Erhai Bow Fish

Dali Erhai has the title of “A Pearl of Plateau ”, it is a clear, freshwater lake with the largest water capacity of Hengduan mountains. It is also a lake of abundant natural resource, the home for more than ten kinds of fish, among which Bow fish is the most famous.

Bow fish has its name because it looks like a bow when leaping. Early in Tang Dynasty, Bow fish had been delivered to Chang’an as a tribute, thus called “tribute fish”. Yang Shen, a famous scholar, also the Number One Scholar in Ming Dynasty, praised Bow fish as the “King of Fish”. It is a narrow fish with silver colour, round back, no scale and few bones. It weighs 2-3 liang, and tastes tender and delicous. What is worthy to mention is it is of high protein and abundant nutrition. It is described that: “jumping over Erhai, it looks like Tiao fish, but with thinner scale, and a length of less than 1/3 meter ”. it is recorded as : “Gong fish, also called Bow fish. It looks like Tiao fish but with thinner scale. It is less than 1/3 meter long, with few bones. It tastes tender and delicious, especially roe and belly fat. It also can be pickled”. Bow fish’s fertility time is in spring when peach flowers blossom. A famous dish called “Peach Blossom Fish”, boiling the fish in bree with green horsebeans. A learned scholar in Qing Dynasty had written some lines to describ the occasion of having Bow fish in spring。

It is said that in the past, there was a large amount of Bow fish in Erhai. During midseason, the Bai fishering family would build a shed straw shanty on the lake side to fish. Lots of Bow fish swimming under the bright moon, one even could catch a fish by hand, thus having a story of “catching a fish while lying on bed”. There were a large amount of Bow fish until 60s, when local people deliverd tons of pickled Bow fish by car to Kunming and transferred to other places out of the province through Burma Road, or even to southeast countries through Burma. But in 70s, because of the destroy of Erhai’s ecological environment, the yield of Bow fish had decreased sharply, and it is diffiicult to enjoy now. In recent years, related departments have already taken measures to protect, manage and make scientific research. Fortunately, there has been reproduction of this kind of fish in the upper reach of Erhai, though of small amount.