I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 136: Chapter 115: Eve of the Typhoon, School of Yellowtail Amberjack

This type of fish puts up a strong fight. In the north, it has a nickname that means it’s as strong as an ox. For its size, it’s harder to land than other fish.

While Gu Nan was fighting the fish, the boat rod next to him also started moving.

To avoid having his line snap, Gu Nan was standing three meters away from the boat rod.

The fish was now over seventy meters out, so it wouldn’t be a problem to go press the retrieve button.

He was just about to head over when Wang Junhe, who was beside him, had already pressed the button. ”I’ll get it, I’ll get it! You just focus on your fish.”

’This was exactly why they’d insisted on bringing Gu Nan along—as a safety net!’

’If they didn’t catch anything particularly big, they could always buy a large one from him.’

This time, the boat rod’s line was reeling in even slower, which obviously meant the fish was bigger than the last one.

Fortunately, the boat rod could handle fish up to a hundred and ten pounds. He wasn’t using a particularly large hook, so he didn’t have to worry about hooking a yellowtail he couldn’t haul in.

The line and bait from the purple Fengqi Fishing Rod set further amplified the stamina drain on the fish. Gu Nan had only been playing the fish for seven or eight minutes, but it already felt utterly exhausted—almost to the point of being unable to swim. Under normal circumstances, a large fish wouldn’t even be through its first run.

The fish struggled frantically a few more times, but then its body listed to one side, seemingly against its will.

On the boat, Gu Nan could clearly feel that the fish had lost most of its fight. He was surprised, too; it wasn’t as if he’d never caught a fish of thirty or forty pounds before.

He’d thought it would take more time to wear it down but hadn’t expected the fish to give up so quickly.

He pretended to struggle as he lifted the rod and began to reel in the line.

Seeing this, Guo Xiao quickly said, ”No rush, no rush! You can play it a while longer. It’s only been a few minutes.”

”It’s fine. I’m strong. Let’s get this fish in and get back to the next one. It’s not every day we run into a big school like this. We have to make the most of our time and catch as many as we can.”

With that, Gu Nan put more force into it, heaving the rod up and pulling the fish a good distance closer.

Guo Xiao looked like he wanted to say something but held his tongue. Seeing that Gu Nan seemed to have plenty of energy, he didn’t press the issue.

Soon, a Meter Level yellowtail appeared in their line of sight.

”Not bad! Looks like it really is a Meter Level yellowtail.”

Wang Junhe was watching over the boat rod, so Guo Xiao took the initiative, grabbing a gaff hook to help bring the fish aboard.

His aim was good, striking true on the yellowtail, which had been completely drained of its stamina by the Fengqi Fishing Rod.

But this yellowtail had a round, fat belly; it had to be over thirty-eight pounds.

Guo Xiao heaved, but to his embarrassment, he couldn’t lift it.

He could easily move something that weighed thirty or forty pounds on land, but lifting a fish out of the water required much more strength.

Seeing this, Gu Nan quickly reached out his right hand to help. With that little bit of extra force, they successfully hauled the fish onto the boat.

”My fish is up! Get the gaff!” Wang Junhe shouted.

Gu Nan put down his rod, grabbed the gaff, and hurried over. It was a yellowtail, nearly eighty centimeters long.

It only looked a little shorter than the other yellowtail, but there was actually a big difference in weight. This one was probably only around twenty-two pounds.

Guo Xiao brought over a tape measure and a scale. ”Let’s see. How long and how heavy is it?”

He wasn’t the only one who was interested; Gu Nan and Wang Junhe were curious too.

They measured the big one first. It was 1.13 meters long and weighed in at forty-seven pounds—even bigger than Gu Nan had estimated.

The smaller one was seventy-seven centimeters and weighed twenty-one pounds, just shy of the twenty-two-pound mark. A bit of a shame.

”Nice, nice! Ah Nan, I’m calling dibs on this Meter Level one. If I don’t catch one this big today, you have to sell this one to me first!” Guo Xiao said quickly.

’It was his boat, after all, so of course he got first pick.’

Wang Junhe, standing nearby, had no objections. If worst came to worst, the nearly eighty-centimeter yellowtail wasn’t a bad consolation prize.

Gu Nan smiled. ”Brother Guo, the day’s just getting started. Maybe your luck will turn, and by the time we head back, you’ll have caught a fish bigger than mine!”

”Haha, I hope you’re right!” Guo Xiao and Wang Junhe were delighted to hear that and returned to their fishing spots with renewed enthusiasm.

Gu Nan baited the boat rod with a fresh piece of squid and dropped the hook into the water before turning back to bleed the two fish.

After bleeding both fish, he secured them with zip ties and carried them directly to the refrigerated hold. The coolers on deck weren’t big enough to hold them properly.

He came back out and continued fishing. For a while after that, although everyone on the boat was hooking fish, the ones they caught weren’t particularly large, only weighing around ten or eleven pounds each.

Most of the yellowtail in this school were about that size. There didn’t seem to be many over twenty-two pounds, but they weren’t catching any smaller ones either.

Gu Nan, managing two rods by himself, was catching fish far more efficiently than Guo Xiao and Wang Junhe combined.

The boat rod, baited with squid, had a high hook-up rate, and he was also fishing quickly with his own rod.

Two hours passed. Gu Nan had caught at least fifty or sixty yellowtail, while the other two hadn’t even caught thirty between them.

”Looks like the school is on the move.” After two minutes with no bites and noticing the fishing boats in the distance starting to move, Guo Xiao reeled in his line.

”I’ll start the boat and follow them. You guys go get dinner ready. Let’s use this time to fill our stomachs.”

”Alright.” Wang Junhe and Gu Nan nodded, reeled in their lines, and headed for the galley. Gu Nan was still holding a yellowtail, clearly intending for them to have a fresh taste of it that evening.

「Night fell.」 The yellowtail school was likely looking for a place to rest and feed.

That’s why a dozen or so boats were trailing the school, making for quite an interesting sight.

Inside the galley, Wang Junhe started cooking rice and making some braised pork, while Gu Nan dealt with the yellowtail.

He first scaled the fish, then took a kitchen knife and gutted it.

Many commercial fishermen don’t bleed their yellowtail when they catch large quantities; there are simply too many, so they just throw them directly into the freezer hold.

Unlike line-caught fish. Professional anglers always bleed their catch properly, which is one of the reasons it fetches a higher price.

If a fish hasn’t been bled, the first step after scaling is to bleed it.

You just have to cut the artery connecting to the spine inside the gills, chop off the tail, and use a small hose with running water to flush out the clotted blood.

The quality of yellowtail prepared this way is inferior, but it’s still edible.

Gu Nan’s fish was different. It had been bled right after being caught and was placed in ice water to allow the lactic acid to dissipate.

It hadn’t been aging long, but the quality of the fish was excellent.

He gutted the fish, pulling out the entrails, and noticed two parasites.

”Bad luck. It has parasites.”

Wang Junhe glanced over and smiled. ”Fish caught in the summer are all like this. If you can’t stomach it, we’ll skip the sashimi. We can pan-fry some pieces and deep-fry some others coated in flour.”