Yellow croaker is also called patriotic fish.
In 1957, there was a famine and many people could not afford to eat.
It was also in this year that the annual output of large yellow croaker in Zhoushan Fishery soared from 5,000 tons to over 100,000 tons, a 20-fold increase. Due to the lack of refrigeration conditions that year, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions also called on other parts of the country to actively purchase and taste the "patriotic fish."
In the following 20 years, yellow croaker became the national fish and a symbol of a beautiful and affluent life.
Even families living in the far inland can eat frozen yellow croaker during the fishing season in spring and summer every year.
"The cooking skills can be repeated, but the taste of yellow croaker may be difficult to restore compared to the historical ones." Li Chao sighed and said, "Since the 1980s, the wild yellow croaker resources in the East China Sea have been exhausted. The 20-fold harvest of yellow croaker in 1957 was actually the last of the yellow croaker feasts."
Xiang Yang nodded seriously, agreeing with Li Chao's words.
Large yellow croaker is a marine fish that can make sounds.
According to the recollections of the older generation of fishermen in Yanlong Village, from early April to early May of the lunar calendar, when the yellow croaker fishing season arrives at the seaside, the dense crowds of yellow croakers on the nearshore sea surface make calls so loud that they can wake people from their dreams.
But in Xiang Yang's impression, he had never seen such a grand sight of large yellow croaker before.
In fact, since the 1980s, there has been no fishing season for yellow croaker in the East China Sea.
By the early 1990s, annual output was only a few dozen tons.
By 1993, the Zhoushan fishing grounds, which had once been rich in yellow croaker, had caught only 27 tons.
"Although wild East China Sea yellow croaker is delicious, it has withdrawn from the tables of ordinary people." Xiang Yang nodded and said, "The last time I saw them in the news, they were really priced sky-high. The price per catty of a single super-large East China Sea wild yellow croaker is generally the weight multiplied by one thousand. For example, a yellow croaker weighing 2 catties is 2,000 yuan per catty, and a yellow croaker weighing 4 catties is 4,000 yuan per catty."
Li Chao smiled. In fact, this price has long been outdated. As the number of wild yellow croakers continues to decrease, the price of yellow croakers is getting more and more expensive.
However, Li Chao did not explain anything to Xiang Yang. The price he offered to Xiang Yang was not low to begin with, and the transaction between him and Xiang Yang was not a market transaction but a purchase price. Most importantly, that price was agreed to by Xiang Yang himself.
It is difficult for those who are not familiar with yellow croaker to tell whether it is wild or farmed.
There is also a lot of counterfeiting in the wild yellow croaker market.
As for how to divide the two, there is actually no need to divide them at all.
A hotel of that level will not use fake yellow croaker to tarnish its reputation if it claims its food is real yellow croaker.
It is impossible for a hotel of that level to sell real wild yellow croaker.
The taste of farmed yellow croaker is indeed inferior to that of wild yellow croaker, but the indisputable fact is that the price of farmed yellow croaker is much more affordable, generally only a few dozen yuan per pound, making it a delicacy that can truly enter the homes of ordinary people.
In fact, most of the yellow croaker on the market today are farmed.
my country made breakthroughs in artificial breeding of large yellow croaker in 1986, and mastered the technology of artificial breeding of broodstock in 1987.
Ningde is the center of my country's large yellow croaker farming industry.
In 2015, there were 149,000 tons of farmed yellow croaker in the country, of which more than 80% came from Ningde.
The biggest difference between farmed yellow croaker and wild yellow croaker is that they are too fat. According to research by a teacher from a maritime university, the total fat content of farmed yellow croaker is more than twice that of wild yellow croaker.
"I could have caught some more yellow croakers this time," Xiang Yang sighed. "But the disappearance of yellow croakers is directly related to the intensity of fishing, so I didn't dare to continue casting nets in that sea area."
"It's right to quit while you're ahead." Li Chao nodded, first affirming Xiang Yang's approach, and then he said: "In fact, the disappearance of yellow croaker has little to do with fishing intensity. What really determines the fate of yellow croaker is the introduction and abuse of the fishing technology and the complete destruction of the wintering grounds of yellow croaker."
The fishing net operation is a collective operation, which usually consists of two large ships responsible for setting and collecting the nets and more than 30 small boats responsible for making noise to drive fish.
The two large fishing boats were called Kougong and Koumu, and the other boats were called Peikozai small boats.
When these boats arrived at the fishing grounds, the male and female fishing boats set out their nets, and through flag signals and horns, they directed the small boats to surround the school of yellow croaker and form a semicircle in front of the large boats.
There are usually only three or four people on each small boat, two of whom row the boat and two of whom beat the wooden boards tied to the boat. By creating underwater sound waves, the brain stones of the Sciaenidae fish resonate and stun the fish. The fleet then drives the stunned fish into the nets opened by the large ship.
In 1954, the fishing net operation method first appeared in Zhoushan fishing grounds and spread to the entire southeast coast in 1956.
The hammer-net operation is extremely effective for catching fish from the Sciaenidae family, namely large and small yellow croakers.
In Kanmen, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, a fishing fleet once caught 470,000 kilograms of yellow croaker in one net, which is unimaginable today.
Knocking on the fishing net is a truly destructive act.
When encountering a large school of fish, the fleet only catches a small number of fish that were stunned, and the remaining fish are left to die and sink to the bottom of the sea.
In addition to the fishing net operation, there are also fishermen who round up the yellow croakers that come to the coastal fishing grounds in spring and summer and those that come to the port of Zhoushan Daiquyang to spawn. Some greedy fishermen even chase the yellow croakers to the wintering fishing grounds in the open sea to catch the wintering yellow croakers, making the yellow croaker completely out of demand.
That year, the production of yellow croaker in Zhoushan Fishery increased sharply from 100,000 tons to 168,100 tons, setting the highest record for yellow croaker production in the history of my country's fishery.
At that time, people were delighted and thought that a new yellow croaker fishing ground had been opened.
As a result, the production of yellow croaker plummeted in the following years, and the yellow croaker resources have never recovered since then.
Xiang Yang shook his head and didn't want to comment on these two things.
In Xiang Yang's opinion, knocking on the net can be attributed to cognitive errors, but destroying the wintering grounds of yellow croaker is really unacceptable. It is equivalent to tracing directly to the source and completely ending the yellow croaker population.
Xiang Yang thought carefully for a while, then looked at Li Chao, nodded and said, "Okay, let's use these yellow croakers to advertise the yacht, and you can take the bluefin tuna away, Boss Murong."
Although wild yellow croaker is not as precious as bluefin tuna, it is also an extremely valuable top-quality seafood.
Most importantly, as one of the most important aquatic products in Zhoushan fishing grounds, yellow croaker is extremely famous, even more so than bluefin tuna.
When the Supreme series yacht goes out to sea, the passengers on the yacht must be wealthy bosses. Eating a piece of wild yellow croaker is a reward for their hard work.