Chapter 357: Chapter 236: Perhaps Fishing Boats Have a Newbie Buff Too?

In total, Gu Nan’s haul of large shrimp came to around two hundred pounds, with the medium ones weighing a little over eighty pounds.

However, the shrimp couldn’t survive out of the water, so the three of them moved the catch into the refrigerated hold for preservation.

From the shrimp harvest alone, Gu Nan had earned about twenty-two thousand yuan.

The price for medium shrimp was much lower; fifty yuan a pound was considered a pretty good price.

Just then, An Jun sniffed the air and turned toward the cabin. "Do you guys smell something fragrant?"

"Of course! It’s the smell of fried shrimp cakes. How could you not?" Ye Jing couldn’t help but swallow. The aroma was incredibly tempting and had successfully whet his appetite.

With the exception of the small shrimp, all the Shalu shrimp that needed preserving had been moved to the refrigerated hold. Their appetites stoked, the three men quickly washed their hands and rushed eagerly toward the kitchen.

The moment they opened the cabin door, a rich aroma wafted into their noses, making their mouths water even faster. The scent was seriously potent.

When Xu Zhina saw the three of them, she laughed sweetly. "See? Look at that. I just said this aroma would be enough to draw everyone over without needing to call for them. I was right, wasn’t I!"

Beside her, Jin Enfei was already holding a shrimp cake, munching away like a little hamster. CRUNCH CRUNCH. She nodded repeatedly at the words, too busy eating to speak.

A SIZZLE SIZZLE came from the wok. Yi Chen, holding a pair of long chopsticks, turned her head. Seeing them, she said, "I’ve fried a plate here. You guys can have a taste."

Shrimp cakes were made by mixing small shrimp with flour and deep-frying them.

Typically, small white shrimp were used because their shells were soft and wouldn’t prick your mouth when you ate them.

The Shalu shrimp were characterized by their thin shells and plentiful meat. Yi Chen first flash-fried the small shrimp in oil before coating them in flour for the final fry.

This made the shrimp inside crispy without being prickly at all, and even more fragrant.

Each shrimp cake was about the size of his palm. Gu Nan ate two, mainly just to taste them since it hadn’t been long since lunch.

He then took the long chopsticks from Yi Chen’s hands. "You go eat some, too. I’ll take over here."

"Okay, then I’ll take a break."

In reality, Yi Chen felt full just from the smell, so she didn’t have much of an appetite. But after drinking some water and resting for a bit, her appetite returned, and she picked up a small shrimp cake to eat.

A single soup bowl of shrimp had produced a heaping basin full of cakes. An Jun was already stuffed, sitting on a chair and hiccuping as he stared at the mountain of shrimp cakes.

Gu Nan couldn’t watch this any longer. "If you’re so full," he ordered, "go start the boat and find a school of fish. Or find a spot a hundred or two hundred meters deep."

"We’ll put down the fish-attracting lights. Whether we get any tuna tonight will depend on them."

"You got it~" An Jun replied, grabbing Ye Jing and dashing off.

Gu Nan poured the used oil into a large bowl to cool. Just as he finished washing the wok, he felt the fishing boat begin to vibrate. It was clearly underway.

"Want to go up to the flybridge and enjoy the breeze?" Yi Chen suggested, seeing that he was finished.

"Won’t it be cold?" Xu Zhina asked hesitantly.

"Let’s go, let’s go! I want to get a high vantage point and see the beautiful view." Jin Enfei, who was wearing the least amount of clothing, was full of excitement. She grabbed both their hands and ran for the flybridge.

Gu Nan shook his head and followed behind them.

’As expected of someone from the peninsula,’ he mused. ’When it comes to handling the cold, the women from that country are absolutely top-tier.’

But the rain had stopped in the afternoon, and the cold wind from when he’d woken up around noon had also vanished.

It was still too cold for short sleeves, but thankfully, everyone was dressed warmly enough. Sitting on the flybridge sofa to relax and chat felt just right.

"CAW~ CAW~"

After about forty or fifty minutes, not quite an hour, the cries of two distant seabirds caught Gu Nan’s attention.

He stood up and noticed that the once light blue-green seawater had turned a deep, dark blue.

The change in color was due to the change in depth; the fishing boat had now reached a deep-water zone.

Theoretically, only depths over five hundred meters qualified as the deep sea. However, Gu Nan’s focus was on fish, and since one could catch deep-sea fish at a hundred meters, he considered that the beginning of the deep-water zone.

For fishing, there was no reason to go into such deep waters if you didn’t have to. The main issue was a lack of fish!

What really caught Gu Nan’s attention, however, was the large, low-lying "dark cloud" far in the distance. It was formed by a countless flock of seabirds gathered together.

An Jun and Ye Jing, piloting the boat from the cabin, had clearly spotted the flock first and were heading straight for it.

Even without much deep-sea experience, they knew that a flock of birds this large meant there was definitely a massive school of fish below.

They weren’t a trawler, so their target wasn’t the massive school itself, but rather the marine predators it attracted.

Where there are schools of fish, there are big fish. Today was definitely the Nanchen’s lucky day.

’Maybe the fishing boat has a beginner’s buff?’

As the fishing boat drew closer, Gu Nan saw a considerable number of vessels at the edge of the flock. The vast majority were fishing boats, and a few trawlers were already hard at work under a rain of bird droppings.

He saw almost no other sport-fishing boats, however. They might have been the first to arrive.

Gu Nan had already led the three women out onto the deck. After the boat stopped, Ye Jing and An Jun came out as well.

"Ah Nan, what’s the plan?"

Gu Nan gazed out at the sea. Seeing the fish being snatched up by the seabirds, he confirmed it was a school of sardines.

The fishing boat had limited capacity; unlike commercial fishing vessels, they couldn’t make money on volume by hauling back a full load of sardines.

A sport-fishing boat was destined to go the quality-over-quantity route. Therefore, there was no need to hesitate. "Everyone, grab your gear. We’re going straight for the big ones."

An Jun slapped his forehead. "I meant, how are we supposed to catch the big fish *in* this massive school?"

"There’s so much food, even chumming is pointless. The key is getting a big fish to take our hook."

"Come on, this is an all-you-can-eat buffet. What kind of prey do predators in the wild target? The old, the young, and the injured. We’ll cast the net, bring up some sardines, hook one, and fish along the edges. It should be easy to attract a big fish, right?"

As Gu Nan explained this to everyone, he began changing the rigs on his fishing rods. Today called for float fishing.

"The big predators don’t hunt in the middle of the school. They usually patrol the edges, so we’ll have plenty of opportunities."

Hearing his explanation, the others were skeptical but could only pick their fishing spots and begin their preparations.

Yi Chen quietly asked him, "Ah Nan, is there really no other way?"

Gu Nan shrugged. "In a situation like this, when you’re fishing, there’s nothing else you can do. Whether we hook a big one or not just comes down to luck."

He finished changing the rigs on three rods and handed them to Yi Chen to secure in the rod holders. He then took the helm, steered the boat over the school of fish, and took out a cast net to get some bait.

The small squid were all frozen in the refrigerated hold; in this situation, it was better to use the readily available sardines.

He cast the net. As he started pulling it in, he suddenly yelled, "Holy shit!"

He couldn’t budge it...

There were too many fish. He quickly called Yi Chen over to help him use the crane to haul the net up.

It was a net full of sardines, weighing an estimated one hundred and fifty pounds or more. It was no wonder Gu Nan couldn’t pull that weight, plus the water, up by himself.

Every fishing boat here today was going to make a killing. There were just too many sardines.

They hadn’t caught any big fish on this trip yet, but they definitely had more than enough bait now.

The three women hurried over, picked the larger sardines out of the net, and tossed them into the livewell for easy access.

The sardines were surprisingly big; the larger ones were over twenty centimeters long. They were quite lean, though, and didn’t look very fatty.

With the bait secured, Gu Nan drove the boat away from the main flock to avoid having seabirds gather overhead and poop all over them.

Besides, if they dropped their hooks right in the middle of the school, the big fish wouldn’t even be able to see their bait!

Once the fishing boat was back at the edge of the school, he hooked a live sardine onto each of the three rods and cast them into the water to wait for a bite.

He wasn’t sure if a big fish would actually take the bait, but it was worth a shot.

As spectacular as the scene was on the surface and in the sky, it was even more chaotic beneath the waves.

Such an abundance of food naturally attracted a myriad of predators: various types of billfish, king mackerel, Sea Wolves, large bonito, and so on.

There were also the tuna that Gu Nan and his group were hoping for, as well as the ever-despised sharks.

Of course, pods of adorable dolphins appeared as well. It seemed almost every species had claimed its own territory, and they all kept to themselves.

If some of the larger sharks were to encounter a lone dolphin, they would attack without hesitation.

In the wild, strength is mainly determined by size. An individual dolphin is generally no match for a shark.

But dolphins travel in pods, so the sharks, who tend to be solitary hunters, all gave the newly arrived dolphins a wide berth.

The school of fish was so vast that there was plenty of room for everyone to feed. There was no need to pick a fight with the dolphins.

For their part, the dolphins had no intention of toying with the sharks today. Even though sharks weren’t coordinated, there were a lot of them.

Getting injured could trigger an attack from the sharks. So, while the scene underwater was chaotic, everyone was focused on hunting with a tacit understanding not to fight amongst themselves.

The hooked sardine, dropped back into the water, immediately began to swim, heading toward the main school.

Its presence was insignificant to the vast school, but it was spotted by several large fish circling the perimeter, looking for an opportunity to strike.

Just as Gu Nan had said, injured prey was an easy target that quickly drew a predator’s attention.

WHOOSH~ WHOOSH~ WHOOSH~

Incredibly, at almost the exact same moment, all three of Gu Nan’s fishing rods bent sharply.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! We got hits on all of them! All of them!" Yi Chen shrieked with delight. Gu Nan quickly hit the buttons, engaging the electric reels.

He wasn’t sure how big the fish were, so he decided to test the waters with the electric reels first.

It would be great if he could reel them all in. If the fish were too big, he’d have to focus on just one line and they would have to fish one person to a rod.

Luck was on their side. Though the rods were bent dramatically, the lines began to slowly retract after a brief standoff.

Gu Nan stepped forward and grabbed the handle of one of the reels to help it along, increasing the retrieval speed.

Seeing this, Yi Chen did the same, assisting with another rod.

Just as they were reeling in their lines, shouts of surprise erupted from behind them. Apparently, An Jun and his group had also hooked fish.

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