I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 256: Chapter 158: Draining the Tidal Pool

The reef area was uneven and difficult to navigate, making climbing a real pain.

Gu Nan climbed onto a large reef rock. Just as he was about to get down, he spotted a tiny pool below. Two conspicuous antennae were waving back and forth at its edge.

’My luck’s turning,’ he thought. A lobster was stranded.

Sea creatures usually return to the ocean with the receding tide, but many mistake tide pools for their usual hiding spots on the seabed and deliberately stay inside.

By the time the water fully receded, it would be too late for them, even if they realized their mistake.

Gu Nan pulled on his gloves and reached directly into the small pool.

The pool was so small and shallow that even if he didn’t catch the lobster, it would probably be boiled alive once the sun came out and the temperature rose. The heat would even evaporate most of the water in the pool.

With nowhere to hide in such a tiny pool, the lobster was easily caught.

It was a common spiny lobster, weighing around seven or eight taels. Large lobsters didn’t usually venture onto the big atoll; this one had most likely fled up here to escape a predator.

He played with it for a while. The sun rose in the east, painting the sea in brilliant colors.

The seawater today seemed exceptionally clear, a vibrant blue-green.

The East Sea region couldn’t compare to the South Sea region; there was no ”glass sea” here. Finding water this clear was quite lucky. It was an especially good day for spearfishing, a pity he didn’t know how.

Gu Nan didn’t find much else of value. The lobster from earlier was his best catch.

He checked his watch and, seeing it was about time, walked over to the large tide pool to check on the situation.

’Eight pumps are really fast!’

It was only six-thirty, but the bottom of the pool was already visible. In another ten minutes or so, they could probably go down and start collecting fish.

Everyone on the fishing boat had already eaten breakfast and was ready to go. Wang Junhe and Guo Xiao had gotten up early and planned to come over sooner, but the women had taken extra time getting fully geared up and applying sunscreen.

Each of the women had a pair of foraging tongs and a small hand net.

It was impossible to pump all the water out, so a hand net made it easier to scoop up fish and avoid getting pricked by their dorsal fins.

Guo Xiao was very thoughtful in this regard, as he was the one who had prepared all the foraging gear.

The men just needed to put on gloves and go down to grab the fish directly. Catching them with your bare hands was the real thrill. ’What’s the point of draining a tide pool if you don’t use your hands? It’d have no soul!’

By the time Wang Junhe and the others arrived, the pool was almost completely drained.

”Whoa, our timing is perfect!”

”Nice, nice. Let’s get down there before it gets too hot.”

”Ah Nan, you’re up early again today. Did you find anything?” Yi Chen immediately came to his side and peered into his bucket.

Gu Nan handed her the bucket. ”Nothing much, just a lobster.”

”That’s pretty good! At least you got a lobster.” Guo Xiao came over with a laugh. When he wasn’t fishing, he thought Gu Nan was a pretty normal guy, but as soon as he started, his luck became absurdly good.

After the group chatted for a short while at the edge of the pool, the bottom was finally exposed.

The pool was sloped, higher on one side and lower on the other. The boat crew turned off a few of the pumps, and one of them went down first to move the hose to the lower side, trying to pump out as much of the remaining water as possible.

The moment the hose was tossed in, the group above saw a splash. A good-sized fish flicked its tail and quickly hid in a spot with more water.

”There’s a big one!” Su Qing, holding her small hand net, immediately prepared to go down. A nervous Wang Junhe rushed over, terrified his wife might accidentally slip and fall.

Gu Nan shook his head, amused. This really showed how much Wang Junhe doted on his wife.

’But it makes sense,’ Gu Nan thought. ’Wang Junhe isn’t a particularly spineless person. For a man like him to be so henpecked, it had to be true love.’

Guo Xiao was pretty much the same. Seeing this, Gu Nan smiled to himself. He was a bit of a chauvinist, which was why he preferred someone like Yi Chen.

”Let’s go, we’ll head down too.”

”Mhm~”

The six of them successfully climbed down to the bottom. Only from down there could they truly appreciate the pool’s size; they felt tiny inside it.

The pool was about five or six meters deep. Gu Nan looked up at the sky and finally understood what it meant to be a frog at the bottom of a well.

Wang Junhe was already wading eagerly into the water. He was determined to catch that big fish first.

Not to be outdone, Guo Xiao charged over, seemingly trying to beat him to it.

Gu Nan watched for a moment, then decided not to join the commotion. Instead, he took Yi Chen’s hand and started searching on the higher side of the pool.

Creatures that had to swim would be in the remaining water on the other side, but those that could survive out of water for a long time might not be.

And just like that, as Gu Nan neared the edge of the pool’s bottom, he spotted an octopus in a small crevice.

The crevice was shallow, and he simply reached in and forcibly pulled the octopus out.

The suckers on its tentacles were latched onto the rock, making it surprisingly difficult to pull free.

There were some small pebbles stuck to it, which Gu Nan picked off one by one after grabbing it.

The octopus was restless and tried to wrap its tentacles around his arm, but he quickly tossed it into the bucket.

Yi Chen had been scanning the ground, thinking there might be stranded fish, but when she saw him pull an octopus out of a crevice, she also started looking in the small holes.

After checking a few spots, she actually found a large mud crab weighing about a jin.

”Ah Nan! Ah Nan! Quick, there’s a mud crab here!”

Yi Chen managed to dig the mud crab out, but it was too big for her to lift with the foraging tongs. The crab then raised its large claws and crawled toward her, startling her into backing away and calling for help.

”Coming, coming!” Gu Nan had just turned over a large rock and found nothing. Hearing her shout, he hurried over.

Seeing an impertinent mud crab brandishing its claws at his girlfriend, he timed it perfectly and stepped on it.

The tip of his shoe successfully pinned the crab’s back, pressing it down so it couldn’t move at all.

He then squatted down, grabbed it with both hands, and held it up to the sun.

’Nice. The offshore resources are good. This mud crab is big and fat.’ He then tossed it into Yi Chen’s bucket.

”Chenchen, don’t put any fish or the octopus in your bucket, or the crab might bite them.”

”Okay, I know!”

Yi Chen wasn’t a total newbie anymore; of course she knew about the habits of mud crabs.

”Hahaha, Ah Nan, look! What a huge sea bass!”

Just as the two of them were continuing their search for any fish that had been missed, they heard Wang Junhe’s excited and boisterous laughter from nearby.

He was struggling to hold up a gigantic Sea Bass—a Seven-star Sea Bass, to be specific.

”Holy shit, a sea bass that big?” Gu Nan let out a curse. The fish was over a meter long; he had never even caught a Sea Bass this large.

He and Yi Chen forgot all about searching for missed fish and immediately jogged over.

The opening of the tide pool was about the size of a basketball court, but the bottom was nearly half that size, so it wasn’t enormous.

In the blink of an eye, the two of them reached the side that still had water. By then, Guo Xiao had also forced his way in on the fun and was holding the fish together with Wang Junhe.

”Hiss... A fish this big must be thirty jin!”

Gu Nan came closer to examine the fish. He hadn’t expected to get such a huge fish from draining a tide pool, and it gave him an idea.

These days, you really couldn’t find much by just foraging on the beach, but draining tide pools was still pretty good.

The pumps didn’t consume too much diesel, and if you just added some chum, you could attract a lot of marine life into the tide pool.

’I could try this more in the future. Just fishing all the time can get mentally exhausting.’

Wang Junhe and Guo Xiao cheerfully carried the fish away and placed it in a box that was just big enough to hold it.

”You guys take this Sea Bass to the boat first. Have Master Zhao prepare a fish feast for lunch.”

After putting the fish in, Guo Xiao said to the crew members who had climbed down into the pool.

The crewmen acknowledged that they understood. A Sea Bass this big was enough to feed everyone on the boat.

Gu Nan gave up on picking up scraps. The huge Sea Bass had inspired him to start trying to catch fish here in the main pool of water.

Just as he stuck his hand into the water, a fish bumped into it.

The startled fish immediately thrashed its tail, making the water go SPLASH SPLASH. It wasn’t a small fish, and the commotion was so great it carved a clear path through the water, showing everyone its escape route.

Gu Nan quickly followed, reaching out to feel for it again.

His hand first found a large rock in the water, and right after, he felt the big one that had just tried to escape.