My Deep Sea Fishery

Chapter 20: flounder

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When he arrived at the beach, Xiang Yang still did not row the boat, but dived directly into the sea.

Although Xiang's father had a small fishing boat, Xiang Yang felt that such a human-rowed fishing boat was a complete waste of his time. Anyway, Xiang Yang was the only one in Qinglongwan who had diving equipment at that time, and the villagers didn't know what the situation was like on the seabed. When Xiang Yang reached the bottom of the sea, he was not afraid that someone would discover his abnormality.

Xiang Yang passed through one "jungle" after another on the seabed and arrived at a sea area with very clean and clear water.

This area of sea seems to be very barren. There are no exaggeratedly large giant algae, nor any strange-shaped coral reefs. Fine white sand covers the entire seabed, and even seaweed is very scarce.

Xiang Yang liked this kind of environment very much. He tore off the flippers on his feet and walked barefoot on the silver sea beach.

The sparse seaweed resulted in very poor seafood in this area. Xiang Yang could only see some finger-sized marine fish coexisting leisurely with the scallops that were everywhere on the seabed, and their numbers were very rare.

"Barrenness also has its advantages. The sea where the thrilling law of the jungle is played out all the time is very prosperous, but it does not belong to them." Xiang Yang sighed after grabbing a small red fish that was only as thick as a chopstick but was brave enough to swim in front of him.

Although this little red fish has sharp teeth in its mouth, it has almost no attack power due to its small size. Xiang Yang estimates that they are also a kind of marine creature that feeds on scallops.

Xiang Yang was not interested in this little red fish. He observed it for a while and then let it go. As soon as the little guy broke free from Xiang Yang's clutches, it swam away in fright and disappeared in a short while.

Xiang Yang smiled and didn't care about it. In the ocean, except for a few predators at the top of the food chain, most other creatures have a hard time surviving. Every marine creature that has been able to survive for millions of years is worthy of respect. It is a miracle in itself that this little fish with no offensive power can form a unique small ecosystem in such a barren sea area relying on the scallops that can be found everywhere on the seabed.

Xiang Yang continued walking forward.

"Huh?" Xiang Yanggang seemed to be dazzled for a moment. He saw a piece of sea sand moving in front of him, and he stopped to observe it carefully.

After taking a closer look, Xiang Yang laughed. It turned out to be a flounder.

Flounder is a relatively cheap marine fish that can be found everywhere. The market price is generally around 20 yuan per pound.

But this does not prevent people from loving flounder, because its meat is very delicious and rich in protein. The most important thing is that you don’t have to worry about getting stuck by fish bones when eating flounder. It is a very suitable marine fish for children to eat. People even gave it a very nice common name - turbot.

In fact, flounder is also a very interesting marine fish. Like a chameleon, it can change the color of its body according to the surrounding environment and disguise itself as sand on the seabed.

Once the flounder changes its body color, it uses the sand as an aid to blend into the environment and enter a camouflaged state that is difficult to detect with the naked eye.

The reason why Xiang Yang was able to discover this flounder was not only because Xiang Yang had particularly good eyesight at the bottom of the sea, but also because the flounder that Xiang Yang discovered was hunting at the moment.

I saw it lying leisurely on the beach, covering its entire body with sand, leaving only a pair of eyes exposed. A small red sea fish swam to its side and it suddenly opened its mouth.

Perhaps the noise was so loud that it frightened the little red sea fish, and the moment the flounder opened its mouth, the little fish immediately fled in panic.

The flounder that failed to catch prey was not discouraged. It continued to lie leisurely on the seabed, shaking its body and burying itself in the sea sand, waiting for the next prey to be delivered to its mouth.

Xiang Yang walked up with a smile and "dig" the flounder out of the beach and put it into his net bag. Whether it is valuable or not is one thing, and whether it tastes good is another. Xiang Yang has already decided in advance to have a dish of turbot cooked with garlic for dinner tonight.

Xiang Yang originally liked the peaceful environment of this sea area. After discovering a turbot, Xiang Yang was no longer in a hurry to leave this barren sea area and began to search carefully on the seabed.

Flounders do not have a swim bladder and swim very slowly, and they do not have sharp teeth to defend themselves against enemies. Hiding themselves is not only a means of hunting for flounders, but also a means of defense for flounders. After all, a hidden flounder is difficult to be discovered by predators, and some powerful predators usually do not pay much attention to whether a "beach" is delicious even if they pass by.

But compared to ordinary marine predators, if even one flounder in a population is discovered by an intelligent "predator" like a fisherman, it will be a disaster for the entire population.

For fishermen, there is no easier fish to catch than the flounder lying motionless on the seabed. If you look carefully, you will catch it dead.

Of course, flounder does not refer to a single type of marine fish, but a huge family of flounder. In the entire huge family of flounder, not every flounder is as useless as the one Xiang Yang is catching now.

For example, the bigmouth flounder, a flatfish with a mouth full of iron teeth and steel teeth that can swim long distances in the seabed, is so scary that even sharks would be afraid of it. Of course, even if they were afraid of it, they would kill it without hesitation if they really met a shark.

Perhaps because there are no natural enemies in this barren sea area, Xiang Yang was surprised to find that there are actually a lot of flounders surviving there. Basically, every few meters he walks, he can find a flounder burying itself under the sand and rocks.

Even if Xiang Yang only picked the big ones weighing more than one kilogram, he could still catch more than a dozen in a few minutes and fill the entire net bag.

Even though flounder was not valuable, it could only be sold at a wholesale price of ten yuan per pound, which was a fast way to make money. In a good mood, Xiang Yang immediately decided to swim back to the shore to tow his father's fishing boat and bring back a whole boatload of flounder.

When they returned to Qinglongwan, everyone was extremely envious when they saw Xiang Yang put on a diving suit and caught a full net bag of flounder in a short time. They were even more determined to buy a diving suit as well.

"Brother Yang, you're lucky. Although this flounder is not worth much if sold individually, you can catch a large group of them lying motionless on the seabed." A young man about the same age as Xiang Yang stared at the net bag on Xiang Yang's waist with his eyes almost popped out.

Although flounder only costs eight or nine yuan per pound in the town, the net bag around Xiang Yang's waist holds at least twenty pounds. It's no wonder that he can earn nearly two hundred yuan in less than half an hour in the sea.

Xiang Yang smiled and said, "If you catch flounder in the future, you can sell it to me. I'll buy it for nine yuan per pound. Although it's about the same price as the purchase price in town, there's really not much money to be made from these cheap sea fish. Just consider it a favor."

The seafood buyers in every place will go deeper to buy the more precious the seafood is. On the contrary, they will give a more fair price for the less valuable seafood like flounder. The retail price of this kind of flounder is only about ten or twenty yuan per catty. Zhang Qicheng offered Xiang Yang ten yuan per catty, and Xiang Yang offered nine yuan, which really meant that there was no profit to be made.