But as they walked, the more Ye Yaodong thought about it, the more something seemed off. Hadn't the Gezhouba Dam been built just a couple of years ago?
After the Gezhouba Dam blocked the river, the Chinese sturgeon's spawning migration route had been obstructed. Within three years, juvenile numbers had plummeted, and the population had fallen by around 97 percent.
China seemed to have banned all commercial fishing of Chinese sturgeon starting in 1983. That would be next year, probably?
His sudden excitement really had gotten the better of him just now. He had actually forgotten about that and thought Chinese sturgeon were so abundant now that they had even swum all the way here.
He hurriedly told his two brothers-in-law, "I remembered something. You can't catch this fish now. Catching it might land you in prison. Shall we let it go?"
It wasn't as though Ye Yaodong had never caught a big fish before. He felt no heartache at all about releasing it. They could just let it go. There was no need to tread that close to the line.
"Huh? Surely not?" Lin Xianghui asked in surprise. "Isn't it just a fish?"
Lin Xiangrong also knitted his brows. "Exactly. How could catching one fish land us in prison?"
Ye Yaodong scratched his head. He couldn't exactly say that this was an endangered species that would be extinct in a few years and that fishing for it was about to be banned. After thinking it over, he could only rely on his silver tongue.
"Not all fish are the same. Just look at its shape, coloring, and contours, and you can tell it's unusual. I heard Chinese sturgeon are on the verge of extinction. If we take it to sell tomorrow, we might get hauled in for a lecture.