After a while, Xin, 34, stopped the team and jumped off the horse-drawn carriage. With his hands-on experience and the help of a smartphone, he located a place where they would start their work.

The fishermen spent around four hours hand-drilling hundreds of holes through the thick ice and lowering nets into the frosty waters to take fish from the lake, which is mostly located in the city of Songyuan, northeast China's Jilin Province.