This fish is fierce by nature and hard to keep alive after being caught, yet it is anglers' favorite, though rarely found in the wild

Fishing has now become one of people's ways of leisure and entertainment. Whether rural or urban, people love to go fishing on the banks in their spare time. Fishing is a very fulfilling thing; for beginners just starting out, as long as they can catch a few fish, they will be very happy no matter what kind of fish it is, while experienced anglers prefer to go after more challenging fish. Today we are going to talk about a fish that can be found in both the north and the south. It is fierce by nature and does not survive easily after being caught, yet it is also greedy and grabs food almost all year round. If you can catch one, the sense of achievement is great, and it is the favorite fish of anglers.

This fish is the topmouth culter. It is a very wild fish. If you catch it with a fishing net, it can leap three chi high and is hard to tame. Even if you put it in a bucket full of water after catching it, it will die immediately. However, farmed topmouth culter is much better now and can survive in aquariums. So if you want to eat fresh topmouth culter, you can only eat the farmed kind. The most distinctive feature of the topmouth culter is its upturned mouth, which is also one of the signs by which people identify it. With a small head and an upturned mouth, it looks quite cute. Wild topmouth culter is generally not big; one weighing about half a jin is considered very large, and usually most are relatively small.

The flesh of the topmouth culter is very fine, and it can be made into many kinds of delicious dishes. Whether braised in soy sauce or pan-fried in oil, it will make everyone eat with great enthusiasm. However, the topmouth culter has especially many fine bones, so you need to be careful when eating it. This is also one of its major drawbacks, so small topmouth culter is actually more popular than large ones, because it can be deep-fried until crisp and eaten directly with the bones chewed up. Nowadays there are many farmers raising topmouth culter, and it is very common on the market, so the price has naturally come down. The price is not expensive, around ten yuan per jin, making it truly a cheap and delicious food. But the number of wild topmouth culter is no longer large, mainly because it has relatively high requirements for water quality, since it is an upper-layer fish living in the water and needs clean water sources; flowing water is even better.

In this season, some places in the north have already had snow. Because of the cold environment in the north, the fish's flesh is even more tender. Every year when the winter fishing period comes, people specifically wait to buy topmouth culter. Now the topmouth culter has become one of the well-known fish species in northern rivers, precisely because its flesh tastes better than that of other fish. However, most of the wild topmouth culter on the market now is chilled fish. If you want to eat it alive, you probably have to go fishing for it yourself.