Narrative Prose of Catfish Fishing in Late Autumn

10 In the lower reaches of Heilongjiang in the middle and late October, the warm southeast wind has faded out of the stage of the season and completely gave way to the fierce northwest wind that ravaged the north for a summer. Those cold northwest winds from Siberia or northeast winds from the Sea of Okhotsk have come to Heilongjiang with the rising of the sun and roared all day until the sun sets. But they are still wandering by the river, screaming sharply, skimming over the river, raising waves more than half a meter high and pouncing on the river bank.

The leaves of all kinds of trees growing on the shore began to turn yellow, swept away by the fierce northwest wind, scattered into the river, hit by big waves, gathered there, and slowly drifted downstream. At this time of the year, almost all the waterfowl such as snipe, swan and geese who live here in summer fly away, and even the last wild ducks and seagulls begin to pack up and prepare to leave. Every morning, they fly a long distance on the river in droves, quickly find their whereabouts, dive into the water to find small fish and shrimp, and make final preparations for their upcoming migration journey.

Every year in the cold dew season, even the best fishing season of crucian carp has passed, and they have stopped biting. They all gather in places where the water flow is relatively stable and deep, and begin preparations before wintering. Other fish, who live happily in summer branches and blisters, almost forget to hunt again, and leave their summer palaces one after another and start to return to Heilongjiang in droves, or gather in the shallow water on the shore to enjoy the last sunshine of the year.

They can spend a few sunny days here, and in a few days or ten days, they will migrate to the wintering nest, spend the whole long winter there, and silently wait for the next spring at the bottom of the frozen river. Every year in this season, some scaleless fish, such as fierce catfish, Gayaz and oxtail, not only bite the hook, but also become more crazy and greedy than before, and almost swallow the bait. They are seizing the last time of the year to grab the autumn fat to spend the coming long and cold winter.

That night we went to the river and got off the hook, mainly catching catfish.

Over the years, people's eating habits have also changed, influenced by various things, and they have heard that something is delicious and nutritious, and they have invested a lot of money without hesitation. As there are fewer and fewer wild fish in rivers and lakes, a large number of fish farmers and shrimp farmers begin to dig fish ponds everywhere. In this way, as long as the word "wild" is touched, there is nothing to worry about. It turns out that catfish, which nobody likes by the river, is more expensive than carp. Seeing such a good business opportunity, many mainland or local fishmongers trafficked catfish to Jiamusi, and the fish collected by the river was less than two yuan per catty. Once in Jiamusi, you can sell it for four or five dollars, which is very profitable. At that time, the Li Qinde Farm Middle School where I worked had not paid wages normally for many years, and only 70 yuan of pocket money was given to each person every month, and the rest was put in the account. In this way, we go fishing by the river, not only for recreation and relaxation, but also to sell some fish to fishmongers in exchange for some money to maintain the minimum expenses of the family.

Catfish fishing usually uses toads or an inch-long loach fish as bait. In order to get bait, the three of us spent a day after work carrying a shrimp net, fishing for natural blisters and several abandoned fish ponds near the school, only catching a few cans of loach with a thumb more than a foot thick and an' old fish'. Stewed loach fish and such a big old fish are also good. It's a little too big to be used as bait. The whole thing is hanging on the hook, and it may catch up with the catfish soon. Dare they bite the hook? The bait we caught was too big. Each of us took a pair of scissors or a knife before hooking.

We came to the river under the hook and fished out the live loach fish from the bottle. Each fish was cut into seven or eight pieces and hung on a bloody hook.

Those loach fish died under our butcher's knife, but the muscle cells that were cut into pieces were still alive and still twitching and trembling gently. The wounds of each piece of meat were bloody and looked particularly cruel. At that time, I could only comfort myself that our cruelty was probably more "fishy" than those who slowly tortured loach fish to death. Besides, hanging this piece of fish covered with fish blood on the hook and throwing it into the river-this fishy bait will definitely arouse the strong appetite of catfish that are bloodthirsty and eat other fish for a living.

The water in Heilongjiang is particularly swift. If you want to stop the bottom hook from being thrown into the river, you must attach a bigger lead pendant or iron Zhui Er, otherwise the rushing river will drop the fishing line downstream. That night, the place where we went to unhook was a rocky beach, and there were so many hanging objects at the bottom of the river that the original hanging stones on the fishing line were basically hung off, so we had to pick some long stones and tie them on the fishing line as falling rocks.

Fishing Zhui Er with stones is a bit primitive, and may be laughed at by some fashionable fishermen. In fact, they don't know that this kind of stone in Zhui Er has incomparable advantages over any kind of fish in Zhui Er, that is, the proportion of stone is relatively light, and it won't hang up easily when it is dragged. It seems that everything has duality, both advantages and disadvantages.

The fishing line of the lower hook is thick, which is a fine net twisted by twelve strands of nylon glue line. It's past eight o'clock in the evening, and it gets dark earlier in Heilongjiang in late autumn. It was dark before we finished fishing.

Pull the hook at night, throw the bottom line into the river, and then tie a big stone to the line board and sink into the river, so that the whole fishing line is completely submerged. Not only can't you see the fishing line on the shore, but even when you reach the water's edge, you won't be easily caught here, and you won't be caught by those who get up early to fish on the river. That night, after Ben got off the hook, he went home to sleep first, and he reached the river before dawn, so there was no need to hide the fishing line in the water. He just found a big stone to press the line board on the shore.

It was particularly dark that night. Not only is there no moon in the sky, but even the stars are hidden behind thick clouds. It's dark all around, only the river reflects faint light, which makes the night by the river more and more heavy and dark, and the colors are more dignified, which are the boulder standing on the shore and the three of us who have been busy.

When he got off the hook and walked back, Mr. Liu squatted down and picked up the fishing line to see if there were any fish. Although it didn't take too long to throw the hook into the river for more than an hour, at night, after the dead of night, catfish like to feed in the shallow water on the shore. Can't say that there is really a fish bite! Sure enough, Mr. Liu just grabbed the fishing line and suddenly cried happily: "Hey, there are fish, there are fish bites!" " "

As he spoke, he pulled the fishing line ashore. Six hooks were tied to this fishing line, but I didn't expect to catch four fish together. Near the shore are two catfish weighing two or three kilograms, the third one is a cow's tail weighing one kilogram, and the innermost one is actually a creaking tooth weighing half a catty. Interestingly, on all the hooks we landed that night, the fish caught in the shallow water near the shore grew bigger and bigger, while the fish caught in the deep water near the middle of the river became smaller, just contrary to the old saying that "it takes a long line to catch big fish". It seems that at a certain time and place, some old sayings may not be 100% correct!

Seeing the fish caught, no one went home. Mr. Liu and I started walking down plate by plate, while Mr. Li was carrying a bag with fish in the back. Walking to the middle of the lower hook, I found that there seems to be a fishing line missing. Although we can't see anything clearly in the dark, we basically know the distance under each line. There must be a fishing line in such a big space in the middle.

Teacher Liu and I quickly looked for it separately. He first found a fishing line upstream, and I soon found a fishing line downstream. There must be a fishing line between the two lines and a fishing line in the middle. I just haven't figured it out yet Why on earth did it leave without saying goodbye?

Fortunately, we brought a flashlight that day, turned it on, searched carefully along the river and finally found the fishing line. But it's broken, and the coiled plate is still pressed under a big stone on the shore. In addition, there is still a section of two or three meters of network cable left. I moved the stone, picked up the winding board and looked at the broken end of the fishing line carefully. It's not particularly neat. It was definitely not broken by a big stone. I think it was rubbing back and forth on the sharp stone edge, and finally the fishing line was worn off. If that's the case, we can only draw the conclusion that this fishing line is behind a big stone, and there happens to be a fish taking the bait, and it should be a big fish grinding the fishing line back and forth on the big stone. After a long time, the fishing line was finally worn off by it and carried into the river by fish and water.

If you can grind off such a thick fishing line, the fish biting the hook must be small. There's no shame in losing a fishing line. Wouldn't it be a pity that a big fish ran away? I pulled up the fishing line downstream, shook off all the remaining lines on the line board, shook the fishing line a few times, threw it into the river, held the fishing line until the falling rock sank to the bottom of the river, and then began to slowly pull the line back, trying to catch the broken fishing line with this fishing line.

As a result, it failed for the first time and nothing was built. The fishing line pulled to the shore swam down a dozen paces and was thrown into the river again, but nothing was caught. This was repeated four or five times, and finally a broken fishing line was caught in the river. When I pulled the line to the shore, I already felt particularly heavy, and I felt relieved. I forgot to separate the two groups of tangled fishing lines and quickly dragged them to the shore. Indeed, to our surprise, a big catfish weighing six or seven pounds was really caught by a line broken by a stone.

Although there were many fish in Heilongjiang at that time, in fact, catfish as big as this were rare. Even if big catfish are caught occasionally, most of them are head fish (silurus glanis), and real catfish rarely weigh more than five or six catties. After all, it is on the edge of Heilongjiang. In people's minds, catfish is much better than fish with heads. In order to confirm whether this fish is catfish, a flashlight was specially used to take a photo around its mouth. There are only four beards, two upper jaws and two lower jaws. Of course, that catfish was also the biggest catfish we caught that night.

By the time the last fishing line was replaced with new bait and thrown into the river, it was already midnight, and the silk bag was full of fish. That night, we walked seven or eighty Jin of fish, mostly catfish, but also a few yellow croaker and oxtail. We found a stick by the river, struggled to carry it on our shoulders, lifted the fish bag, touched the dark, and hurried home with one foot deep and one foot shallow.

There is only one mountain road from the river to the village, which passes through the dense forest, twists and turns, and goes uphill like a snake. The narrow path winds through the Woods, and the road covered with hay is covered with small puddles left after the rain. Accidentally, I stepped in, and the "water socks" I wore for fishing were immediately packed, wet and cold, and my feet were "jabbering" in my shoes. Plus, when I was carrying such a heavy thing, it was almost two in the morning. Put down the fish, hang it in the vegetable cellar, take a simple bite at home, and don't lie down by the river for a while.

When we returned to the river, it was already dawn, and a touch of fish-belly white was exposed under the eastern sky. Several of us went through all the hooks and put in new bait. There were fewer fish left this morning than at night, only weighing more than 20 kilograms. They were all catfish, and their bodies were obviously much smaller than those caught last night. In the process of walking the hook, I also dragged away a two-kilogram catfish ball.

Catfish shouldn't have been towed away. When I pulled the fish up from the shore, the falling stone of the fishing line hung only two or three meters away from the shore, but I couldn't pull it down. I took a few steps upstream and tried, but I couldn't. I took a few more steps downstream and tried again, but it still didn't work. I almost tried my best that day, but in the end I couldn't get the falling stone off the hook. Finally, I was really impatient and had to pull down the fishing line. I not only left a few meters of fishing line and several hooks in the river, but also catfish on the hooks.

In fact, the catfish was not too far away from me at that time, only two or three meters. Just take off your shoes and take two or three steps forward to catch catfish. But I didn't do that at that time, but chose to pull down the fishing line. If there was a carp at that time, or if we didn't catch so many catfish that day and only caught that one, could I still pull the line off? Of course not. Now that I think about it, forget about fishing and do something else. Anything that is easy to get will definitely not be cherished!

Now that I think about it, it's a pity that the catfish ran away.