As a Fisherman, My Fish Can Level Up

Chapter 151: Chapter 142: King of Fish

It turned out that what he had caught was a kind of lobster called the Ruffled Lobster, available domestically only in the Treasure Island Strait and normally required to be imported.

This type of lobster is also very scarce here, hence the need for imports.

The one Chu Mingcheng caught weighed over two kilograms, which is considered to be a large individual.

Price-wise, it’s only a bit higher than the Green Lobster, not by much.

Chu Mingcheng put it in a net bag, planning to cook it if he couldn’t find any other lobsters by evening.

The shallow water area was still lacking in fish resources, so he glanced at his diving watch and decided to check the deep-water area.

Sure enough, upon arriving in the deep-water area, schools of fish were swimming above the coral reef, including species such as Sea Wolf and sea bream that Chu Mingcheng had seen before.

There were more small ornamental fish, but he was only interested in those that could be eaten and paid no attention to the others.

Today, Chu Mingcheng’s main target was the groupers that liked to hide in the coral reefs, while he temporarily ignored the fish swimming in the middle and upper layers.

Mainly because they weren’t big or fat enough to hold any economic value.

He climbed over a coral reef and unexpectedly discovered a very large Devil Fish slowly swimming nearby.

Although he couldn’t see clearly what variety it was, its size suggested it might weigh at least a hundred kilograms.

Chu Mingcheng hesitated but decided not to go back for his speargun.

No matter how big, a Devil Fish wouldn’t sell for much money, even though it looked to weigh over a hundred kilograms.

Even if he managed to get it on board and then transport it back to the dock, it’s likely that no one would want it.

He might even have to slice it up to sell, and making a few hundred dollars would be considered good.

Still, Chu Mingcheng followed it, adjusted the camera on his head, and captured its swimming movements.

After following for a few minutes, Chu Mingcheng found a fairly large hole on the bottom, big enough for him to squeeze through.

At the entrance of the hole, he saw a parrotfish that was green all over with some yellow spots.

This fish was called the Green Spot Parrotfish, also known as the Green Dress Fish.

Usually, these are passed off as Shu’s pigtooth fish, the genuine green dress fish, but in reality, they are just imitations. Luckily, the price isn’t cheap either, selling for around one hundred and thirty dollars.

The Green Spot Parrotfish inside the hole wasn’t small at all. It had been safely hidden inside this completely sealed cave, but the sudden intrusion scared it into frantically darting about, though it didn’t dare to flee from the entrance.

Chu Mingcheng directly blocked the entrance and then picked up a fish spear.

Due to his presence, the cave suddenly became very cramped, causing the Green Spot Parrotfish to shiver in a corner.

This made it easier for him to fish. He aimed the spear, and with a “bang,” the arrow pierced the flesh.

The Green Spot Parrotfish struggled desperately, but Chu Mingcheng pressed the spear down, pinning it inside, leaving it with no chance to fight back.

It took a while, but the fish finally stopped breathing, and he carried it out with both hands.

This fish was quite large, weighing at least ten kilograms, but its mouth was not big, making it somewhat difficult to handle with a live fish hook.

Therefore, Chu Mingcheng had to make another trip back to the boat to preserve it on the crushed ice in a foam box.

The fish was fat and beautiful, pleasing to the eye.

Checking the time, over ten minutes had passed. Chu Mingcheng went back into the water and first checked the trap area.

The results were satisfying; the earliest trap set had yielded a catch.

He lifted the bamboo stick and found a Peacock-tailed Mantis Shrimp, green in color with a red and black underbelly.

This was also a type of shrimp from the shrimp family, just not as large, growing up to eighteen centimeters at most.

Chu Mingcheng looked at the Mantis Shrimp entangled in the trap, and eventually decided to take it back with him.

After placing the Mantis Shrimp into a bottle, he continued to search for the second trap.

Out of ten caves, eight had catches, with one Mantis Shrimp and the rest being Ban Qin shrimp.

The smallest was about the size of the Mantis Shrimp; Chu Mingcheng collected them all, figuring the smaller ones could simply be eaten by himself.

After swimming a round and resetting the ten traps, he continued toward the deep-water area.

Then, a fish leisurely moving over the coral made his heart thud rapidly.

Its body was brownish-white, with a lighter shade of brown and covered in black spots, its back highly arched, but its head very small, somewhat resembling a rat.

This was an extremely precious wild Rat Spot, unfortunately a bit small, probably just over a kilogram.

Chu Mingcheng approached slowly with his spear, but the Rat Spot, extraordinarily cautious, darted away when he was still seven or eight meters away.

He immediately gave chase; the Rat Spot moved frantically but was only explosive in short bursts and slowed down after some distance, unable to maintain speed and escape.

This allowed Chu Mingcheng to keep up easily, though he could not catch up.

Seemingly realizing it couldn’t escape, the Rat Spot suddenly darted into a crevice in the coral reef below.

Chu Mingcheng’s eyes lit up; now it truly had no escape.

Moving slowly closer, he looked downward, searching for where the Rat Spot might be hiding.

Soon, he discovered the Rat Spot was just hiding under a rock that resembled the underside of an arched bridge.

The space was not large, just enough for it to hide itself.

What a perfect hideout!

Chu Mingcheng put away his spear and approached from its blind side, which would make it impossible for the fish to spot him visually.

As soon as he was very close, he suddenly blocked the entrance and exit of its hiding place.

This was also because he could almost ignore the resistance in water, allowing such agile movements.

If it were anyone else, using this method to block exits wouldn’t catch this Rat Spot, as the water resistance would slow their movements.

Moreover, the water flow caused by their movement would alert the Rat Spot, allowing it to escape directly.

With both escape routes blocked, the Rat Spot tried to escape through the crevice but was squeezed by Chu Mingcheng’s hand onto the rock.

Then, it was seized by his hands and lifted up.

Having successfully caught a live Rat Spot, Chu Mingcheng was even happier than when he had speared the Green Spot Parrotfish.

Though this Rat Spot barely weighed over a pound, its price could possibly reach five hundred.

The price of Rat Spot was indeed expensive: a live one weighing a pound could cost four to five hundred, and the larger, the pricier.

But if it was dead, its price would probably only be around eighty to one hundred.

Some fish don’t differ much in price between alive and dead, and many sea fish don’t even survive till ashore, so there really isn’t a price for live ones.

But the difference between live and dead Rat Spots was so large; that’s why Chu Mingcheng was so thrilled to have caught a live one.

He directly took the Rat Spot back to the boat and placed it in the fish tank with oxygen.

As the foremost of the four great fish kings of Hong Kong, it deserved such treatment.

Afterward, he looked at his fishing spear and felt that spearing such valuable fish directly seemed somewhat wasteful.

So he didn’t dive again, but took out fishing line, hooks, and sinkers from the fishing box, and then cut some squid meat.

Indeed, using bait at the Grouper’s haunt seemed more reliable. Now, as evening approached and it was nearly time for Groupers to be active, fishing them at this time should yield good results.

After cutting the squid meat, Chu Mingcheng set everything aside and dove into the water empty-handed.

He wanted to quickly catch the Ban Qin shrimp before dark and then go fishing for Grouper after dinner.

Busy until 5:30 p.m., he had caught a total of twenty-seven Ban Qin shrimp. Chu Mingcheng retrieved the jar and put them all in the live fish compartment.

This thing took up quite some space. If left outside, the shrimp might easily die; he now understood why others didn’t bother with these at sea.

Aside from being cumbersome and taking up space, they were not easy to preserve; they would probably prefer to catch cheaper fish in quantity rather than deal with these.

He wiped his body dry with a towel; in the water, he didn’t feel cold.

But coming up, the chill from the sea breeze was too much for Chu Mingcheng to tolerate.

After drying off, he quickly entered the cabin and turned on the air conditioning to get comfortable first.

Since he had to dive again in the evening, he did not go for a shower.

He took out the Six-Stripe Angelfish to prepare it and steamed it plain. Once steamed, he poured over steamed fish soy sauce, sprinkled some chopped scallions and chili, and with hot oil poured over it, it became fragrantly delicious.

This fish wasn’t sold in the market, but its flesh was very tender and tasted excellent. Chu Mingcheng was quite satisfied.

He just didn’t know why nobody bought it to eat, although it was rare, it wasn’t as precious as wild Rat Spot.

After dinner, Chu Mingcheng rested in the cockpit for a while, then took half a net bag of cut squid and his hand-prepared fishing line and hooks, and went back into the water.

This time he did not wear the camera, because he needed to wear the diving headlight.

Now was the peak time for fish activity. Just as he entered the water, Chu Mingcheng saw many valuable coral fish and Grouper swimming at the bottom, occasionally witnessing large fish hunting smaller ones.

Chu Mingcheng swam at a height of about ten meters from the bottom. This height usually would not alert the fish, and it also made it easier to pull after hooking the bait.

He used the Dali Ma Line with a steel wire leader, so he wasn’t worried about the line breaking.

Chu Mingcheng soon locked onto his target.

A Grouper, whose color he could hardly distinguish even with the light, seemed to resemble an East Starfish.

Chu Mingcheng slowly lowered the bait, stopping about twenty to thirty centimeters above the fish.

He could clearly see the fish being attracted, swimming back and forth under the bait.

Because of its presence, surrounding smaller fish, though tempted by the bait, dared not come too close.

Then Chu Mingcheng watched as the Grouper swam up to the bait and swallowed it in one gulp.

A great force suddenly transmitted to his hand, and he happily pulled back the line, first bringing it to mid-water, and then letting it swim around him in circles for a while.

Once it tired a bit, Chu Mingcheng pulled back all the fishing line and grabbed the Grouper.

Unexpectedly, it indeed turned out to be an East Starfish, probably weighing three to four pounds.

He first passed a live fish clip through the fish’s gills to secure it, then removed the hook from its mouth.

Letting the fish float about two meters behind him, Chu Mingcheng took out another piece of squid meat from the net bag, hung it up, and looked for the next suitable target.

There were so many fish, it was dazzling.

After swimming about twenty meters, he found another suitable target fish—a Green Dress Fish, also known as Shu’s Pigtooth Fish.

The fish was large, even bigger than the Green Spot Parrotfish he had caught that day.

The coral reef at night truly offered rich resources, but fishing from the boat might not be very effective.

Compared to precious fish, there were more common fish here, which were easier to catch.

Although it was more troublesome this way, he achieved higher accuracy.

Besides, Chu Mingcheng felt much more comfortable in the water, as he had the freedom to swim about; even in the cold seawater, he still felt comfortable, but fishing from the boat in the sea breeze was not so pleasant.

The Shu’s Pigtooth Fish appeared a bit stupefied: it only wanted to find some food to fill its stomach at night.

Its main food consisted of some hard-shelled mollusks, sea urchins, and slow-moving soft-bodied creatures.

Who knew that a chunk of meat would suddenly appear above its head; between the choices of eating or not, it hesitated only for three seconds before it bit heartily into the food.

Little did it know, by eating a piece of squid meat, it would lose its entire value.

The fish was large and tougher to pull up compared to the East Starfish, so Chu Mingcheng simply adjusted its position, letting it pull him around in the spacious mid-water area.

Without the aid of water buoyancy, but with its weight there.

The Shu’s Pigtooth Fish gave up after a short while and was pulled up by Chu Mingcheng.

Though its teeth were ugly to look at, its biting power was no joke, and the fish was quite large, possibly around twenty pounds.

Therefore, he directly took it back to the boat and placed the fish in the live well together with the East Starfish and Rat Spot.