Following Xiang Yang's order, Zhou Wang controlled the winch to slowly raise the net.
The fishing net slowly closed in and gradually left the sea. Zhou Wang, who was operating the winch, was a little surprised. "It seems like there are a lot of fish in this net."
"Hmm?" Xiang Yang looked at Zhou Wang strangely.
Zhou Wang explained: "I predicted that the winch would be very weak when the net was being lifted."
Xiang Yang immediately understood. Zhou Wang was an old master. Of course he could confirm the amount of fish caught in a net by some subtle changes when the winch was pulling up the net. Just like an old rider on an electric bike on land, he could confirm the slope of the road by the degree of the electric bike's back force.
When the fishing net was pulled onto the deck, everyone gasped.
fish.
Lots of fish.
The fishing net was spread out, and the fish were piled up densely on half the deck.
When the fish attracting lights were turned on, everyone was standing on the deck and looking under the side of the ship. It seemed that not many fish were attracted around the fishing boat. But when the net was pulled up, a rough look at the amount of sea fish in the net showed that it weighed at least six or seven thousand kilograms. This was the first time that this fishing boat had caught such a large catch.
He Mingde's face was flushed with excitement. Even the fleet he was in before rarely encountered so many catches in one net.
"Turn on the searchlight." Xiang Yang shouted, "Quickly clean up the catch."
Every time a net is cast, all the sea fish caught need to be sorted and processed.
Ordinary sea fish are packed in foam boxes and frozen in freezers, more valuable sea fish are kept in water tanks, and precious sea fish need to be placed in water tanks and carefully cared for.
"Is this a saury?" Fang Youqun said excitedly as he grabbed a silver sea fish that was as long as his arm and as wide as two fingers.
The fish called saury is very popular among young people, especially those like Fang Youqun who are more playful.
Gather a group of friends and go to the town to play. When you are tired, find a barbecue stall, order a piece of saury, squeeze some lemon juice on it, and it tastes so delicious.
Xiang Yang smiled and said, "If you like it, I'll give you this for the next few days. Now put it in the foam and continue working."
Saury is a very common marine fish. The recorded catch in my country from 2014 to 2019 is between 60,000 and 80,000 tons per year. It is not a rare marine fish. The market price is about 15 yuan per catty. You can buy several home for 20 yuan.
It is worth mentioning that due to its large reproduction rate, saury does not need to be farmed. The saury available on the market is generally wild saury, which is a conscientious game delicacy that does not require worrying about being slaughtered.
A small half of the fish caught in this net were saury, about two to three thousand kilograms.
Xiang Yang had a smile on his face. The fish caught in this net were not all cheap sea fish like saury, there were also many valuable seafood products.
Among them, Xiang Yang saw He Mingde holding a yellow croaker that was estimated to weigh nearly one kilogram, his face beaming with joy.
It was a small yellow croaker in the yellow croaker family.
Yellow croaker, also known as yellow croaker, is divided into large yellow croaker and small yellow croaker. In the entire yellow croaker family, the price difference of each yellow croaker is ridiculously large.
Not to mention wild yellow croaker, it is basically impossible to get one at less than ten thousand yuan each.
The current market price of small yellow croaker weighing less than one tael is 30 to 40 yuan per catty, while those weighing two to three taels can be sold for eighty to ninety yuan per catty, and those weighing more than four taels will cost over a thousand yuan. The small yellow croaker weighing almost one pound in He Mingde's hand is almost as valuable as the big yellow croaker.
When buying yellow croaker, be sure to distinguish whether it is wild or farmed.
Just like other seafood like puffer fish, there is a huge price difference between farmed yellow croaker and wild yellow croaker, and there are often unscrupulous merchants in the market selling inferior products as good ones.
"Don't worry about the saury for now." Xiang Yang instructed the busy crew, "Help me raise all the small yellow croakers in the water tank first."
"Yes, yes, yes, let's clean the small yellow croaker first." He Mingde also echoed.
The small yellow croaker is easy to distinguish among a group of white marine fish, and its golden color can be seen at a glance.
There were quite a few small yellow croakers in this net, accounting for about one-tenth of the total catch, with a total of about 600 to 700 kilograms. Unfortunately, most of them were small yellow croakers weighing about 2 taels, and only those weighing more than 4 taels were less than 100 kilograms. As for the small yellow croakers weighing nearly 1 kilogram that He Mingde had held in his hand before, there were only three in total.
Even so, this net was full of hauls. Xiang Yang planned to deal with the three largest yellow croakers separately. Even without the three big ones, this batch of yellow croakers could be worth 70,000 to 80,000 yuan.
Saury and small yellow croaker were caught in groups, and the remaining marine fish species were more diverse, basically all kinds of species were available, but most of them were not very valuable marine fish. On average, Xiang Yang estimated that they were roughly the same price as saury.
"This net will definitely yield more than 100,000." He Mingde was in a very good mood. "There aren't many opportunities like this. Xiaoyang, should we cast another net here?"
"Yes, Captain, this is a rare opportunity, let's catch another one." The crew member also shouted.
Because Xiang Yang promised a bonus of 200 yuan to each crew member on the ship, even though it was late at night after they finished cleaning up the catch, every crew member on the ship was excited and not sleepy at all.
Xiang Yang smiled, "What rare opportunity do you mean? The catch from the net just now was all due to the fish attracting lights. Normally there wouldn't be so many fish in this area. There will be many opportunities like this in the future."
"Then we won't fish today?" asked a crew member.
"You all want to catch another fish?" Xiang Yang asked.
"Yes." Everyone said in unison. There weren't many entertainment activities on the ocean, and everyone was a night owl, and now they couldn't sleep even if they rested, so fishing became an entertainment activity in this situation.
"Then cast another net." Xiang Yang said with a smile, "But it is not suitable to cast a net in this sea area anymore."
Seeing that everyone had a puzzled look on their faces, and He Mingde and several other veteran crew members were all smiling but not saying anything, Xiang Yang explained, "Fish attracting lights use the phototaxis of sea fish to attract all the phototaxis sea fish in the nearby sea area. However, the phototaxis of sea fish has a time period. Once they adapt to the light, they will slowly swim away and will no longer gather near the light. The searchlight on our ship has been on just now. After such a long time, the fish attracting lights have no effect on the sea fish in this sea area."
Everyone immediately realized that there is such a saying as using fish-luring lights to catch fish.
"Brother Yang, where are we going next?" asked Fang Youqun.
"Continue sailing south, turn on the fish-attracting lights along the way, and cast the net after sailing for half an hour." Xiang Yang said.
Everyone nodded to indicate that they had no objection.
The fishing boat continued to sail south.
Xiang Yang looked at the sea with a gradually deep gaze. In Xiang Yang's view, those things before were just appetizers. The real main course was the school of tropical fish that migrated south collectively after encountering the cold wave.