I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 296: Chapter 196: Fishing All Night to Hide From the Wife

With someone helping pilot the boat, the speed of setting the traps was clearly much faster than when he was alone. In just a short while, all ten crab pots and three shrimp traps were deployed.

The bait inside the traps hadn’t been changed. After baking in the sun all afternoon, the smell was something else. Once they were dropped into the water, the air on deck instantly became much fresher.

But Gu Nan had intentionally not changed the bait. Stinky bait has a strong smell, and even after being thrown into the water, the scent could drift a long way.

Scavenging marine creatures like crabs and shrimp would be drawn in by the smell one by one, wouldn’t they?

It was the same for fishing, really. Normally, stinky bait could be even more attractive to fish than fresh bait.

At the very least, this bait could attract all the nearby fish, making for excellent chum.

The two boxes of sardines brought out in the afternoon had completely thawed and had a strong smell.

But they still needed some time before they started to reek; for now, they were just no longer fresh.

Gu Nan went to the pilothouse first and had Yi Chen steer the boat to a fishing spot near the reefs of the deserted island. They planned to fish for groupers and coral fish that night.

Then, he put on a mask, went out on deck, took out some of the sardines, chopped them into pieces, and threw some into the water as chum.

After tossing in the chopped pieces, he continued to cut more. Chumming had a time limit; once the effect wore off, these prepared pieces could be thrown in to keep the fish gathered and prevent them from leaving.

Busy with his work, Gu Nan didn’t notice Yi Chen, who was standing on the deck, yawning several times in a row.

The ”exercise” last night had been too intense, and she hadn’t slept well afterward.

She had indeed caught up on some sleep in the morning, but it clearly wasn’t enough for Yi Chen to recover. After being so hyped up by the schools of fish in the afternoon, wasn’t it natural to feel sleepy after dinner?

And sure enough, by a little after nine o’clock, she couldn’t fight off the sleepiness anymore and went back to her room to sleep early.

There wasn’t a single other boat around the deserted island at night, and the fish were biting well. It was truly an excellent fishing spot.

They started fishing at 7:30, and by 9:00, Yi Chen had already caught thirteen groupers ranging from five to twenty pounds, plus even more sea bream.

But even such a great catch couldn’t fend off her sleepiness. Seeing his girlfriend go back to sleep, Gu Nan knew she was tired and his heart ached for her.

He didn’t go ”torment” her that night. Instead, he took over the two electric reel rods and continued stocking up.

But he was stocking up on ”imported goods.” He hadn’t fished the game maps much recently, and his daily attempts had accumulated quite a bit, so he decided to use this time to catch up.

He’d fish all night, lest he go back, hold his girlfriend, and be unable to control himself again.

It was fine when you hadn’t done it, but once you got a taste, it was impossible to resist.

Other men pulled all-nighters fishing to avoid their wives. He was pulling an all-nighter fishing to avoid his ”wife” too. It was tough.

However, Yi Chen was probably taking a shower right now, and he wasn’t sure if she’d come back out to the deck. So for the time being, Gu Nan didn’t use his daily attempts, instead fishing normally.

After nearly an hour, Gu Nan had caught two decent leopard coral groupers and three green groupers, each weighing six or seven pounds.

Black sea bream were everywhere, as always. Thankfully, a few red sea bream were a welcome consolation.

But besides these valuable fish, he also caught some worthless porcupinefish and some gaudily-patterned, cheap ornamental fish.

If it weren’t for Gu Nan’s appraisal function, he really wouldn’t be sure if this stuff could be sold for money.

He didn’t cast his line again. Instead, he went to the bedroom, gently opened the door to peek inside, and saw that Yi Chen was fast asleep in bed. Only then did he close the door, relieved, and begin fishing for the game’s seafood.

The two electric reel rods started busily pulling in fish, and for a moment, Gu Nan didn’t have a free hand to pick up a third rod.

He glanced at the stickers in his game inventory. There was a hell of a lot of them.

Gu Nan applied the ”Big Fish Bonus” and ”Rare Fish Bonus” stickers to his Seven-Star Rod. The seafood from Seven-Star Rock was more valuable, so it was only natural to use the good stuff on it.

He had just finished applying the stickers when the other rod started showing signs of a bite. Using his daily attempts, a fish was hooked every ten seconds or so.

Gu Nan had to manage the order of operations to avoid getting flustered.

He pressed the button to reel in the line, and only then did he drop the baited hook of the Seven-Star Rod into the water.

It only took about ten seconds for this rod to get a bite as well. At the same time, the stickers he had applied slowly vanished before his eyes.

He pressed the button to reel in the line. After a short wait, the other rod pulled up a five- or six-pound Rose Dragon.

He used a landing net to scoop it up and send it to his aquarium. The next moment, the Seven-Star Rod also hooked a massive ”chariot.”

It was over thirty centimeters long and brownish-tan in color.

This was an oversized scalloped slipper lobster. Their distribution was quite wide, allowing them to adapt to both cold and tropical waters. They existed in the country, but their numbers were scarce, making them incredibly expensive.

However, their population wasn’t high. Even using his guaranteed-catch daily attempts, Gu Nan could only catch a few at night.

He hadn’t expected to catch one on the very first cast tonight, and a Legendary one at that.

This one weighed seven or eight pounds. Most of them were under three pounds; anything over that was considered large.

So even though seven or eight pounds might not sound like much, for this creature, it was completely off the charts.

The main point was its high price. Previously, it sold for 900 yuan per kilogram.

Gu Nan used his appraisal function and found the price had dropped a little; it was currently selling for 860 yuan per kilogram.

But his was huge, so asking for one thousand to twelve hundred yuan per kilogram would be no problem at all.

One this big might not show up for years; it would be in high demand.

Gu Nan planned to keep it for now and ship it out when his new shop opened, keeping it in a tank with the lobsters and crabs.

Over the next twenty-some minutes, using the stickers, he caught many more King-grade and Legendary-grade seafood.

And his luck was pretty good; he fished up a message in a bottle. Inside, he found ten ”Big Fish Bonus” stickers, ten ”Rare Fish Bonus” stickers, and two Gold Coin cards.

Gu Nan used one of the Gold Coin cards. With so many daily attempts, he figured he could complete a few quests tonight.

By 11 PM, he had raised every type of seafood in his collection to Legendary grade, except for the two bosses.

Gu Nan thought for a moment and decided not to fish for them tonight. The regular boss required a depth of one hundred meters, and the elite boss required five hundred meters.

The boat was stationary. Starting the engine again would cause the hull to vibrate, which would definitely wake Yi Chen.

He could fish anytime. It wasn’t worth waking her up.

The two types of bonus stickers could still be used 73 more times, and he had 102 daily attempts left. Gu Nan stopped using the stickers and decided to just use up his remaining daily attempts.

He stayed busy until the early hours of the morning, finally using up all the daily attempts he had accumulated over the past few days.

After some thought, he took a ”chariot” out of his aquarium, planning to use it as an ingredient for tomorrow’s meal.

Scalloped slipper lobsters could be found domestically, so taking one out wouldn’t seem out of place.

Besides, if he took seafood from the game maps out of the aquarium to eat himself instead of shipping it for sale, it wouldn’t be subject to import taxes or the like.

The one Gu Nan took was King-grade, nearly thirty centimeters long, and weighed almost six and a half pounds.

Then he picked up his Bering Sea Rod and started fishing to the right of the Seven-Star Rod.

The two electric reel rods were still in use. He had turned off the map effect and was now catching fish from around the deserted island again, lest Yi Chen wake up tomorrow and notice the catch hadn’t increased by much.

This way, the rate of catching fish slowed down significantly, which conveniently freed him up to fish the Bering Sea.

The baited hook slowly sank to the bottom. After a short wait, the fishing line suddenly went taut. A fish was on.

Gu Nan lifted the rod to set the hook and found the pull wasn’t very strong.

The water here was only about forty meters deep. In just a short time, he pulled up a fish that was about half a meter long with a round, bulging belly.

”Huh, a ’big-head’?”

Gu Nan recognized it as soon as he saw it. It was a ”big-head cod,” also known as Pacific cod. This was clearly a true cod.

The yield from the Yellow Sea in China was not low, and its price along the northern coast was very cheap.

Gu Nan was surprised that the Bering Sea also produced this type of fish; he didn’t know much about it.

However, this fish seemed a bit cheap. He wondered if it would be worth importing.

Gu Nan hauled the fish onto the deck first, then used his appraisal function to check its specific value before deciding what to do.

He skipped over the basic information and focused on the price at the end.

At Yangjiang Port, the suggested price for Pacific cod was only 60 yuan per kilogram.

The fishing season had just opened, so the supply of this fish would increase rapidly.

Moreover, cod needs to be preserved by freezing at low temperatures, so transport and storage weren’t difficult. Therefore, even when shipped from the north, the price of the fish wouldn’t increase by much.

In that case, there was clearly no need to get into importing it.

The domestic supply probably couldn’t meet the whole country’s demand, so there were definitely imports, but the profit margins were slim.

His shop already sold other types of cod, so Gu Nan couldn’t be bothered to deal with this one.

The game’s buyback price for a Pacific cod was ten Gold Coins. This half-meter one was heavy; he took out his electronic scale to weigh it and found it was over seven and a half pounds.

At that rate, it would sell for over seventy Gold Coins. Gu Nan thought that was pretty good, so he sent it to the aquarium, planning to deal with all the unwanted fish at once before he went to sleep tomorrow.

He could also keep one or two with milt sacs. He had heard that this fish’s milt was very rich and highly nutritious, so it was worth a try.

He didn’t know if he had stumbled upon a Pacific cod nest, but for the next while, the Bering Sea Rod caught nothing but Pacific cod, ranging from two or three pounds to Meter Level ones weighing around thirty-three pounds.

He also occasionally caught a few pollock. Gu Nan thought they might be a good catch, but after an appraisal, he found they only sold for about 20 yuan per kilogram, and the buyback price was a mere five Gold Coins.

The fish weren’t big either, basically around a pound each. He decided to keep one to taste. If it didn’t even taste good, he could only recycle it or use it as bait.

This was getting a bit boring for Gu Nan. He wanted to try catching some Emperor Crabs or snow crabs. After all, the Bering Sea was most famous for those two; even salmon had to take a backseat.

Just as he was about to turn off the map and go back to honestly fishing for sea bream and grouper around the deserted island, the rod suddenly seemed to snag on something.

Gu Nan froze. He lifted the rod with force but found he couldn’t move it at all. It seemed like he was really snagged on the bottom.

’Damn it!’

He pulled back with more force, preparing to snap the leader line directly.

Just as he was pulling, he felt the tension on the rod suddenly change. A faint struggling motion traveled up the line.

His eyes lit up. This wasn’t a snag—he had hooked something.

’A Wolf Eel?’

He thought about it. The feeling wasn’t like the last time. It must be some other creature.

Gu Nan was suddenly intrigued. To him, the Bering Sea was a mysterious body of water, home to many strange and wonderful creatures. He had no idea what he had hooked this time.

The creature at the bottom was being pulled, so he changed his fishing technique, bracing the butt of the rod against his stomach and thrusting it upwards with force.

The fish might be digging in. If he couldn’t lift it, he’d have to ”play the piano.”