Icy lake's traditional 'conquerors' reap rich harvest

Before dawn on Dec 28, Zhang Wen and his team drove en masse out onto the frigid, icy expanse of Chagan Lake in Songyuan in Northeast China's Jilin province. Sheepskin hats and coats were their protection against the subfreezing temperature of -26 C.

Zhang and his 52 men drilled the thick ice. Then they carefully cast a large net into a hole in the ice. It took almost five hours.

At noon, they pulled the net full of fish out of the water. Zhang's team was one of the four fishing that day.

Fishing on frozen Chagan Lake is an ancient tradition that dates back to the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234).

Winter is believed to be the best time to harvest fish that are the most delicious, according to Cao Baoming, a Jilin-based folklorist.

The name Chagan, Mongolian in origin, means sacred, white or pure. So the lake is also referred to as Holy Water Lake. It is a freshwater body that covers more than 500 square kilometers - one of the 10 biggest freshwater lakes in China.

The winter fishing season starts in the middle of December each year and ends in the middle of the following January, when the local temperatures can be as low as -45 C. Fish freeze as soon as they are out of the water.

On the coldest days of winter, the ice on the lake, which has an average depth of 1.5 to 2 meters, can be 1 m thick. This drives fish into an area of water only 0.5 to 1 m deep and makes fishing with large nets quite easy.

Fishermen around Chagan Lake, who can earn an annual income of 100,000 yuan ($14,700) to 200,000 yuan, have upheld the ancient fishing practices. No machinery is used, horses operate primitive wooden winches to draw in the nets, and the hauls of fish - mostly carp - can be enormous.

During the fishing season, fishermen harvest more than 1 million kilograms of fish. The fishing spectacle attracts many tourists each year and makes the lake a popular tourist destination in winter.