December 25, 2022, Songyuan, Jilin Province, the annual winter fishing in Chagan Lake is in full swing.

Early in the morning, the winter fishing team hastened the carts and moved toward the center of Lake Chagan. The team scans the area before setting out a fish net. It will take roughly eight hours to complete the whole process.

The word Chagan, which means holy, clean, and white in Mongolian, stands for Sacred Lake or Holy Water Lake. Chagan Lake is one of the top ten freshwater lakes in China and the largest natural lake in Jilin Province.

Every year in winter, local residents follow a traditional way of fishing, with fishermen dragging a 2-kilometer net through a horse-drawn winch to round up the fish under the ice. These fishing and hunting skills can date back nearly a thousand years.

Fishermen avoid using dense nets to catch fish in order to practice sustainable fishing, allowing little fish to filter out and return to the lake where they can grow.

Winter fishing at Chagan Lake is a popular tourist destination as it is considered a national intangible cultural heritage. The large-scale winter fishing for this year got underway on December 24 when the winter fishing team drove into the deep sea. The overall catch is anticipated to be around 1,500 tonnes for the winter fishing season, which runs until February 2023.

(All images via CFP)