The last fathead fish

#My Fancy Life #Chagan Lake Winter Fishing Scene is shocking. Through live television, people have experienced its magic, mystery and sacredness. On December 28, 2015, the winter fishing in Chagan Lake, which opened in Songyuan, Jilin Province, the 39-kilogram "head fish" that had just come out of the net actually sold 788,888 yuan - this is the "sky-high fish"!

The fish caught in Chagan Lake is called fathead fish, scientific name bighead carp, shaped like silver carp, huge, often more than ten pounds, dozens of pounds. Although we can't get to the scene of winter fishing thousands of miles away, we can photograph this fathead fish through Taobao, and deliver it to your home by express delivery to maintain its freshness. Of course, the price is not cheap.

　　There is also a kind of fat head fish is delicious and not expensive, this is our Dalian people commonly known as fat head fish, the scientific name spear tail compound tiger fish, looks like catfish, but not as big as catfish, a single one rarely more than half a pound, said to be "fat head", fish head is not fat to where to go, can not do "pickled pepper fish head". It is also not like the fathead fish of Chagan Lake, covered in silver-white scale armor, but gray, slippery, and has no appearance, so it cannot be eaten and rarely used to entertain guests. But it is less stinging and tender, and Dalian people almost like to eat it, just like changsha people like to eat their local "yellow duck call". ("Yellow duck call" is a fish not a duck, but also a low value and a fresh taste.) ）

Speaking of which, the relationship between the fathead fish and the Dalian people is quite close, it was once spread all over the coastal waters of Dalian, and the large and small rivers that flowed into the coastal waters were easy to obtain. Therefore, even in poor families, fathead fish are often seen on the dinner table. Fathead fish can be stewed with chili bean sauce, stewed with tofu in an iron pot, or pickled, dried into dried fish, and baked is a wonderful companion for cooking. Brown rice cake ballast porridge, on the salty fathead fish, eat that fragrant ah!

I remember when I was a child, I lived in my grandmother's house and ate a lot of fat head fish. Grandma's house is on the Yellow Sea in a place called Dragon King Temple Village, there are many river forks around the village, and the water in the river is crystal clear. My uncle often led me to touch the fish, and it was the fat head fish. Uncle is a master fish, he knows which river has more fat fish, knows when to touch. Usually, the uncle himself pulled up the legs and cuffs of his pants and entered the knee-deep river, bent down to search, and felt it out of the mud holes and stone crevices where the fathead fish was hiding, one after another, like a bag. My uncle threw the fathead fish he touched to me on the shore, and I picked it up and put it in a small bucket. When I encountered a shallow place, my uncle summoned me to go down to the river and teach me to touch the fish, but unfortunately, my hands were small, and sometimes I could not catch the fish when I touched it, and I watched the fish break free from my hands. Fortunately, my uncle had a lot of loot every time, and the fathead fish I touched quickly filled the keg, and my frustration was replaced by joy, because a bowl of delicious fathead fish would be served at dinner.

I can't touch the fish, I can fish. After I went to elementary school, I often went to the river to catch fathead fish after class.

At that time, my mother was working as a clerk in the leather chemical factory belonging to the Dalian Salt Bureau, and I lived with my mother in the factory area. The production workshop of the leather chemical plant is located in the endless salt flat, the factory office building and staff dormitory are on the shore, next to a small station on the "Jincheng Line" (Jinzhou- Chengzitan) of the train - sandwich. The sandwich is fifteen miles away from Grandma's Dragon King Temple Village, where there are also many river forks, and the river is also clear, and the naughty fish often float to the surface and look at people. I don't know where the forks originate, but I can see how they flow into the sea through here. The river fork of the sandwich also has countless fathead fish, and the local villagers catch a lot of fish as soon as they catch it, and if they can't eat it, they will sell it at the gate of the factory area and sell it to the workers of the skin. I distinctly remember that each pound of fathead fish sold for only eight cents (at that time, my mother's monthly salary was more than fifty yuan). My mother often asked me to buy it, and the villagers who sold fish were familiar with me as a leather child, and each time they finished weighing the scale, they added two to me extra. Later, when they became more mature, they simply did not want my money, scooped up a scoop of fat heads and buckled it into the small basket I was turning.

　　Or fishing. Although fathead fish can be bought at any time, and the price is also very cheap, the leather workers prefer to fish by themselves. On Sundays or during the break, they bring their own fishing rods and head straight for the river of their choice. So it is fishing rather than touching, because the river in the sandwich area is relatively deep and is not suitable for water.

Fishing, you have to have a fishing rod. The fishing rod at that time was not the advanced fishing rod of the current kind, neither could be pulled and extended, nor did it rotate the line, but was made of thin bamboo rods. My fishing rod is more rudimentary, because I can't get a thin bamboo rod, so I have to fold the strips of locust trees to make a fishing rod. There are two kinds of local locust trees, one is a locust with thorns on the branches, and the other is a cotton locust, which does not have thorns on the branches. What I use as a fishing rod is a cotton locust branch, eight long, without finishing, and a fishing line is tied to one end, and the fishing line is tied with a fishing hook, a water drift and a lead pendant. At that time, there was no high-grade bait, that is, some sea earthworms were dug up, dried in the sun, and used as they were.

On this day, the neighbor Uncle Li was off work and led his two young daughters out fishing. Passing by my house, he saw me in front of the door in a daze, and he called me to go with me. I quickly took the fishing rod of the cotton locust strip, caught a handful of dried sea earthworms, said hello to my mother, and followed Uncle Li to an unnamed river not far from home. I saw that the river was gentle, there were water and grass floating, and there were creaking wooden bridges across the river. We went up to the wooden bridge and waved the pole to throw the line, Uncle Li was over there, I was here.

I don't know what happened that day, my head was extra hooked, and the water drift on the fishing line was frequently dragged down by the hooked fat head. Several times I forgot to hang bait on the hook, and there were even fish hooked, or seven or eight inches of fat head. In just two hours, I caught more than thirty. Uncle Li's harvest on this day was not as good as mine, although his fishing rod was made of thin and long bamboo rods, but the fish Caught on this day was less than half of mine. It turned out that his two little daughters were lively and active, and they kept chattering and playing around Uncle Li, and as a result, they drove their fat-headed fish to my side.

Back at home, my mother saw that I had caught so many fat head fish, and I was very happy, handled the fish clean, and made a small pot of home-cooked sauce to stew fat head. When the lid of the pot is lifted, the smell of fish escapes to the outside of the house. My mother filled a large bowl and asked me to send it to Uncle Li's house. Uncle Li is still embarrassed, he is wondering: his fishing skills are not bad, how did he lose to a little fart child today?

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These are all old things.

　　Today's young people may have a hard time imagining: how we in Dalian could have so many river forks, and how there could be so many fish in river forks! It's hard to imagine how we could catch fish with our bare hands back then; how we could catch fish one by one by hook when cotton locust strips were tied to a line and hooked!

Dalian people like to eat fish. I asked my foodie friends what kind of fish they usually liked to eat. Most of their answers were yellow flowers, tooth pieces, gagi, Bohai knives, big head treasures and so on. I asked them if they liked to eat fathead fish, and they showed a surprised expression: Fathead fish? Is it the fathead fish of Chagan Lake? I said it was a local fathead fish in Dalian, and they asked me: Is there anything for sale? Where to buy?

No wonder, fathead fish are rarely seen in dalian fish markets now. Every time I go to the market to buy fish, I have to see if there are any fathead fish, but unfortunately I rarely encounter it. Occasionally found that there is a sale, but also a little, although more than ten yuan a pound, but also sold out in a short while, buyers are mostly fat head fish complex.

I asked the fishmonger: Why not get some more fathead fish? The fishmonger said: There is no stock, fat head fish are now less and less!

Last summer, I revisited my hometown and walked around the place where I lived as a child, and found that the forks of the river that had been touched and fished for fish were no longer what they were, or had dried up and blown up in the wind, or had become a deep pit of sand, or filled with garbage and emitted a foul smell. As for the near-beach mud where my friends and I used to catch crabs and dig clams barefoot, alas, not to mention, anyway, it has been filled in the sea, built land, built houses, or contracted by farmers, and made ginseng pens. Where are the blue waves? Looking into the distance, I couldn't even see the sea, but at this time, I was standing on the seashore of that year! ......

So I know why fathead fish have changed from ordinary things to scarce things.

So I knew that the fathead was about to become something in our distant memory.

　　When I walked through the fish market again and came across fathead fish, I wondered: Will this be the last fathead fish in Dalian?

Flaubert, who wrote Madame Bovary, was there a word that particularly sentimental? Flaubert groaned and said that the word existed, that is, "final."

If you think about it, it's true. Our good mountains and waters, as well as the mountains running, swimming in the water, and of course, the sky flies, many have become and are becoming "final", how can we not be sad?

　　"The last" – sentimentality and sorrow; sighs and elegies.

Somehow, I suddenly had a little worry about the distant Chagan Lake, where the fathead fish can often catch it?

　　I hope this is a fool's errand.

Written in the western suburbs of Dalian