Chapter 229 - 145: Even a Protected Animal Can Go on the Scale

Chapter 229: Chapter 145: Even a Protected Animal Can Go on the Scale

After a moment’s thought, he went into the cabin to contact the other two contestants. He told them he had caught a twenty-pound wrasse over here and asked if they wanted to come over.

If he caught an even bigger one later while they came up empty-handed, they would inevitably resent him for hogging the good spot.

Since they were cooperating, they had to act like it.

However, after he told them, neither of them planned to come over. They had also found decent fishing spots and wanted to try their luck there first, to see if they could land a big one.

Since that was the case, Gu Nan went back to fishing.

He dropped his jig and continued tapping the bottom, but his luck wasn’t as good in the following attempts. The fish he caught weren’t very large; the biggest one was only about eight or nine pounds.

These weren’t exactly small fish, but they were clearly not good enough for the competition.

Gu Nan frowned, went back to the cabin to check the fish finder, and let out a soft sound of surprise. He had spotted the symbol for a large fish again.

He wasn’t sure just how big it was, since this wasn’t a visual fish finder like the one on Wang Junhe’s boat, but he decided to keep fishing for a while longer.

Having an ace in the hole meant he didn’t mind wasting a bit more time; he was feeling plenty confident.

He dropped his jig and continued tapping the bottom. After half an hour, he had only caught two three- or four-pound parrotfish from the seafloor. Then, on his third cast, the rod suddenly bent into an exaggerated curve.

Gu Nan’s eyes lit up. He forcefully raised the rod to set the hook. ’Finally, a big one!’

"???"

The boatman beside him was dumbfounded. He never expected Gu Nan to be this lucky. Judging by the bend in the rod, even if the fish wasn’t over a hundred pounds, it was definitely dozens of pounds.

A fish weighing dozens of pounds wasn’t that hard for the current Gu Nan to handle. He first lifted the rod forcefully. When unsure of the species, this could prevent it from diving for cover and getting snagged.

Fortunately, the fish was swimming rapidly away from him, and at great speed. It clearly wasn’t a grouper or anything similar.

This made landing it much easier. Gu Nan held the rod, pulling back, and then just let the fish run.

’I’ve got three thousand meters of line. Go ahead, run for twenty-nine hundred of them.’

However, the fish ultimately disappointed him. He had barely exerted himself before it tired out after running for a little over four hundred meters.

The boatman beside him started to speak several times but then stopped. He was an angler himself, and he’d never seen anyone fish like this.

What angler, when fighting a big fish, wouldn’t pull with all their might? Even when playing the fish, they wouldn’t give it that much slack. Who would just let a fish run and run? And yet, today he was seeing it with his own eyes.

But Gu Nan was from a rival club. As much as he’d hate to see the fish get away, it would be better if a rival contestant failed to move up in the rankings.

Alas, the big fish disappointed him. ’Why couldn’t it just throw the hook?’

Once the fish was tired, Gu Nan began to reel in his line. The fish barely struggled at all during the entire retrieval.

The two boatmen exchanged bewildered glances. What kind of fish was this easy to catch? It just lay flat and gave up struggling. This defied all logic!

When the fish finally appeared before them, they saw it was a cobia, well over a meter long—about one and a half meters in total.

"Hiss... I never thought you’d find a cobia this big around here!" the boatman exclaimed again.

"Alright, alright, enough with the amazement. Let’s dispatch it," Gu Nan said, quickly pulling the fish alongside the boat and waiting for the boatman to make his move.

The boatman didn’t hesitate, accurately sinking a gaff into the fish’s head to dispatch it first.

After the fish struggled for a moment and finally fell still, he used the hoist to lift it aboard.

"This one’s around seventy or eighty pounds. Maybe second place is yours this time."

Gu Nan smiled and shook his head. "Who knows if one of the other contestants will land something even bigger tonight and shatter the first-place record."

"That’s unlikely. A hundred-pound fish... unless you go deep-sea fishing for tuna, that record will be tough to break." The boat was equipped with a large chest, and the cobia fit inside perfectly.

Afterward, Gu Nan again went to the cabin to inform the other two contestants that he had caught a seventy- or eighty-pound cobia.

Huang Guangxu was incredibly envious. He had also found a great fishing spot, but his biggest catch was only in the twenty-something-pound range.

That was why he hadn’t planned on joining Gu Nan earlier. He never imagined that in the blink of an eye, the other man would land a seventy- or eighty-pound fish.

Still, he asked if there was a school of cobia. If there was, he would definitely have to go over.

Even if there weren’t any seventy- or eighty-pounders, catching one that was forty or fifty pounds would be great too. That would at least put him in the top ten, possibly even the top five.

However, when he heard there was no school and that Gu Nan had just gotten lucky with a stray, he lost interest.

’If I keep fishing at my spot, I might find an even bigger fish here.’

The other contestant felt similarly, so he didn’t plan on coming over either.

Gu Nan shrugged. At least he had done his part and notified them.

This way, if they found a good fishing spot tomorrow or the next day, they would be sure to let him know, too.

Gu Nan didn’t continue fishing at that location. Only two hours had passed, so he decided to keep searching for better spots, hoping to even encounter a large school of fish.

According to the app, the nearest fishing spot to Tail Island was only about three nautical miles away. It was a deep-sea spot, and he wanted to go check it out.

Deep-sea spots offered a chance to catch amberjack. If he could land an amberjack like the one from last time, first place would be a lock.

Then he could save the card in his backpack until the end of the year to catch a particularly valuable fish and sell it for a high price.

Three nautical miles was only a ten-minute trip. When he arrived at the destination, there wasn’t a single fishing boat in sight. He wondered if this spot was just unremarkable.

Gu Nan checked his fish finder. He could see the bottom was teeming with fish, but he couldn’t tell if there were any big ones.

He sighed to himself. ’It would be great to have some black-box tech that could show me the seabed directly. As it is, catching a big fish is pure luck.’

But since he was already here, Gu Nan took out his rod and prepared to give it a few tries.

He still hadn’t changed his jig. It was too big for small fish to swallow, so they wouldn’t waste too much of his time.

The jig sank rapidly, and the line flew from the spool.

After a short while, the jig hit bottom. Gu Nan closed the bail, reeled in a bit of line, and started slowly tapping the bottom.

Luck is a mysterious thing, but Wang Junhe certainly hadn’t been wrong to ask Gu Nan to join the competition.

And just like that, a huge fish noticed the movement and slowly ambled over.