Chapter 289: Chapter 189: Leopard Coral Grouper vs. Humpback Grouper

Gu Nan dropped his hook in the water and let out about forty meters of line before closing the bail arm. Then, he poured the few remaining sardine chunks into the sea.

The open sea was choppy. Some of the bait would sink, while the rest would drift with the waves and attract more fish. It was useful one way or another. Besides, he had bought plenty of sardines.

This was peak feeding time, and the fish were biting readily. Just as Yi Chen’s baited hook reached the bottom, Gu Nan’s rod started twitching.

He quickly raised the rod to set the hook, and a powerful force pulled back. ’Not bad, it has some weight.’

Yi Chen’s eyes lit up. ’The bite is this good,’ she thought, ’so tonight’s haul is going to be amazing!’

“Ah Nan, reel it in quick and let’s see what it is! If it’s valuable, I’ll set one of my rods to this depth too.”

“Alright, I’ll hurry.”

Gu Nan nodded, locked the drag, and cranked the reel hard to bring in the line.

He estimated it was probably a five or six-pound fish. Different fish fought differently, however, so guessing the weight was never an exact science. It was just a feeling he’d developed from years of experience.

At a depth of forty meters, reeling it in wasn’t too strenuous. After a moment, a thrashing Sea Bass broke the surface. Judging by its size, it was about five or six pounds—just as he’d guessed.

“Oh, it’s a Sea Bass!” Yi Chen sounded a little disappointed. A Sea Bass was actually quite good; even with the fishing season underway, they still sold for forty yuan a pound, making this one worth over two hundred.

But deep-sea fish were generally more valuable, so she decided to stick to fishing deeper waters.

Gu Nan naturally caught the hint of disdain in her voice and couldn’t help but chuckle and shake his head.

After getting used to seeing seafood worth two or three hundred yuan—or even more—at the restaurant, a fish that sold for a mere forty yuan a pound didn’t seem like a big deal. It wasn’t just her; even Gu Nan himself had stopped thinking of Sea Bass as a particularly impressive catch.

He removed the hook. The prawn bait was still intact in the fish’s mouth, just dead. It was still usable.

He tossed the Sea Bass into the livewell to keep it alive for the time being. He would check the livewell every evening and morning, and any fish that had gone belly-up would be taken out and put on ice.

Gu Nan decided against bottom fishing and continued to target mid-water species. There were many kinds of fish around the oil rig; just because this one was a Sea Bass didn’t mean the next one would be.

Just as his baited hook reached the target depth, Yi Chen’s line finally showed some action.

’It takes a while for the chum to spread its scent,’ he mused. ’It’s slow at first, but the pace should pick up soon.’

One after another, both of her electric reel rods got a bite at almost the same time. Yi Chen quickly started reeling them in, a wide grin revealing her perfectly white teeth.

Gu Nan had actually offered to let her manage their finances, but she had refused, since they weren’t married yet.

His offer of an allowance was also turned down.

Yi Chen felt it was best to keep things as they were, continuing to draw a salary. She felt she was already benefiting enough and didn’t want to take any more advantage of the situation before they were married.

Resigned, Gu Nan had proposed for this sea trip that she could keep and sell whatever fish she caught herself.

And now she had two on the line at once. Both were potential cash, so of course Yi Chen was delighted.

But the fish seemed quite large; she couldn’t reel them in right away and could only wait anxiously.

In contrast, Gu Nan was faster. His second fish came up first—a Spotted Rockfish weighing a little over three pounds.

Just as he’d expected, the waters around the oil rig were rich with diverse species; there was no way they would all be Sea Bass.

This Spotted Rockfish went for over two hundred yuan a pound. It was far from cheap!

The shrimp bait wasn’t so lucky this time. It had been bitten clean in two by the rockfish’s hard mouth, and one half had vanished—presumably eaten.

He used a hook remover to extract the hook before tossing the fish into the livewell.

Seeing this, Yi Chen realized that fishing the mid-water column could be just as fruitful and decided she would have to try it later.

Just then, her two fish were pulled to the surface, one after the other.

“Whoa, you caught two amberjacks, and one of them is even wearing makeup!” Gu Nan teased. He grabbed a gaff to help, hooking one of the fish and hauling it aboard.

Neither was small; they both weighed around twenty pounds.

“Wearing makeup? What does that mean?” Yi Chen hurried over to remove the hook, grabbing a bleeding knife and skillfully spiking the fish in the head to dispatch it.

“Take a closer look. One is a Greater Amberjack, and the other is a Yellowtail Amberjack. They look similar, but there’s a huge price difference. Anglers are thrilled to catch a Greater Amberjack but disappointed with a Yellowtail. So when their eyes play tricks on them, they joke that the Yellowtail put on makeup to pass as a Greater Amberjack.”

Gu Nan had also hauled the other fish aboard by now. He placed the two side-by-side and explained.

Yi Chen compared them and saw that there was actually a big difference between the two. When they were in the water just now, she really had thought they were the same species.

The Greater Amberjack had a wider, thicker body. Its overall color was darker with a faint reddish tint, and its scales were uniform in size.

The Yellowtail Amberjack was leaner, and aside from the identical yellow stripe down its side, its body was paler and its scales were uneven in size.

In reality, the taste was also worlds apart. The Greater Amberjack had better quality flesh, and when properly bled and preserved, a fresh catch had almost no fishy smell.

The Yellowtail’s flesh, however, was of slightly poorer quality. Even when handled properly, it would still carry a hint of fishiness, and its fat content was also lower.

This was why a Greater Amberjack could sell for sixty yuan a pound—and got more expensive the larger it was—while a Yellowtail only fetched about ten. For a Yellowtail to even be considered for sashimi, it would need to be at least seven or eight pounds, otherwise the texture would be awful.

Gu Nan had caught Yellowtail before, but not many—just one or two here and there, and they were never particularly large.

So he usually just processed them at the dock or cut them up for bait; he never brought them back to sell at the restaurant.

Yi Chen, who hadn’t known the difference between the two, couldn’t help but ask, “Is this Yellowtail valuable? Can it be used for sashimi too?”

Gu Nan burst out laughing. “Yellowtail is cheap, only ten or twenty yuan a pound. Not many people make sashimi with it here. It’s not like in Japan, where they’ll make sashimi out of anything. Hell, they serve food off of living people, and I bet they’d even eat crap.”

“Oh, shut up! That’s disgusting! Don’t say things like that in front of me!” Yi Chen chided, slightly flustered and annoyed. If her hands weren’t busy bleeding the fish, she would have given him a few playful punches.

“Heh heh…” Gu Nan’s mind drifted to the expanse of pale skin he’d seen a few mornings ago, and he suddenly thought that maybe those Japanese had the right idea about some things.

’For the sake of that goal,’ he thought, ’I’ve got to put in some effort on this trip!’

But it was still early. Gu Nan reined in his wandering thoughts, returned to his spot, grabbed a live shrimp from the bucket to bait his hook, and went back to fishing.

Their engagement date was already set, so he no longer had the same reservations as before. If he kept holding back, he might as well become a monk.

By now, Yi Chen had bled both fish. Even though the Yellowtail was cheap, it still weighed a good twenty pounds, and weight meant money.

Bleeding fish was so convenient on the luxury yacht. She casually grabbed the nearby hose to wash her hands, then sent the lines from her two electric reels back down to continue fishing. Only after the bait reached the target depth did she pick up the hose again and stick it in the fish’s mouth to flush out the blood.

She was fishing and bleeding the catch at the same time, making use of every moment.

By this point, Gu Nan had already landed his third fish, a brightly colored parrotfish. It looked valuable, though he couldn’t identify the specific species.

He used his appraisal function and saw that its flesh was average and it would only sell for fifty yuan. His interest vanished instantly.

Now that the fishing season was open, all the seafood in his restaurant was a bit cheaper—some by ten yuan, others by twenty or thirty. He always used his appraisal function to set the prices.

There was no helping it; that’s just how it was at the start of the season. Prices would spike again during the holidays in the latter half of the year, especially around the Lunar New Year. They wouldn’t quite double, but an Australian Lobster could jump from over three hundred to four hundred yuan, an increase of dozens of yuan per pound.

“That parrotfish is so pretty,” Yi Chen said when she saw it. “If it survives until we get back to shore, we should put it in the aquarium with the other ornamental fish.”

The new restaurant would also have a decorative aquarium, but she always felt it looked a little sparse. A few more fish would make it much more pleasant to look at.

“We could set up a dedicated tank for fish that are both beautiful and edible,” Gu Nan suggested. “If one of them happens to die, we can just scoop it out and eat it ourselves. What do you think?”

The ornamental fish at the restaurant were herbivores and weren’t suited for being housed with carnivores like this one. But since his girlfriend wanted to keep it, Gu Nan had to come up with an alternative suggestion.

Yi Chen’s eyes lit up. She nodded eagerly and immediately agreed. “Yes! That’s a great idea.”

She finally finished flushing the blood from her two fish. Just as she placed them in the refrigerated hold and turned around, she saw one of her rods bend sharply. She hurried over, pressed the retrieve button, and muttered under her breath.

“Please be something valuable… no more Yellowtails.”

Gu Nan heard her and shook his head with a laugh. ’Other people would kill to catch one of those.’

The live shrimp on his hook was still fine, so there was no need to change it. He cast his line out again and set the rod in its holder so he could move around freely.

His main concern was that Yi Chen might hook a big one, and she wouldn’t be able to land it without his help.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Ah Nan, Ah Nan! It’s a grouper! A grouper!”

A moment later, Yi Chen cried out in excitement as a grouper covered in red spots broke the surface.

That was the rod she had set for mid-water fishing. She couldn’t believe her luck—she had actually caught a leopard coral grouper! It looked to be about four or five pounds. What a premium catch!

In a flash, Gu Nan grabbed the landing net, reached out, and expertly scooped up the still-struggling grouper.

The golden fishing rod didn’t have its stamina-draining bonus effect when Yi Chen used it, so the leopard coral grouper still had plenty of fight left in it even after reaching the surface.

Even though the fish was in the net, neither of them relaxed. Only when Gu Nan lifted it out and set the fish down on the deck did they both exhale the breath they’d been holding.

“Tsk, tsk. Your luck is incredible tonight. You’ve only caught three fish, and they’re already worth four thousand yuan!” Gu Nan himself hadn’t caught a leopard coral grouper in a long time, and his voice held a genuine hint of envy.

He wasn’t envious of the money; it was simply that this fish was a dream catch for any angler, one he had yet to unlock himself.

Yi Chen was about to say something when she saw Gu Nan’s rod bend over. She pointed frantically. “Fish on! Fish on! Quick!”

Gu Nan reacted in an instant, spinning around and lunging for the rod. He yanked it up, successfully setting the hook.

The pull wasn’t overwhelmingly strong, but the thrashing was violent.

Gu Nan simply muscled the fish in with brute force, taking hardly any time at all.

But when he saw the white, black-spotted grouper break the surface, he blurted out in shock, “Holy shit, a Humpback Grouper!”

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