I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 294: Chapter 194: Golden Trevally Encounter

The school of fish didn’t seem to be moving much, so Gu Nan easily caught up and positioned his boat directly above them.

This likely meant the school was foraging and had stopped to feed.

"Ah Nan, come out and look! The school is huge, and the fish look pretty big!"

Since the fish finder showed the school was active in the upper water column, Yi Chen went out on deck and leaned against the gunwale to watch.

Once they were over the school, she saw the water was thick with the shadows of fish. The sheer number was astounding. Excited, she rushed into the cockpit to tell Gu Nan the good news, seeming to forget all about her fatigue and discomfort.

Gu Nan’s face lit up when he heard the fish might be large.

As long as the fish were on the larger side, they would fetch a good price, no matter how low the per-unit cost was.

Angling was different from commercial fishing. If they ran into something like sardines, even if the two of them fished until their arms were numb, they wouldn’t catch many, and they certainly wouldn’t make much money.

After stopping the boat, he followed Yi Chen out onto the deck. He spotted the shadows of fish as well; judging by their shapes, each one was probably around half a meter long.

And those were just the ones near the surface. He figured there were bigger ones deeper down, at the bottom of the school. ’Maybe even some meter-long ones.’

"Should we chum the water?" Yi Chen asked.

"No need. These fish have come right up to the surface. Plus, they look like the kind that bites aggressively, so they should be easy to catch. We’ll start with artificial lures. If those work well, we’ll even save on bait."

Despite what he said, Gu Nan still went into the cabin and brought out two boxes of bait.

They didn’t have many live shrimp, and it was better to save those for deep-sea fishing.

"Okay, I’ll listen to you." Yi Chen didn’t have any objections. Even though she had caught plenty of fish before, she was still far from being a true expert.

For one thing, she still needed Gu Nan to help her tie on the lure.

Fortunately, the rod holders were already on the gunwale. All she had to do was secure the rod in place, which she knew how to do.

Gu Nan rigged their two electric-reel rods with large, ten-centimeter shrimp lures.

Yi Chen then fetched the landing net and gaff, placing them next to Gu Nan’s spot. This implied that if the fish were large, it would be the man’s job to land them.

After tying on a float and lure, Gu Nan returned to his spot. He was using his "Big Fatty" lure. As long as the lure moved within the school, the chances of a hookup were bound to be higher.

Yi Chen had already cast her lure into the water. The splash immediately attracted the attention of several nearby fish. From the boat, they could clearly see a few dark shapes darting toward the lure.

The next moment, with two sharp ZIPS, both electric-reel rods bent over simultaneously.

Yi Chen was ecstatic. ’This is too easy!’

With tuna, for example, they might not even bite unless you threw in a ton of chum.

Of course, using artificial lures on tuna wasn’t very effective either. Those things were incredibly picky eaters, only going for food they recognized.

Gu Nan had just finished rigging his Big Fatty lure, but Yi Chen already had fish on both of hers. He decided to hold off on casting, worried she wouldn’t be able to handle them if they were too big.

The surface fish were easy to fight. After a short wait, they appeared at the surface. However, they had been dragged in by the force of the electric reels, so they hadn’t tired themselves out yet and were thrashing wildly.

The fish weren’t as big as they’d imagined, though. They were about half a meter long, weighing five or six pounds at most.

Yi Chen didn’t call for him. Instead, she picked up the landing net herself and tried to scoop up one of the fish.

But the fish was thrashing too much. She tried several times without success, and soon she was breathing heavily from the effort.

Seeing this, Gu Nan walked over with a smile, took the net from her, and demonstrated. "There’s a trick to netting fish," he said. "You just have to predict which way it’s going to move and scoop toward its head."

As he spoke, he scooped up the fish in one swift motion and easily lifted it onto the boat.

He dumped the fish onto the deck, then quickly netted the second one.

Yi Chen now understood how to net a fish, but she knew she’d have to practice it herself to really get the hang of it.

She looked at the fish on the deck, confirmed she didn’t recognize them, and asked, "Ah Nan, what kind of fish are these?"

Gu Nan hadn’t seen this particular fish before either, but he could tell from its shape that it was a type of trevally. It looked similar to a long-nosed trevally, but not as ugly.

It also had several vertical stripes on its body and looked quite plump.

Most trevallies taste great, second only to pomfret.

The moment the fish was brought aboard, Gu Nan used his appraisal ability. He learned that it was a golden trevally. They liked to school, swam quickly, and were quite ferocious carnivores.

It was also a common food fish, suitable for all sorts of preparations.

Juvenile golden trevally, however, could be kept as ornamental fish. They were also known as "pilot fish" and would live alongside sharks, helping clean food debris from their teeth.

Normally, sharks wouldn’t attack juvenile golden trevally, but the adults weren’t necessarily safe.

Golden trevally wasn’t the tastiest of its kind, but it was still good. The appraisal gave a price of eighty yuan per jin, which was not low at all.

When Yi Chen heard the fish were worth eighty yuan per jin, she was immediately fired up with enthusiasm.

Each fish was five or six pounds, with the smaller ones weighing two or three. And since they were catching them so quickly, this was definitely going to be a huge haul.

Adult golden trevally don’t survive long after being caught, so they needed to be bled to preserve the quality of the meat.

Yi Chen bled the fish, then tossed them into a box Gu Nan had brought over. Once the box was full, they would move it to the cold storage hold. She then cast her line back into the water to continue fishing.

Gu Nan returned to his fishing spot, picked up his rod, and cast. His "Big Fatty" lure sailed through the air in an arc before landing in the water with a SPLASH.

The splash was quite noticeable to the fish below. From the boat, he could see a group of shadowy figures swimming toward the Big Fatty.

Gu Nan had only turned the reel handle twice when a powerful force yanked on the line, bending his rod into a deep arc.

He was a little surprised. He hadn’t expected the golden trevally to pull with so much force.

But for him, it was nothing. He jerked the rod upward to set the hook, then started cranking the reel handle rapidly, muscling the hooked golden trevally straight in.

The golden trevally that frequented the surface were among the smaller ones in this school, so Gu Nan didn’t find it too difficult to reel them in.

It took him two minutes to drag the fish to the side of the boat, where he scooped it up with the landing net.

He unhooked the fish and used a knife to bleed it. The golden trevally’s tail thrashed wildly, slapping against the deck with a loud SLAP, SLAP sound.

’Another day spent missing the live fish well. Bleeding them myself is such a waste of time.’

Luckily, this wasn’t his small boat. He could use a hose to wash the blood off the deck; otherwise, it would be even more of a hassle.

The fish was processed quickly. Gu Nan tossed it into the same box Yi Chen was using. When it was full, he would have to move it into the cold storage hold.

For a while, the two of them were landing fish at an incredible pace. In just over twenty minutes, one box was already full.

However, most of the fish in the box had been caught by Yi Chen, which made Gu Nan feel once again that his manual rod was inefficient.

’In that case, I’ll try fishing for the bigger ones at the bottom of the school.’

The Big Fatty lure wasn’t suitable for that; it would be snatched by a fish the moment it hit the water.

So he switched to a metal jig, picking a relatively large one that would deter most of the smaller fish.

However, the jig’s descent into the water still attracted the school’s attention. A group of golden trevally surrounded it, trying to bite. Many of them only managed to get it partway into their mouths before spitting it out.

They couldn’t swallow it. It was too long and too big, and it would get stuck in their throats.

As the jig slowly sank, the smaller golden trevally that had been swarming it gave up the chase.

But the falling jig naturally caught the eye of other golden trevally, including many that were seventy or eighty centimeters long. After it reached a depth of over thirty meters, it even attracted two Meter Level fish.

Even though golden trevally theoretically only grew to a maximum of 1.2 meters and a weight of around thirty-three pounds...

...the number of Meter Level specimens in this particular school was quite high. They were all busy hunting a swarm of krill in the water.

In fact, the school was lingering here mainly because it was attracted to the swarm of krill, which Gu Nan and Yi Chen couldn’t see, and had been feeding on them the whole time.

The occasional small fish that passed by also met a grim fate, swallowed in a single gulp by a large golden trevally.

The jig now became the target of two Meter Level golden trevally. They were fast swimmers, and in the blink of an eye, they were right in front of it.

Getting closer, they mistook it for a small fish. The faster of the two immediately opened its massive mouth and swallowed it whole.

WHIZZZ—

A fish was on! Gu Nan’s reflexes were sharp; he immediately yanked the rod to set the hook. In that instant, the combined pull of his action and the fish’s momentum bent the rod into a deep bow, and he felt an immense force transmitted up the line.

"Haha, Chenchen, I’ve got a big one over here!"

Yi Chen glanced over at him and smiled. "Then you’d better work hard!"

After catching so many fish, she had become much more skilled with the landing net. Right now, fish were biting on both her rods one after another. She had to net them *and* bleed them. She was far too busy to pay him any mind.

"..." Seeing his girlfriend’s lack of reaction, Gu Nan felt a bit let down and decided to just focus on fighting the fish.

Meter Level fish, regardless of species, were never easy to land.

At first, Gu Nan couldn’t just yank it in. He had to play the fish, letting it run and pulling back for five or six minutes. The rod gradually sapped the fish’s energy. Only when he felt the pulling force weaken significantly did he put his strength into rapidly reeling in the line.

Reeling in the line was much easier now. In just three or four minutes, the Meter Level golden trevally was at the side of the boat.

Yi Chen, who was waiting for one of her electric reels to pull in a fish, saw his catch. "Not bad, that’s a pretty big one. Does the size affect the meat quality?"

"I actually don’t know," Gu Nan said, taken aback by the question. "It probably doesn’t affect it too much, right?" he added uncertainly.

Yi Chen said, "It looks pretty plump. If the fat content is high, it should be fine."

Gu Nan nodded. "Yeah. Anyway, we’ll try to sell it for eighty yuan per jin when we get back. If it doesn’t sell well, we’ll figure something else out."

A landing net wasn’t safe for a Meter Level fish, so this time he used the gaff. He hooked the fish behind its head and heaved it onto the deck.

In terms of size and weight, it was still a step down from a yellowtail.

A Meter Level one was only about twenty-two pounds, whereas a Meter Level yellowtail was usually closer to thirty-three. It was a little less impressive.

Gu Nan picked up the fish and said to Yi Chen, "Chenchen, come take a picture for me. I’m going to post it in the group chat."

"Okay, right away!"

Fishermen love to show off; Yi Chen understood that. Her own fish hadn’t been reeled in yet, so she took off her gloves, pulled out her phone, and snapped a few pictures for Gu Nan. She sent them to him right away, the whole process taking less than a minute.

Gu Nan set the fish down on the deck, took off his own gloves to wash his hands, and after drying them, he looked through the photos. He picked a good one and sent it to the group chat.