"No wonder the shark just now ate one shark after another. It was so happy that it ended up in tragedy."
"Hmm... hey hey hey... look..."
"What?" Ye Yaodong was hanging up the phone and raised his head when he heard the voice.
I saw the group of dolphins that had just surrounded the shark surfaced again, but many of them were still far away and scattered.
At this moment, the three or four dolphins on the easternmost side were jumping out of the water one after another and doing forward rolls in the air.
The surrounding dolphins immediately swam towards the east from all directions. As the dolphins swam, the waves rolled into several wavy lines.
Ye Yaodong felt that the dolphins that were tumbling in the east at the beginning were probably calling their companions. He just didn't know what they were going to do. It would be better for them to gather together and leave, after all, they live in groups.
But when they met up, they could hear the intermittent "squeaking" sounds from the dolphins, and a group of dolphins began to swim slowly from east to west again.
"Are they playing? Take back the hooks first and then watch. This is serious business." Ye Yaodong took a look and felt that these dolphins were playing. Dolphins are originally playful marine creatures.
"No, don't you see they are forming a circle?" Father Ye reminded him, "Look carefully, there seem to be fish tumbling in the circle, and those dolphins are driving the fish away."
"ah?"
Ye Yaodong took a closer look this time, and it was true. The dolphins were in an oval shape, gathered around, and small fish jumped out of the water from time to time in the circle inside.
It turned out that the dolphins that had just swam over there from all directions were trying to intercept the school of fish.
He immediately said excitedly: "Hey, you! I told you that this dolphin can help fishermen drive away schools of fish."
"Driving them away is driving them away, but driving them away by themselves is one thing, and helping the fishermen drive them away is another. Don't confuse the two."
Ye's father still doesn't believe that dolphins can help fishermen drive away schools of fish.
"You still don't believe me, eh? They swam far away... What a pity, we have only reeled in half of the rope, otherwise we could have followed them directly. There must be something to catch if we follow the dolphins."
Dolphins have the ability to detect and navigate using ultrasound.
I heard that foreign fishermen, when fishing for tuna in the ocean, first look for dolphins. Because dolphins often accompany tuna, it is easy to find tuna with dolphins as "guides". 90% of the tuna caught by the U.S. tuna fleet relies on dolphins as "guides".
Father Ye glanced at him and said, "There's not enough time. The sun will set in three hours. If we chase it, we'll probably just go back in vain. We need a bigger boat and drift on the sea for a few days. If we follow them, we might really encounter various schools of fish."
"That's right. Alas, the duck in my mouth flew away. I reeled in the line. At least there is a school of fish passing by. If there are any empty hooks, I can hook a few more. Although it's cheap, it would be nice to have more."
"Well, this school of fish isn't very big. I guess a lot of them have been killed by sharks. With so many dolphins surrounding them, they won't be killed in a long time, right? Don't think about it. You'll run into them again when you have the chance. Let's collect these longlines first. The line we just pulled up looks like a good catch."
"Um."
Ye Yaodong glanced at the rolling waves in the distance gradually passing by, and continued to reel in his line.
Today, most of the fish hanging on these hooks are mackerel. There are also many other fish, but their proportion is not as large as that of mackerel. Most of them are fish weighing about one kilogram. There are not many big fish, but there are very few empty hooks.
He estimated that without these bluefin breams passing by, today's longline fishing would have been dismal.
It took him more than an hour to finally reel in all the lines, and he had eight more baskets of fish. Only then did the father and son return home reluctantly satisfied.
But when they sailed back and just reached the shore, they saw waves rolling in behind them. Everyone on the shore was shocked and shouted excitedly that there were schools of fish.
"Look, there are fish there..."
"What a large group..."
"There are several big ones nearby..."
"Hurry, hurry, get on the boat and catch up..."
The father and son were originally planning to pack up their things and carry them off the boat, but they heard the excited voices of people on the shore. They looked behind them and saw surging waves on the sea and dolphins jumping non-stop.
Only then did I realize that there was a group of dolphins behind me, and the school of fish they were chasing seemed to have grown a lot bigger.
Just as they jumped on the surrounding sea for a while and were about to turn around and run away, Ye Yaodong drove the boat to follow them without hesitation. Several fishing boats that were returning to the port had already seen them and rowed towards them.
Some boats that had already docked on the shore also wanted to see if they could get a piece of the pie, so they rowed over.
Fortunately, the dolphins were not driving the school of fish forward very fast. Some of the small wooden boats were close to the school of fish and spread out their fishing nets to cast the fish.
Ye Yaodong's boat also approached quickly, and then stopped not far from them. Ye's father was holding a hand-cast net in his hand, ready to cast the net at any time.
However, these dolphins are moving, driving the schools of fish, and they are also spaced apart. After casting one net, you probably have to start chasing the next one by boat.
Seeing that his father couldn't wait to cast the net, Ye Yaodong ignored him and swiftly picked up two sticks that were always available on the boat, and then started hitting the water with the sticks.
Father Ye was busy closing the net and didn't pay attention to his actions.
After pulling a net of fish to the side of the boat, I realized why he didn't come to help. I turned around and saw his strange behavior.
"What are you doing? The important thing is to catch the fish quickly. Why are you holding a stick now?"
"I'm trying to attract dolphins. You collect your net. When you get it up, use two sticks to help hit the water surface and see what happens."
I heard that hitting the water with a wooden stick can attract dolphins because the sound of the stick hitting the water is very similar to the sound made by a kind of fish that dolphins like to eat the most.
This was told to him by a shipmate who lived by the sea in his previous life.
Ye's father was confused. Just by hitting the water with a wooden stick, the dolphins came over
"Are you kidding me? Hitting the water with a stick can attract dolphins?"
Ye's father was very suspicious, but he felt that the third son would not do such a stupid thing.
"I'm not sure, but let's give it a try. Anyway, you pull your net and I do mine. It won't delay us. What if it works?"
Anyway, it would only take time to cast a net, so he could try and see if it worked. If it didn't work, he could just go after it in the boat later. After all, it would be embarrassing in front of his father, so he could just embarrass himself.
If it works, maybe I can make use of it when I encounter a group of dolphins in the future.
There are mostly small wooden boats on the sea now, with only one other boat equipped with a power device like theirs, which is also parked there to cast nets. However, because the fish schools are moving, it seems that they don't catch much by casting the nets.
Ye Yaodong knocked for a while and watched the dolphins swimming farther and farther away. He thought that either the dolphins were too far away and didn't hear him, or that his effort was in vain. Seeing that his father had already collected the net, he felt his wrist a little sore.
"Look, you're just busying yourself for nothing." Ye's father understood, but he didn't laugh at him.
"It's okay to be busy, you have to try it anyway. Failure is the mother of success. Only by failure can you learn lessons..."
"Stop talking nonsense and hurry up and catch up with him..."
Just as he stopped and was about to put away the stick, he saw a dolphin at the very end turn around and swim forward a short distance.
Ye Yaodong immediately became excited and said, "Here it comes, it finally turned around... Dad, try hitting it with two sticks. Maybe the sound I made was too small, and their sonar system didn't pick it up for a long time."
Father Ye had just been sure that he was doing useless work there, but now he was a little skeptical. Looking at a dolphin swimming towards them, he thought about trusting him this time and picked up the short stick on the boat to hit the water surface frequently.
This time the splashing noise was louder, and the dolphin was swimming closer. It immediately tumbled on the water and called its friends in its loud dolphin voice.
The dolphins that were driving ahead heard its call and stopped moving forward. After a while, the dolphins started jumping on the spot and then began to emit their sound waves again.
When the fish heard the "squeaking" sound, they were frightened and gathered together, not daring to move rashly.
Father Ye stared in amazement at the dolphin that made a big circle in front of him, then turned around and kept jumping forward. He couldn't help but look at Ye Yaodong.
“It really works???”
Ye Yaodong grinned, also very happy, "Wait and see, it hasn't swam over yet, I'm just giving it a try."
Dolphins are also very capricious when driving schools of fish. They drive them wherever they want. When they hear the splashing sound here, they immediately drive the school of fish over.
The boats chasing the school of fish on the sea were stunned when they saw the dolphins driving the school of fish back and turned around, so they quickly turned around and chased after them.
When we saw that they were actually surrounding a big ship, everyone was a little confused.
The father and son did not care that other fishing boats were approaching. When the dolphins drove the school of fish around them, they quickly took the hand net, aimed at the school of fish and cast it.
The net was heavy and full. The father and son who were dragging the net were both grimacing, with veins bulging in their arms. This net was much larger than the one cast by Ye's father just now.
The surrounding fishing boats didn't even bother to ask them how they attracted the fish, they also hurried over and took the opportunity to cast their nets.
It's a rare occasion that they stay here and don't swim anymore, so everyone starts catching as many fish as possible.
Anyone who sees it will have a share.
The sea does not belong to anyone, and most of the boats around are from their village, so Ye Yaodong can only try his best to catch as many fish as possible.
However, as the boats from the shore came over, the number of fish in the water decreased a lot, and soon there were more fish than fish.