"Dongzi, I didn't expect there to be jellyfish this close."
"We haven't come very far, have we? There are so many jellyfish here."
Being so close also ensured the jellyfish could be caught and brought ashore promptly, making timely processing afterward easier too. No wonder even the small wooden boats could catch them so easily.
Ye Yaodong said happily, "That's why they can catch them in small wooden boats too. Let's use the hand nets and cut them up as soon as we get them aboard. Otherwise, we won't even be able to haul up a whole netful, and we'd still have to drag them ashore one by one. Too much work."
The three immediately got moving, one steering the boat while the other two fetched the hand nets.
They had no experience either and hadn't brought extra hand nets aboard. There were only two altogether, one long-handled and one short-handled, just enough for one each.
But as the fishing boat approached, all the jellyfish around them sank into the sea and fled.
When Ye Yaodong shone his flashlight over them, he was dumbfounded. "They sink that fast?"
The two brothers holding the hand nets were bewildered too. "These aren't trawl nets. Once they sink out of sight, how are we supposed to catch them?"
"Could the diesel engine be too loud? Did it scare them?"
He glanced at a little boat that had just been rowed past nearby. It had stopped too, and an old fisherman aboard quickly netted a jellyfish with a hand net and was struggling to drag it toward the gunwale.
"Try turning the engine off first."
They called out to Ye Yaosheng at the helm. The diesel engine immediately fell silent, and the boat rocked on the sea as its momentum carried it onward.
It