The Chagan Lake, a traditional inland fishing ground in northeast China's Jilin Province, is enjoying another bumper winter harvest thanks to local efforts to better conserve the lake's fish resources.

As one of the largest freshwater lakes in China, Chagan Lake produces 1.5 million kilograms of fish in each winter fishing season, which usually lasts two months.
The lake also attracts more than 300,000 tourists from around the country each winter, who can both watch the centuries-old ice-fishing and enjoy all-fish banquets in local restaurants.
Behind the high yield are sustainable fishing strategies, artificial fish enhancement and fish fry releasing, seasonal and area fishing bans, among other eco-friendly measures.
The winter fishing operations on Chagan Lake are carried out in two stages. In the earlier stage, the fishermen use small-mesh nets to catch small adult fish and shrimps in shallow water, so as to give more space and nutrients for big fish to grow.
In the later stage, the fishermen set up large-mesh nets in the deep water areas to catch large adult fish mostly over five years old, and the immature ones can be left to grow in the lake.
The total amount of fish they capture each winter is actually less than 1 percent of the fish amount in the 500-square-kilometer Chagan Lake.
Since 1992, the fishermen have been replenishing the lake with some 10 million fries every year in the spring and autumn seasons to conserve fish resources in the lake.