I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 23: Chapter 23: Almost Broke the Fishing Rod

Humpback sweetlips, distributed throughout the Indo-West Pacific, including places like East Africa and South Africa.

Maximum body length of seventy-five centimeters, so this one at around forty centimeters is only considered medium-sized in the illustrated guide.

Flavor rating: five and a half stars. Suitable for sashimi, braising, and soup. Suggested selling price: one hundred fifty yuan.

Tsk, tsk, tsk, the shop’s crown jewel for the next few days had arrived. A fish worth 150 yuan a pound was definitely a high-priced fish.

Generally, only high-end groupers and coral fish could surpass it in price.

The higher the price per fish, the happier Gu Nan was, naturally. As long as he could sell it, he would earn more.

He had originally been worried that a high-priced fish would be hard to sell, but yesterday he met a group of fishing fanatics, many of whom didn’t seem to be short on cash.

After all, they spent tens of thousands on lure rods and reels—and not just one set. How could they afford that without some Gold Coins stashed at home?

If you’re not short on cash, you naturally don’t care about the price of the fish, only whether it’s big enough and if it tastes good.

Worse comes to worst, he could also try selling it to the restaurant.

Speaking of the restaurant, after learning about the humpback sweetlips, Gu Nan quickly started fishing again.

The Blue-striped Gidai and Yellowfin Gidai he had originally planned to keep for the shop had been snapped up by the fishing fanatics. Now he had to catch one of each again.

He had promised to deliver them to the restaurant, and he couldn’t go back on his word.

But it seemed like catching the humpback sweetlips had used up all his luck. Of the next eleven fish, seven were one-star fish, including a clownfish.

The remaining four were three Black-striped Small Stripes Buri and one Ball-nosed Fish.

Regarding this, Gu Nan could only console himself. ’The haul is still better than before. The fishing rod is definitely helping.’

’At least before, when I used the ’Guaranteed Catch’ opportunities, almost all I got were one-star fish. I barely ever saw a two-star one.’

Daily Quest 1: ten two-star fish. Six still needed.

Daily Quest 2: five fish over fifty centimeters long. Three completed, two remaining.

’It would have been easy to complete this quest by catching a few more Bushi Golden Needlefish, but unfortunately, there were too many Star Chicken Fish.’

He had already used up his ’Guaranteed Catch’ opportunities for the day. Fortunately, the chum he had thrown out earlier had taken effect, so he could continue fishing.

’I won’t change the bait. I haven’t caught the Blue-striped Gidai or the Yellowfin Gidai yet. I successfully caught them with this bait last night, so it should work today too.’

Without the ’Guaranteed Catch’ opportunities, the time it took to get a bite wasn’t as predictable.

This time, after waiting for over two minutes, the rod tip finally quivered slightly. A fish was starting to nibble at the bait tentatively. ’Probably a Gidai.’

Apart from these wary Gidai, most sea fish bite aggressively.

At that moment, in the water twenty meters in front of Gu Nan, a massive fish was charging over at high speed, drawn by the Antarctic krill.

Pushed by the ocean waves, some of the krill had drifted far out, and this big fish had been eating its way toward the shore.

Upon reaching the coast, the big fish suddenly discovered an abundance of food ahead and immediately rushed forward.

Just as two Yellowfin Gidai were still tentatively nibbling the bait, it appeared suddenly and swallowed it in one gulp.

Gu Nan was staring intently at his float when, in the next instant, it vanished. A massive pull shot through his fishing rod, the force even more intense than the over-eight-pound Black-striped Small Stripes Buri from before.

His first reaction was elation. He instinctively yanked the rod upward to set the hook, but a moment later, his heart skipped a beat.

Because Gu Nan remembered that the white Fengqi Fishing Rod and its line could only handle fish up to ten pounds. For fish between five and ten pounds, a single mistake in handling it carried the risk of snapping the rod.

Judging by the pull, this fish was definitely over ten pounds.

The rod was already bent into an inverted U-shape; it looked like it could snap at any moment.

Once he realized what was happening, Gu Nan quickly loosened the drag to let the fish run.

With the drag loosened significantly, the pressure on the rod immediately lessened.

The fishing line spooled out rapidly. Even though Gu Nan tugged on it from time to time and used his finger to apply pressure to the spool, the fish still managed to run more than thirty meters in a short while.

’The line is only one hundred twenty meters long. At this rate, there won’t be enough for the fish to run.’

Gu Nan had no choice but to push the tackle to its limits, constantly monitoring the bend of the rod and trying his best to stop the fish from running too far.

If he had only had the rod and reel at the beginning, today’s outcome would most likely have been a snapped line or a broken rod, with the fish ultimately getting away.

But the properties of the bait and line made the large fish feel more and more tired as it ran. After just a short while, it was so exhausted it wanted to rest. This undoubtedly raised the upper limit of his gear.

For a fish weighing over ten pounds, a fishing fanatic with the right rod could land it within five minutes.

Basically, a fish only has a few bursts of strength, and they don’t last long. As long as you can endure them, you can pull the fish in.

But Gu Nan could only choose to ’walk’ the fish until it tired itself out.

”ZZZZZZZZ~”

The reel was constantly making that sound because the drag was set loose. If the drag were set to its normal tightness, a fish of this class wouldn’t be enough to make the reel scream under the strain.

Three minutes passed. Under Gu Nan’s constant pressure, the big fish ran another fifty-odd meters, and only the last thin layer of line remained on the reel.

Fortunately, Gu Nan could now clearly feel the fish slowing down, and the pull on his line had lessened considerably.

He tried readjusting the drag, slowly tightening it.

Seeing the rod was only slightly bent and not curved as dramatically as before, Gu Nan finally felt relieved.

Thanks to the properties of the line and bait, the fish’s stamina was being drained even as it lay still to rest.

This was interesting. Normally, while reeling in a fish, it would rest, recover some stamina, and then continue to struggle. But after this large fish tired itself out and went still, it found that it was just as exhausted as before. It didn’t even have the strength to struggle, as if its rest had been for nothing.

After a total of more than ten minutes, Gu Nan finally managed to drag the large fish to the shore.

”Whoa, it’s a big croaker! My luck is pretty good!”

Gu Nan was quite happy to see it was a croaker. A croaker of over ten pounds was worth about the same as a Sea Bass. After all, croaker fish maw is quite expensive. A fish like this could sell for eighty yuan a pound and would be relatively easy to sell.

If it had been a Sea Bass, it would have been hard to sell.

Wild Sea Bass does taste very good, but that only applies to ones that are one or two pounds.

A ten-plus pounder has tough meat, and besides, no one wants one that big. If he was lucky, a fishing fanatic might buy it to pretend he caught it himself and ’get lost’ for a bit.

In terms of price, the two were similar; the difference was how easy they were to sell.

He carefully scooped up the fish with his landing net. Thanks to the bait and line, the croaker didn’t even have the strength to flap its tail.

Gu Nan didn’t put this large croaker into the keepnet; it wouldn’t survive. So, he placed it directly into the foam box to be iced.

However, the croaker was too big, and with the three Black-striped Small Stripes Buri already inside, the foam box was a tight fit.

The croaker was a local coastal fish, so the game’s illustrated guide didn’t react. However, he had made progress on his daily quest for five fish over fifty centimeters long, adding one more to the count.

Now he only needed to catch one more fish over fifty centimeters to complete the quest.

This large croaker had drained much of his energy and stamina, so he decided to pack up his keepnet, transfer the fish into a live tank, and take them all back to the shop before returning.