Fishing in China

So yesterday a few buddies, my wife, and I set out in search of "fish"....

So mind you I will have to preface this with where I am from. I am originally from Idaho, USA the land of Mormons and great fishing. I grew up on a river and I have had my own drift boat since I can remember. I grew up catching fish for food. Now I will say that I always hate the "In my country" or "where I am from" statements that people make.....but I have to make one here.

Where I come from we do not eat trash fish....we catch them a throw them on the bank of the river, crick. lake, pond to die and for the birds and flies to eat.

Here in China though....that is all that you can catch and of course they eat them all. People were freaking out that we were tossing our fish back in the pond as I would not be fucked to eat them. Chinese apparently have never heard of catch and release. Which after thinking about it....that is the motto of the culture in general. Use it til it is fucked...and then live with it broken or live without it.

We went out to Xili Hu and rented a cabin on the little 1-2 acre man made pond that they have stocked with various species of trash fish.

While it was fun to introduce my wife to fishing and to get a few bites....I cannot help myself as I compared it to all of the fishing I did back in the States.

It is a true reminder that I am not in Idaho anymore as I sat there with 50 cabins around this little pond and half eaten chicken feet were floating by.....I kept thinking to myself....fuck is this the childhood memory that my boy will have for "fishing with dad"? I sure as fuck hope not......I am on a mission to find things here that are well how do I say "normal" for me and my boy to do when he gets a bit older....so far China has won almost every battle.

I wonder if there is real river/lake/crick fishing here that has real trout or bass. Something that is a predatory fish that actually fights when caught. Or were they all caught and the trash fish just took over?

Well that is one down and several other places to go. Next trip is scheduled for a few weeks out....and on the ocean. Hopefully that will be funner and more like what I think fishing should be.

As I said though...it was a good day. We caught 7 fish in total the biggest one my wife is holding here. It was 1.5 kilo....