Chapter 308: Not Enough Fish to Go Around (Part 2)

Chapter 308 -205: Not Enough Fish to Go Around (Part 2)

Whether it was a school of fish or not, he’d have to keep fishing to find out.

Gu Nan scattered a few spoonfuls of Antarctic krill, baited his hook with a fresh live shrimp, and cast it into the water. The same thing happened as his last cast: the float didn’t even have five seconds to settle before it shot under.

He quickly raised his rod to set the hook. The pull was much lighter this time, but the familiar feeling told him it was another Sea Bass on the line.

Sea Bass are exceptionally aggressive. When they travel in schools, all the other small fish and shrimp flee in terror. They’ll eat almost anything they see.

There were a lot of fishing boats out today, and with so many anglers chumming the water, it was no surprise that a school of Sea Bass had been drawn over.

Brute force worked its wonders again, and soon, a half-meter-long bass was pulled onto the boat.

The next three casts all yielded bass of the same size. Clearly, the one from before that weighed over ten pounds was just a fluke.

The bite was hot, but across the hundred-some boats and several hundred anglers, there was an unspoken agreement: no one was using electric reels. Everything was manual.

Veteran anglers disdained using them. If they were going to use one, it would be for deep-sea fishing far from shore.

If every angler set up a row of electric reels, there really wouldn’t be enough fish in the sea to go around.

That was why Gu Nan was also sticking to manual fishing and hadn’t brought out his electric reels.

For normal fishing, he rarely used electric reels. He only used them when fishing for seafood from his “game maps.”

On the sea at night, besides the sound of the wind and waves, the air was filled with the WHIR of fishing reels. Everyone was working with fiery enthusiasm.

Word of the Sea Bass school had spread, and more and more fishing boats, even some commercial fishing vessels, began to arrive.

However, the commercial boats weren’t casting nets. They were fishing with rods and reels, just like everyone else.

As time passed, Gu Nan had already filled two coolers with Sea Bass.

Sea Bass didn’t necessarily have to be brought back alive; chilled on ice was fine. In fact, not many markets specifically sold live Sea Bass.

His livewell wasn’t very large, so he needed to save space for porgies and other more valuable fish.

Seeing that the second cooler was also full, Gu Nan shoveled some ice from a nearby styrofoam box, spread it over the fish, closed the lid, and moved the cooler to the side.

A full cooler held about sixty pounds of fish, so two coolers meant over a hundred pounds, which could sell for around four thousand yuan.

He checked the time. It was 11:00 PM. He could still fish for another five hours until 4:00 AM.

It wasn’t easy to come across a school of fish, so Gu Nan took a couple of sips of water, gnawed on a piece of bread to replenish his energy, and got back to it.

His hands were definitely sore. Catching a school of Sea Bass that averaged four or five pounds each was tough on the hands.

And sure enough, Guo Xiao had already taken a break. He was snapping pictures of his catch to show off to his friends.

Especially Wang Junhe. He’d almost flown back overnight, but unfortunately, his business was too important. He was definitely on a plane by now, though.

Guo Xiao wasn’t short on cash; fishing was purely a hobby for him, so he rested when he got tired.

But the other anglers weren’t like that. When they ran into a school of fish, they wished they could fish until the end of time, their excitement overriding any fatigue.

‘The pressures of life are immense. These aren’t fish they’re reeling in; they’re money. Cold, hard cash.’

After another half hour of fishing, by which time his cooler was half-full of Sea Bass again, the situation of getting a bite the moment his line hit the water finally changed.

Gu Nan knew the school had either moved on or it was a small one that had been mostly fished out.

With at least four or five hundred anglers present, even if each person only caught ten fish, that would be four or five thousand Sea Bass. In reality, the total number caught was likely much higher. A small school really wouldn’t last long against that.

Gu Nan tossed a few more spoonfuls of Antarctic krill into the water, hoping to attract more fish, even if they weren’t Sea Bass.

With the number of Sea Bass clearly dwindling, other fish finally got a chance to snatch food from the tiger’s mouth.

And just like that, after about a minute’s wait, he got a bite. From the familiar pull, Gu Nan swung the fish aboard and saw it was, as expected, a large Black Porgy. It looked to be around two pounds—quite a good size.

Black Porgy fetched about the same price as Sea Bass, so he put it in the cooler to be chilled on ice as well.

As he was casting his line again, he heard the sound of a fishing boat approaching.

He turned to see Guo Xiao steering his boat over.

“Ah Nan, the school seems to be gone. How about we move to a new spot and go for some deep-sea fish?”

Gu Nan shook his head and pointed at the surface of the water. “I can’t leave. See all those buoys? I set those out to catch Portunus crabs.”

“Whoa, you’re pretty clever, kid. Why didn’t I think of that!” Guo Xiao slapped his thigh in frustration.

Portunus crabs are delicious, and he loved eating the big ones!

“If you get any big ones tomorrow, you have to sell me a few pounds.”

“Haha, if you want some, just take them. It’s just like me taking water from your place.”

“Alright, I won’t be polite tomorrow then. But speaking of which, those two cases of water in my office haven’t been touched in a while. How come you haven’t been taking any lately? Had a change of heart or something?”

“I just forgot, that’s all. I’ll definitely grab some next time I’m over!”

After that, Guo Xiao didn’t leave. He just fished near Gu Nan until 4:00 AM. Then he cut his engine, anchored his boat, and zipped over in his small dinghy to help Gu Nan pull up his crab and shrimp pots.

Gu Nan’s luck was good this time, too. Between the crab pots and the ground cages, he had enough Portunus crabs to fill the entire deck of his fishing boat.

The quantity wasn’t as much as his haul from the deep sea last time, but after weighing them one by one on an electronic scale, he still had nearly three hundred pounds.

The important thing was that he could get them back alive this time—at least, most of them.

Guo Xiao didn’t take much, just a dozen or so large crabs that were a little over a pound each.

And he didn’t let Gu Nan lose out on the deal. He brought over most of the fish he’d caught the previous night, keeping only a few for himself and to give away as gifts.

By that calculation, Gu Nan actually came out ahead.

The only disappointment was that the shrimp pots were completely empty. Wild sea shrimp were indeed hard to catch with pots; trawling was more reliable.

“Ah Nan, I’ll hit you up in a couple of days. You should get ready too, clear some time in your schedule. Oh, and remember to bring your spearfishing gear. We’ll do some spearfishing then.”

After saying goodbye to Gu Nan, Guo Xiao left with his ten large crabs.

As for spearfishing, he wasn’t always confident about angling, but he was sure he could get a catch spearfishing.

It was an old habit of his and Wang Junhe’s: if you can’t catch them with a rod, just get in the water and spear a few yourself!

Watching the luxury fishing boat depart, Gu Nan tidied up a bit before starting his own boat and heading back.

He was going to the deep sea in two days, which gave him just enough time to use up his “daily attempts.”

By the time he was nearing the docks, the sky was already bright. Gu Nan glanced at the smartwatch on his wrist: 6:13 AM.

He took out his phone. He had a signal now, so he called his dad.

“Hello, Son? Are you at the docks?” Gu Dacheng knew Gu Nan had gone out to sea and was ready to come to the docks at a moment’s notice.

“Almost there. I’ve got over two hundred pounds of Portunus crabs, plus a ton of Sea Bass and porgies. Over three hundred pounds of fish in total.”

“Whoa, you caught that much in one night?”

Gu Dacheng wasn’t too surprised by the number of crabs. It was crab season, after all. If you found the right spot, getting over two hundred pounds wasn’t unusual; even over five hundred was normal. What he hadn’t expected was so many fish.

“Got lucky. Ran into a school of Sea Bass.”

“Alright, I’m on my way!”

He hung up, and about ten minutes later, Gu Nan’s fishing boat was slowly pulling into its berth.

Gu Dacheng arrived at the same time, dressed in work clothes and a waterproof apron. He looked more like the owner of a seafood shop than Gu Nan did.

He boarded the boat and looked at the four coolers of Sea Bass, plus more than two coolers of various porgies and rabbitfish. He grinned. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Your mom is going to have a love-hate relationship with all these fish!”

Gu Nan paused, confused. “Why would she hate it?”

“She’ll hate having to clean them all! A customer comes, and she has to clean a fish. She’ll be worked to death.”

“Huh? That can’t be right,” Gu Nan said, his confusion growing. “I don’t remember cleaning fish that often before. Only when a customer specifically asked for it.”

Many of his customers preferred to buy the fish whole and clean it themselves. It wasn’t like they were a freshwater fish stall where cleaning was often expected.

Hearing this, Gu Dacheng gave his son a strange look. He recalled how, over the past few days, some customers had asked in surprise: “Oh, you offer a fish cleaning service here?”

He suddenly felt a pang of pity for his wife. ‘Sometimes, being too enthusiastic and proactive isn’t a good thing!’

Although Gu Nan didn’t quite understand what was going on, he could tell from his father’s expression that something was up.

So, after they loaded the fish into the vehicle and he gave the boat a quick cleaning, he headed over to the old shop with his father, ready to see what was happening.