I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 232: Chapter 146: First Day, Ranked First

A giant cobia was already an impressive sight, leaving Wang Junhe and Guo Xiao sorely tempted. But their desire grew even stronger when they saw the humphead wrasse, which weighed just over twenty-two pounds.

But then they remembered their families knew about the club’s competition. No one would believe they’d caught fish like these themselves, so their interest immediately plummeted.

Besides, it wasn’t as if they’d never eaten a humphead wrasse weighing over twenty pounds before.

They might not have wanted them anymore, but the wealthy buyers waiting at the port specifically for fresh catches were incredibly interested!

As soon as they saw the cobia and the humphead wrasse, people immediately started asking for prices.

Because cobia are widely farmed, even wild-caught ones don’t fetch a high price. A fish like Gu Nan’s, despite weighing seventy to eighty pounds, would be considered dirt cheap around Yangjiang Port.

That price was for a fresh catch. If it were chilled on ice for a few days, the price would likely drop by nearly half.

Frozen ones were even cheaper—you could get them for a song.

But cheap or not, plenty of people wanted it. Gu Nan’s cobia measured nearly five feet long and weighed in at an impressive ninety-one pounds. One of the bosses bought it on the spot for 3,500 yuan.

The humphead wrasse was much pricier. During the open fishing season, it would normally go for about 160 yuan per half-kilo.

But with the current fishing ban in effect, live fish commanded a higher price. The starting price was 180 yuan per half-kilo, and this one, weighing exactly twenty-five pounds, sold for 4,300 yuan.

The bidding war between buyers was so intense that the final price ended up being a little higher than expected.

His other miscellaneous fish sold for over 500 yuan, bringing Gu Nan’s total earnings for the evening—outside of the competition—to more than 8,000 yuan.

Seeing this, Wang Junhe and Guo Xiao immediately threw their arms around his shoulders, demanding he treat them to a meal.

Gu Nan flipped them the bird. ”Get lost.”

’A couple of rich bosses, and they have the nerve to ask a humble fisherman like me to treat them. Have they no shame?!’

The other contestants gradually returned to port, and everyone had caught something that night. Unfortunately for them, the heaviest catch was an amberjack weighing just over ninety pounds, which only secured fourth place.

The other two contestants from the Fishing Is Life Club had caught a yellowtail of over fifty-five pounds and a bonito of over forty-five pounds, placing them thirteenth and seventeenth, respectively.

When they found out Gu Nan had landed a 220-pound stingray, they were absolutely kicking themselves.

’He called us over twice! If we had just gone, would that stingray have been ours?’

That evening, Gu Nan strolled through the night market with Yi Chen before taking her home.

He’d hoped to go inside and hang out for a bit, but a certain someone wouldn’t even let him past the front gate, nearly slamming the door in his face.

Gu Nan rubbed his nose, leaving her place in sheepish defeat.

The night after stealing Yi Chen’s first kiss, having had a taste of something sweet, the two found themselves drawn to each other again.

However, things came to a screeching halt when Gu Nan’s hand ”accidentally” took the measure of his future child’s ”canteen.” There would be no third night...

On the drive home, he stuck his hand out the window.

’They say if you cup your hand in the wind, it feels pretty similar, right?’

Gu Nan tried it for a second before pulling his hand back in and rolling up the window.

’Tch. They’re just tricking us honest guys!’

「The next day」

Gu Nan was back out for the competition, but his heart wasn’t in the hunt for a monster fish.

Since he had to be out on the water anyway, and he already had a massive lead over second place, he decided he might as well focus on making some money.

Gu Nan didn’t travel far, simply heading to a nearby spot recommended by the club.

While the boat was underway, a large school of fish suddenly appeared on the fish finder’s display. He quickly stopped the boat.

’My luck is insane! A whole school of fish. How can I not go after them?’

He hurried out, scooped up some Antarctic krill, and tossed it into the water as chum. The school was on the move; their pace was slow, but without chum, there was no way he’d get them to stick around.

He had only used one box of krill yesterday and hadn’t used much during the night, so there was some left over. Combined with a fresh box he’d prepared that morning, he had enough chum to potentially keep the school around all morning.

The two boat hands were relaxing in the air-conditioned cabin. When they saw Gu Nan stop the boat and rush out, they both glanced at the fish finder. The moment they saw the school, they knew it was time to get to work.

After laying down the chum, Gu Nan’s eyes lit up as he saw the fish swarming to the surface to feed. It was threadfin—a fish even more sought-after than Spanish mackerel.

Threadfin, also known as fourfinger threadfin, typically inhabits reef-heavy waters along the coast.

The fish has a high fat content, with delicious, finely textured meat. There’s even a local saying: ”Pomfret is number one, threadfin is number two.”

If he could land a good batch of these threadfin, he knew they’d be snapped up the moment he got back to port around noon.

Threadfin have a peculiar physiology. Their gill covers are small, and their gill filaments are sparse with a small surface area, resulting in poor oxygen exchange. This means they die almost instantly upon leaving the water.

It’s impossible to keep them alive. Fortunately, he had plenty of styrofoam coolers and ice on board.

These fish usually travel in schools, so when the two boat hands came out and saw the threadfin in a feeding frenzy at the surface, they were overcome with envy.

If the competition rules hadn’t forbidden them from fishing, they would’ve had their own lines in the water in a heartbeat.

Gu Nan chuckled and said to the two boat hands, ”Feeling the itch to fish? There are no trophy fish here, I’m just trying to make a quick buck. I’ll lend you some rods. You can help, and I’ll take ninety percent of the earnings.”

The two boat hands were speechless. ”...”

But what could they do? The rules explicitly forbade boat hands from fishing. Gu Nan was giving them a chance, and with a school this big, even a ten percent cut could easily earn them several hundred, maybe even a thousand yuan or more.

Still, people will be people...

”Isn’t ten percent a little low?”

”Yeah, at least twenty percent.”

”In that case, you can just watch me fish.”

”No, no, wait! Ten percent is fine! We’ll take it!”

On the boat, Gu Nan had his old lure rod and a rock fishing rod, as well as a golden Fengqi rock fishing rod.

He himself used a golden boat rod with an electric reel to haul them in, while also holding a seven-star pole to fish with at the same time. This setup would bring the fish in faster.

Of the two boat hands, one chose the lure rod, which was a bit easier to handle. The other had no choice but to take the golden Fengqi rock fishing rod. It was a little long, but the feel of the rod was incredible.

”Brother, where’d you buy this rod? It feels amazing. Must’ve cost a fortune, right?”

”I had it custom-made through a friend overseas. It’s from the same maker as my two boat rods. And yeah, it’s expensive. A single set costs tens of thousands of yuan.”

”Too bad the workshop that made them went out of business. They’re collector’s items now.”

The boat hand was just asking casually. One look at the rod told you it was top-tier, and he didn’t have that kind of money anyway.

Hearing this, the other boat hand with the lure rod suddenly felt a pang of regret. ’A rod that high-end... why didn’t I grab that one?’