This stretch of water was actually fairly small, which was one reason the fish were so easy to catch. Mainly, it was secluded and nobody came here, and the water was shallow. Fish struggled to survive in shallow water in winter, so as soon as a hole was broken in the ice, they came over.
They were easy to scoop up. Anyway, if they weren't caught, most would probably be dead or frozen into the ice by the start of spring next year. As temperatures kept dropping, the ice would grow thicker and thicker, until most of this pool was solid ice. Apart from a small patch at its deepest point, there would be no water left.
The fish would freeze to death. Of course, a few might remain in the deepest water, but even then, they couldn't all survive. Less water meant less oxygen, and the temperature was low, too. Not every fish could survive at temperatures like that.
"If only they'd drain Big Haizi Reservoir again," Tao Daqiang said wistfully. "Those two times they drained it, there were so many fish..."
When they cleaned Big Haizi Reservoir, they drained it dry. Then there were fish everywhere in the reservoir. You didn't need to catch them, just pick them up.
But the reservoir wasn't cleaned on a regular schedule, or every year. The last two cleanings had been three years apart, and several years had passed since the last one.
"We'll wait. Maybe next year," Li Long said. His memory of which years the reservoir had been cleaned was growing rather hazy. More importantly, his presence had already changed quite a few things, and he didn't know whether it would indirectly affect the clearing of Big Haizi Reservoir's bottom.
Over the morning, the four of them caught a little