Fisherman Fubao made his fortune by fishing

After catching a large yellow croaker weighing more than five kilograms, there were no other big catches. The ordinary fish weighed at least more than thirty kilograms.

Years ago, no matter how many fish we had, they were never enough to sell.

After Li Yuer and his friends sorted the fish into buckets according to their grades, they prepared to bait and make nests.

A pack of chicken entrails is not enough as bait, but the puddle is not that big, so you can just use it.

"Go away!" Biaozi drove them away with some rotten wood he picked up.

"Rustle, rustle" a group of sea cockroaches fled from the chicken's internal organs, hid in the crevices of the reefs, and disappeared in an instant.

Although we know that sea cockroaches are not dirty, they are scavenging arthropods whose main food is seaweed. Unlike real cockroaches, they do not like to live in dirty sewers and carry a large number of bacteria and viruses.

But their appearance and the densely packed legs under their bellies are really hard to like.

Biaozi picked up the chicken's internal organs, which were attached to the chicken intestines. After being gnawed by sea cockroaches for a while, the smell became even stronger and more fishy.

People don't like this smell, but creatures in the sea like it. The stronger the smell, the better, and the more things it attracts.

"Yu Baoer, where should we put this thing?" Biaozi asked, pinching his nose.

Li Yuer used the stems of water chestnuts cut from the shore to roughly tie up the chicken's internal organs and intestines, trying not to touch them.

Then tie the other end to a small stone slab with a hole in the middle.

This will prevent the small chicken innards from being washed away by sea water or being taken away by marine life.

"Just throw it into the puddle and we can pick it up tomorrow."

There are so many seafood here. You don’t have to wait for a few days and you will probably be able to catch a lot.

After catching the big catch, Naonao and his friends wanted to go home. Li Yuer didn't want to leave as she hadn't eaten enough crabs and conchs, so she suggested catching some other seafood to bring back.

Although they caught a lot of fish yesterday, the fish were expensive at this time. The money from selling a pound of ordinary fish could be exchanged for a pound of black flour, and the big fish were almost the same as pork fat. They were reluctant to eat any of them themselves. In the words of their father, they would eat what they couldn't finish when the sea opened and eat until they vomited. There was no need to eat them now, so they sold them all.

Thinking that they had not eaten seafood for a long time, they agreed to stay and catch some other seafood.

Conch is one of the most commonly consumed seafood by villagers and can be found everywhere on the beaches and reefs.

There are cat's eye snails, rusty snails, oyster snails, fragrant snails, spicy snails, nail snails... and many others with beautiful appearances and colorful colors. I have never seen them before, so naturally I dare not try them easily.

As for other shellfish, there are even more, such as flying clams (Chinese mackerel, flying clams), flower clams, razor clams, scallops, razor mussels... There are also some shellfish with bright colors and beautiful patterns, but of course, I still dare not eat them.

Li Yuer also saw many sea cucumbers sticking their heads out of the sand, spraying water or preying on small fish and shrimps.

Fragrant crabs (sand crabs) were everywhere. From time to time, a few of them would hold up their claws and quickly run past the beach next to Li Yuer.

Li Yuer pursed her lips enviously, as if what were running on the beach were not small crabs, but jars of crab sauce.

Pick a handful of newly grown green onions, peel a juicy cucumber, wash some lettuce, steam a pot of second-cut dough cakes, and dip them in the soul-stirring crab sauce. It’s absolutely delicious.

You can also see groups of Lugu shrimps on the beach, hiding in the Lugu shrimp holes and secretly hiding on the edge of the shrimp holes. As long as there is a suitable prey passing by, they will quickly pop out, clamp the other party with their sharp claws, and then quickly drag it into the hole to enjoy.

The marine resources of this dynasty were really rich, which reminded Li Yuer of her previous life. When she was a child, when her wet nurse was still alive, she often told her about her grandmother's experiences and interesting stories when she was young.

When my grandmother was young, the resources in the sea were also very abundant. How abundant were they?

Use a ladle to scoop fish. When the tide is high, a layer of seaweed will float on some beaches in certain seasons, and schools of black carps are hiding inside foraging for food. People can stand in the sea water and just use a ladle to scoop up the fish and catch a lot.

When the tide was out, there were oyster snails everywhere on the rocks. You could just pick them up. I picked up two baskets and carried them on a shoulder pole. If I couldn’t finish eating them at home, I would just pick them out with chopsticks to feed the pigs.

You can also use a flashlight or headlamp to shine on the crabs at night. Once you turn over the stone slabs, or on the beach or under the water plants, you can see crabs everywhere. Once you shine the flashlight on them, the crabs will not dare to move and you can just catch them.

Li Yuer loved listening to these stories when she was a child, but she did not live to see the era when marine resources were so abundant.

Now, she was immersed in the scene of her grandmother's youth, and she actually had an illusion of time and space confusion and traveling through time again.

"It's full! It's full! Stop putting more stuff in my bucket!" Biaozi's two buckets were full, so he wouldn't let Erdan put any more oyster snails into his bucket.

"Look! What did I find?" Nao Nao was holding a big abalone in his hand. It was the first time that Li Yuer had seen such a big abalone.

She had only seen the golden double-headed abalone porridge ordered by customers at Nongchao Lou before. A small bowl cost sixty-six copper coins, and she heard that it was made with large double-headed abalone.

Li Yuer ran over to take a look and said, "Let me see it."

Nao Nao handed it over generously. Li Yu'er weighed it in his hand and said, "It weighs at least half a pound!"

Li Erlang said sourly: "I picked it up too, it's just an abalone."

Li Yuer returned the abalone to Nao Nao and went to look at Li Erlang's bucket. There were indeed a few abalones among the half bucket of seafood. Although not as big as Nao Nao's, they were definitely not small and would not be less than three taels.

Although seafood looks small, they are actually very heavy because live seafood contains a lot of water.

Cat's eye snails, in particular, love to absorb water and swell.

When she was a child, she followed her mother to the city to carry big baskets to sell seafood. She was afraid that the cat's eye snails would die, so she used plastic boxes filled with sea water to raise the cat's eye snails.

The cat's eye snail absorbed a lot of water, and the entire meat was turned inside out, which is called Fanhua in jargon.

When customers buy cat's eye snails and see them wriggling, they know that they are fresh. However, we will not sell the cat's eye snails directly without any fresh snails, as that would be too cost-effective.

Instead, pick out the cat's eye snails and use a net bag with a steel ring to control the water. Just hold the steel ring and shake the net bag, the cat's eye snails will spit out water and retract into their shells, and then they can be weighed.

Once, they met a customer who refused to allow the cat's eye snails to have water controlled. No matter how they explained, he insisted on doing it.

They had no choice but to sell them like this, a few pieces each making up one pound.

When the man went home and cooked the cat's eye snail, it shrank. The next day, the man came to complain, asking why such a large piece of meat disappeared after being cooked.

In fact, if you want the cat's eye snail's meat to not shrink, you have to let the cat's eye snail die in the blooming state. Wait until it is dead and don't wait for it to become smelly and rotten, then put it in the pot immediately to ensure it is in the blooming state.

How to do it? Actually it is very simple, just use fresh water to keep them, put some oil in it, and after some time in the fresh water, they will die.

In Li Yuer’s hometown in his previous life, there was a kind of smaller cat’s eye snail. In fact, it was not a cat’s eye snail, it was called small fragrant snail locally, but its appearance was really similar to the cat’s eye snail, and the taste was slightly different.

The small snail is about the size of three or four thumb caps on average. Its meat is much more tender and fragrant than that of the large cat's eye snail.

Li Yuer likes to "poison" the small snails with fresh water, then blanch them and cook them until they are cooked, then stir-fry them and put them back into the pan.

Heat oil in a pan, first add the scallion, ginger and garlic, then add the scallions and stir-fry. When it’s almost done, add the light soy sauce and homemade chili sauce, continue to stir-fry until it’s well-seasoned, then remove from the pan and serve.

There is no need to pick out the small snails with their meat already peeled off with a needle. Just grab the lid with your hands, pull it outwards and twist it, and the meat and the yellow part will come out. You can eat one in one bite, and they are so delicious.