Words yellow river knifefish

The family lives on the bank of the Yellow River, and the topic of knifefish in the Yellow River often lingers in the ears.

The earliest sight of the Yellow River knifefish was before the wheat harvest in 1970. On that day, more than a dozen of our laborers took a boat home from the north of the Yellow River. When the boat reached the south shore, there was a person shouting: The boat of the left group has fished, let's go and see how much we fight? We came to the boat and saw that the boatman was collecting the net, the knifefish were shining brightly and jumping in the net, and the boatman carried the net and poured the fish into a long wicker basket, filling four baskets with two or three hundred pounds. The captain of the ship shouted: Did you buy it? Three cents and five pounds, we did not buy it and pushed it to the county town to sell. The villagers looked at each other in disappointment and turned away.

At that time, I heard the old people say: This kind of fish is in the Yellow River, the best in our place, because it goes up against the current to Dongping Lake to lay eggs, swimming to our place has changed from black backbone bone to yellow backbone bone, the meat is the fattest and most delicious, the seeds are basically full, and then upstream will slowly become thinner.

When the Yellow River knife fish is fried, as long as you rub the pan with oil, the more oil you fry, fry until both sides are golden out of the pot plate, a layer of fish and a layer of salt; you can also chop off the head and tail, made into a knife fish ball soup separately, although the fish body is not a dish, but the ball soup soaked on the nest, the family even eat and drink is a good meal.

At that time, life was difficult, grain was basically the same price as knife and fish, and the supply and marketing cooperatives had eight cents a pound of loose wine, and a dollar felt very rich in his pocket. There is also a joke circulating in the villages: Uncle Zhang picked up feces in the morning, picked up a dollar next to the dung, and then hurried home, calculating while walking, buying two pounds of knife fish and six cents, and then playing half a pound of wine with the remaining four cents, which was really more and more happy! When he got home, he told his wife: I have made a small fortune, and there are knife fish and wine. Then I opened my pocket and looked at it, not only had I just picked up a dollar gone, but even the dollar in my pocket was gone. Chagrin said: people pit people, money pit money, pick up a piece and drop two pieces, bad luck is big.

In 1972, the Yellow River began to stop flowing, and in 1996, it was cut off for 19 years in 25 years. After I joined the work in 1975, the canteen sometimes made Yellow River knife fish for two dimes per stick, which was not expensive, about seven or eight cents a pound. However, since 1987, the Yellow River has been continuously cut off in the spring, which has greatly affected the breeding and growth of the Yellow River knifefish, and the Knifefish in Dongying City, which is located at the mouth of the Yellow River, has completely disappeared. Although frozen Yellow River knifefish are sometimes seen on the market, it is later understood that the goods are actually imported from the Huai River Valley, and each one is only one or two or two. In addition, the news of a thousand yuan a pound of Yangtze River knifefish is also often seen in the news, after a person who has a heart to inquire that the knifefish actually grows in the sea, every spring along the freshwater river against the current to spawn and breed, not only the Yellow River.

Knifefish are suspicious by nature and difficult to breed when they die from water. After the completion of the Yellow River Xiaolangdi Water Conservancy Hub Project in 1997, although the Yellow River no longer has a broken flow, the yellow river pollution has not been completely eradicated, and overfishing at the mouth of the sea and too many pontoon bridges along the Yellow River still restrict the growth and reproduction of yellow river knifefish. Occasionally, the Yellow River knifefish seen on the market is not only small and black-ridged, but it is actually caught at the mouth of the Yellow River, but it is still precious.

Last year, I went to Jinan to visit some old friends and wanted to buy a few pounds of better Yellow River knife fish. One of his old friends was a soldier of the Shandong Production and Construction Corps (Yellow River Farm), and when the golden and fragrant knife fish was brought to the table, he said while eating: I didn't expect to be able to eat this thing for more than 40 years. Think of when we were young and naughty in the corps, we stole the Yellow River knife fish, and put the iron shovel head shabu clean and directly on the top to fry, the oil is nourishing! After he showed off, others praised him.

It is hoped that with the implementation of the instruction that "green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains", the ecological environment of the Yellow River Basin is getting better and better, and there are more and more knifefish in the Yellow River!

About author:Li Chen, formerly working at Kenli County Transportation Company in Shandong Province, has retired.