They figured that now the weather had turned cold and the trawl catches were pitifully small, longline fishing would probably be much the same. As Ye Yaodong steered toward the spot where they had set their longline, he also pondered whether to make a few gill nets as he had last year to catch bottom-dwelling fish. At least they could catch more turbot, sole fish, toadfish, and other bottom dwellers.
But that would mean borrowing the rolling wheel from his father's friend again, which felt a little embarrassing. Borrowing it once or twice would ordinarily have been fine, but he had kept it a little too long the first time. He had originally meant to return it early, but Uncle Lin kept saying there was no hurry.
As a result, between that lack of urgency and his procrastination, he had left it sitting on the boat for several months before returning it.
He had wanted to pay for it and buy it outright, but Uncle Lin would not sell. He said he did not urgently need money and might still have a use for it occasionally, so Ye Yaodong could only drop the idea.
There was no need to buy a new one, either, since he did not intend to keep using gill nets all the time. After thinking it over, he could only set the matter aside for now.
At worst, they could make a few more trawl runs over the next couple of days and see how things went. If the catches were still poor, they could simply haul the nets by hand. It was not as though they had never put in the effort to haul nets manually. That was all they had relied on at the beginning, and most people in the village still hauled their