I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 298: Chapter 198: You Want the Giant Grouper?

They’d said they wouldn’t pull up the cage traps, but curiosity got the better of them, and they hauled one up for a look. When they saw it was full of swimming crabs, a good number of blue-tailed shrimp, and various other fish, they were both very satisfied with the haul.

This haul was every bit as good as what they caught fishing.

"What should we do this afternoon? More fishing?" Yi Chen glanced at the sun, not too keen on going back out.

"How about diving?" Gu Nan had brought along diving gear and a speargun this time.

In the afternoons leading up to the start of the fishing season, he had gone to a club to practice. He had also spent an afternoon doing target practice with the speargun.

Not only that, but he had also spent three nights spearfishing in the game map, even diving as deep as fifty meters on his deepest run.

Though it was a fluke success, it still surpassed what many novice spearfishers could do.

If he were to take the test, he could probably get a level three or four diving certification.

He just hadn’t ever gone spearfishing in real life. But the game map’s environment was realistic; if he could do it in the game, he could most likely do it in reality.

The water quality today was excellent. It was a clear, bluish-green, and the visibility was definitely good enough for spearfishing.

"Will it be dangerous?" Yi Chen was tempted. She had tagged along when Gu Nan practiced.

She didn’t know how to spearfish yet, but diving wasn’t much of a problem for her anymore. As long as they looked out for each other and didn’t push their time underwater, it was unlikely anything would go wrong.

Gu Nan reassured her, "Don’t worry. The spot where I dove last time isn’t deep, and there are lots of sea urchins and pen shells on the bottom. You can just collect those. Come up whenever you feel like you’re running out of air. Don’t push yourself to your limit."

"I’ll be spearfishing right next to you. Nothing will happen."

Hearing this, and since she did want to go for a dive and could also collect some pen shells, Yi Chen nodded and agreed.

The two returned to the cabin to change into their full sets of diving gear. They also brought a safety line and a float.

Diving always carries some risk, so they had to take proper safety precautions.

Yi Chen had a small mesh bag hanging from her waist, while Gu Nan brought a fish stringer.

Once they were fully geared up, they double-checked each other’s equipment before heading out to the deck.

Gu Nan maneuvered the fishing boat close to the spot where he had gone diving and foraging before, about ten meters away. That way, if they collected a lot, it would be an easy swim back to drop things off.

"I’ll go down first. Once I’m sure it’s clear, you can come down," Gu Nan said, holding a shark prod. They were in the open sea, after all. Although large sharks rarely appeared near the deserted island, it was better to be safe than sorry. The prod would be enough to handle an ordinary shark.

Sharks don’t usually attack humans, and they had both learned how to deal with sharks during their diving lessons.

The shark prod was mainly for striking a shark’s nose. It could deliver an electric shock, just like a stun baton, and one jolt would send a shark scurrying away.

It wouldn’t shock the user, so it was safe to use.

Yi Chen nodded, holding the speargun, and waited on the deck.

Seeing this, Gu Nan dove headfirst into the water and began to survey the situation below.

He first looked around and saw nothing, though he did spot the shadows of a school of fish beneath his feet.

Then, he slowly descended. The water here was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight meters deep. Halfway down, he saw countless fish.

Most were worthless species, but he also spotted some valuable ones near the reef on the seabed.

As for sharks or anything of the sort, there wasn’t even a shadow of one within his range of sight.

Gu Nan began to swim. His visibility underwater was only about twelve or thirteen meters; anything further looked blurry.

Even if he could see a fish, he could only make out its shape.

The deserted island was to his west, so Gu Nan first swam east.

After swimming for over twenty meters and finding nothing, he changed direction and headed north.

Swimming slowly like this, he could hold his breath for three and a half minutes.

This number would improve further as he dived more often in the future. His personal goal was to reach five minutes.

After swimming for three minutes, Gu Nan felt his oxygen running low. He righted himself, kicked his fins, and quickly returned to the surface for air.

"PHEW~"

"How is it?" Yi Chen called out from the boat not far away.

"I’m going to check the south side. It should be fine," Gu Nan replied, then dove back into the water, heading directly south this time.

After confirming there was no danger, he finally returned to the rear deck of the fishing boat.

"Come on down. I haven’t found anything dangerous in the water for now. I’ll take you to the spot I found last time. You can get some pen shells, and we can sell them directly to the hotel when we get back."

"Okay. Here’s the speargun." Yi Chen nodded, handed him the speargun, and then slowly entered the water from the steps on the rear deck.

The temperature was high in the middle of summer, so the water didn’t feel cold.

Once Yi Chen was in the water, Gu Nan took her hand, holding the one-meter speargun in the other, and swam toward the foraging spot.

When they reached the surface above their destination, the float on the safety line followed them over. With it, he could track Yi Chen’s movements at all times.

He didn’t leave her right away. Instead, he first dove down with his girlfriend, led her to where the pen shells were, made a hand gesture, and then swam south.

While scouting earlier, he had also taken note of the underwater resources and noticed there were more fish to the south.

The seabed was covered in large reefs with plenty of holes, so he figured more large fish would be hiding there than in other spots.

Since it was right next to the deserted island, the water to the south was only about fifteen or sixteen meters deep. With the high visibility, he spotted two seabream at a glance.

From their appearance, they looked to be two red seabream, one large and one small, just cruising around. The larger one was about forty centimeters, probably just under half a meter, while the smaller one was noticeably shorter at only thirty centimeters.

There was no suitable cover here, and the two red seabream grew noticeably panicked as he approached.

Seeing this, Gu Nan had no choice but to slow down and approach gradually to avoid scaring the fish away.

As soon as he slowed his pace, the fish visibly relaxed a little and stopped swimming away.

Just then, the larger one swam above a big reef, presenting a perfect target.

Gu Nan judged the distance, slowly came to a stop, and pulled back the two bands to load the speargun.

This speargun was better suited for hunting small to medium-sized fish. It was fine for fish up to about fifty pounds, but it definitely wouldn’t be enough for a large tuna.

For those, you’d need three bands to give the spear enough force to pierce the bodies of giants like tuna.

Thanks to his practice in the game map, Gu Nan’s accuracy was very high. While he couldn’t match the 95% hit rate of a seasoned spearfisher, he could still achieve over 85%.

He just lacked real-world experience, so his choices and judgment of distance weren’t always perfect.

He raised the speargun, still slowly inching closer.

The closer he got, the higher his chance of hitting. Unfortunately, the red seabream was too wary. By the time he was within eight meters, the fish was clearly getting agitated.

Seeing this, he had to stop. He raised the speargun and took aim.

With a flick of its tail, the fish suddenly turned. Gu Nan’s eyes narrowed. He tracked the fish’s movement with the speargun, predicted its direction and speed, and then pulled the trigger.

"THWANG~"

The bands snapped, and the spear shot out with a WHOOSH, striking the fish’s body and piercing it right at the pectoral fin.

The impact was powerful, sending the fish’s body tumbling uncontrollably twice in the water.

Gu Nan let go of the speargun, allowing it to float freely.

He grabbed the line with both hands and began to pull it in. He could clearly feel vibrations and a pulling force on the line—the fish was struggling.

But it only lasted for three seconds before stopping. The severely injured fish was dying; it had no strength left to move.

Gu Nan righted himself and kicked his legs to swim upward, continuously reeling in the line and pulling the distant fish closer and closer.

One breath, one fish. He couldn’t get greedy and think he had enough oxygen to go for another. That was a fatal mistake.

Gu Nan broke the surface. As he caught his breath, he pulled the red seabream in front of him.

The red seabream had mostly stopped struggling. But when he reached out, grabbed it, and plunged a bleeding knife into its head, it still expressed its final, desperate defiance.

The fish went still. He made a cut inside its gills, slicing the blood vessels to let it bleed out slowly. Then, he secured it to the fish stringer and paid it no more mind, diving back down to continue spearfishing.

Back underwater, the other red seabream was long gone.

Gu Nan continued forward in search of a new target. Just as he swam five or six meters, a massive shadow suddenly appeared before him. ’This scene feels familiar!’

His heart skipped a beat. He took the shark prod from his back, held it in his hand, and slowly approached.

As he drew closer, sure enough, that familiar silhouette appeared once more.

Gu Nan’s eyes lit up. He never expected the Giant Grouper that Wang Junhe and Guo Xiao had spent days looking for to still be here. He had assumed someone else had already taken it!

His little speargun was no match for a fish this size, and besides, he had no intention of hunting this huge Giant Grouper.

Gu Nan quickly backed away, then found Yi Chen, who had already filled her mesh bag with pen shells, and pulled her back toward the boat.

Back on the surface, Yi Chen asked in confusion, "What’s wrong?"

Gu Nan explained as they swam, "I ran into that huge Giant Grouper from last time. I don’t know if it’ll attack us, so let’s get back to the boat first and tell Brother Wang and Brother Guo."

"If they still want this fish, we’ll help keep an eye on it for them. If not, I’ll just shoo it away, and we can keep diving."

He finally understood why there were no sharks here. With a beast like this around, an ordinary shark would be no match for a Giant Grouper. You’d need a great white or a tiger shark over three meters long to pose a threat.

But both of those shark species were rare, and large ones were even rarer.

"Huh? You found the Giant Grouper again? Didn’t Brother Wang and Brother Guo say it was gone? And you just happened to run into it?"

Yi Chen was astonished and, at the same time, couldn’t help but find it funny. Those two had such terrible luck; they searched for days and found nothing, yet the grouper appeared the moment Gu Nan arrived.

Gu Nan found it funny too. "Yeah, I heard them say they scoured this whole area and didn’t find it. Tsk, tsk... talk about bad luck..."

Back on the boat, they used a bath towel left on the deck to roughly dry the seawater off their bodies, took off their fins and socks, and then went into the cabin.

Gu Nan picked up his phone and called Guo Xiao.

"Hey, Brother Guo, you want a Giant Grouper or not?"