China's land is vast and rich in rivers, rich in fish resources, and wild fish have different forms due to the different waters in which they grow, and there is no shortage of precious species. In the countryside, wherever there is water, there are fish, which is the most familiar to country children, some fish do not even have a proper name, and country children give them a local name according to their appearance, habits, or eating methods. For example, the stinging fish bees, the stone climbing fish lying on the stone to feed, the rice strip fish that swim on the surface of the water, there is a kind of fish in the wild bubble in the northeast, which is frozen in winter, ugly and coughing, known as the "old man fish" in the past poor people are willing to eat, and now sell to 50 yuan a pound to become a rare commodity.
As the saying goes, "natural selection", each creature in nature will choose its own way of survival according to the environment, its own conditions and habits, and wild fish are well versed in this way. In the northeast, there are many dense rivers with vegetation, because there are too many wild fish, the older generation uses "three flowers, five luo, eighteen seeds, seventy-two miscellaneous fish" to describe the abundance of aquatic products. The northeast is located in a cold temperate zone, the winter is long and cold, so many fish have trained a cold resistance skill, there is a kind of fish even if it is frozen under the water can not freeze, it is the old man fish.
In the northeast, the old man fish is commonly known as the mountain fat head, old stone, and generally grows in grassy ditches, streams, or swamp blisters. In winter, the water in the bubbles into a thick layer of ice, planing the ice layer will often see the old man fish, fished out of the old man fish is instantly frozen to help hard, often think that it is frozen to death, but put it in cold water, the ice melts after the old man fish is like sleeping in the ice, and then resurrected, so the rural people call this fish "Huan Yang fish".
The old man fish is a kind of pond fish, the scientific name of the Ge's perch pond bass, the fish body is covered with yellow and black markings, the stomach is large, the mouth is large and the eyes are small, dressed like the black head or flower face in Peking Opera, and it will also make a coughing sound like the elderly, so it is named "old man fish". The old man is old and black and very ugly, and very gluttonous. The old man has a large mouth and sharp teeth, is a predator in the blisters, and all the fish and shrimp that can bite can be swallowed raw, and even choose to eat their own kind when there is little food.
Northeast old man fish is a scourge in the breeding fish pond, often giving farmers a headache, every year the pond is mainly to remove blackfish and old man fish. Old men are covered with yellow-black markings, which are easy to camouflage in aquatic weeds, and it is difficult to find them even in very shallow water, but old men are stupid when they are greedy. Country children are the most experienced in fishing this fish, the sewing needle burned red, bent into a fish hook tied to the cotton rope, put on an earthworm, found the blisters with old fish, half a morning can catch a large basin. The head of the old man fish occupies one-third of the body, it looks ugly, and the bag on the head of the old man often has parasitic line worms, and in the past, only when there was little food, people would catch it to survive, and the older generation said that it was once a life-saving dish for the poor.
In the past, no one wanted old man fish, but it was valuable, and the old man fish meat was tender, less thorny and delicious, and had high edible value. Nowadays, in restaurants in the northeast, sauce stewed old man fish has become a wild game delicacy sought after by foodies, thus doubling its value, and less than one or two old men can sell for more than 50 yuan a pound. The old man fish is not only not delicious in summer but also hard, after the ice is frozen in winter to the time when the ice melts in the spring, the fish is tender and delicious, and it is now in season, don't miss it. Have you ever seen this kind of old man fish that freezes in the winter and does not die, ugly and coughs?