, and yellow crabs. Brother, you are so lucky. From now on, I will let you pull first every time."

When Li Changle saw the catch in the trap, he grinned with joy. Fish meant money coming in. New houses and big ships were all depending on them!
After the trap was placed on the deck, Chen Yongwei lifted it and shook all the catch into the fish bag. Li Changle untied the noose on it and poured all the catch into the rubber bucket. There were two sea eels as thick as a child's wrist, a few yellow snappers, and three large blue crabs with claws thicker than chicken legs, weighing about eight or nine pounds.

There were also two weighing half a pound. I turned over the three orchid crabs and saw their round belly buttons. I recognized them as female crabs at a glance. I pinched them and found they were quite fat.

Brother Li stretched his neck to look and grinned happily, "Not bad, not bad, Ah Le is still lucky, three big crabs can be sold for more than ten yuan."

"I'll be happy if the next catch is as much as this one." Li Changle grinned, pulled out a hemp rope, tied up the blue crabs and orchid crabs and put them in the bucket.

Chen Yongwei put the conger eels into the live hold, Huang Zhan came back from the cargo hold and put the small fish into buckets. After a row of ground traps were collected, they were put into bait bags and put down the ground traps.

After the second trap was pulled up, there were two large blue crabs, three swimming crabs, and two cuttlefish. What made the three people overjoyed was that there were also two large groupers weighing four or five kilograms each.

"Brother, the big one last time was sold for five yuan per pound, and these two small ones should be fine for three yuan, right?" Chen Yongwei happily took it and put it into the living cabin, and carefully added two shovels of ice cubes in it.

Brother Li smiled and said, "Even if they can't sell for three dollars, two dollars is not bad. These two can sell for more than twenty dollars. Just looking at these two, the harvest is much greater than the first trap."

After pulling two traps in a row and catching good fish, Li Changle became more confident. He tied up the crabs neatly and put them in the bucket. He then picked up the iron hook with brisk steps and hooked up the third trap.

This one was a little worse, with two lobsters, a large blue crab, two conger eels, and then some miscellaneous fish and large conches.

The two men sorted the catch and began to collect the lower ones. The fish in this net were mixed. The number seemed large, but they were all worthless.

The catches in the next few were almost the same as the one in the previous cage. When it came to the last bite, the three of them smiled with surprise again.

There were actually seven large blue crabs and several orchid crabs in this cage, which was almost the same as the crab nests found when scooping up crabs in the sea.

Unfortunately, there were two giant blue crabs fighting in a ground trap. In the end, both were injured and each lost one of their majestic claws.

"Brother, these two are for you and big brother to deal with."

"Go back and ask my mother to cook for us all. Stew two conger eels as well. The children need nourishment. They are skinny and yellow-skinned. If there is a strong wind, they might be blown away."

Second Brother Li is more generous than First Brother Li. He feels that the purpose of making money is to live a better life. If he works himself to death but still has to eat sweet potato rice for every meal, he might as well not work.

Li Changle and Chen Yongwei shook their heads. "Then take two more sea eels back to stew. We don't want blue crabs. Last time when the crabs moved, the whole family ate blue crabs and crab roe for several meals and got hurt. Now we don't even want to look at crabs."

"Let's talk about it when we get home. Hurry up and collect them. There are still five rows of traps left. At the speed you two are going, you won't be able to collect them all by nightfall."

"Oh oh!" Li Changle and the other person quickened their movements. The first cage in the second row made the three of them grin excitedly. It was another big blue crab.

There were five large blue crabs weighing more than two kilograms in the rubber bucket, one weighing more than three kilograms, and three weighing more than half a kilogram. There were nine blue crabs and two swordfish in one net.

After the second row of traps were collected, there were already seventy or eighty blue crabs in the rubber bucket. Not counting other catches, the two rows of traps alone yielded more than two hundred blue crabs.

Li Changle estimated that after collecting all the traps, he would earn a little over a thousand yuan today.

When Chen Yongwei released the fish into the live tank, he found that the bighead carp was completely dead. Brother Li poured all the remaining ice into the cotton wool, wrapped the bighead carp and put it in a rubber bucket, then put it in the live tank to refrigerate it. Then he started the fishing boat and continued to move forward.

It was Chen Yongwei's turn to pull the third row. This guy looked like he had stepped on poop when he went out. The fish he caught in the ground trap net was worse than the last.

He hadn't even finished collecting the third row, so he pulled Li Changle in frustration and asked him to continue working.

In order to move into the new house as soon as possible, Li Changle once again took on the task of opening the blind box and continued to add bricks and tiles to the new house.

His luck was indeed a little better than Chen Yongwei's. In the last two cages, he harvested two large sea eels weighing seven or eight kilograms, and several blue crabs.

The catch of the fifth row of traps was the worst, with almost no conchs and some worthless yellowtail, bluetail, blue crab, sea bass and conger eel, but very few.

Li Changle, who originally thought that today's harvest would exceed a thousand, no longer had the optimism he had just had.

The catch was pretty good when they caught the last row. The two people who were optimistic at the beginning found that the wind had started to blow. The originally calm sea surface now had ups and downs in the waves, one bigger than the other, and the sunset was also blocked by dark clouds.

(End of this chapter)