As a Fisherman, My Fish Can Level Up

Chapter 240: Chapter 209 The Stone Fish in Nansha is Big

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Chapter 240 -209 The Stone Fish in Nansha is Big

“Luoluo, come on, I’ll hold on to you.”

“No need, I’ll swim around by myself first and have a look. If I can manage, then you go ahead and focus on your own stuff!”

Jiang Luoluo declined Chu Mingcheng’s kind offer, mainly because she was afraid of holding him back from hunting.

Although she had only learned once before, she could still swim easily on the surface with the help of her fins, and there wouldn’t be any problems.

Seeing this, Chu Mingcheng let her be and started looking for suitable prey nearby.

The resources in Nansha were indeed very good. After swimming out just five or six meters, he found a very large lobster hiding in the crevices of the coral at the bottom.

In fact, the entire body of the lobster was almost hidden in the cracks. Chu Mingcheng could tell it was big mainly because its exposed antennae were thick and long, which clearly indicated it was not ordinary.

He dived into the water and probed towards the bottom.

Only when he got close to the crack did he realize how big the lobster inside was.

In terms of the size of its head, the lobster was not inferior to him at all. The lobster was entirely red, which at a glance, looked quite like an Australian lobster.

Chu Mingcheng couldn’t recognize what kind of lobster it was, mainly because there were too many types of lobsters, making it hard to identify. Moreover, a lobster this big would definitely look very different from when it was young, so it was normal for someone who wasn’t a professional to not recognize it.

At this moment, Jiang Luoluo also swam over. When she saw such a big lobster at the bottom, she excitedly bubbled a few bubbles from her mouth, appearing extremely amused.

Chu Mingcheng patted her shoulder, signaling her to stay calm.

Then he swam to the front of the coral crack and reached his hand in to grab the lobster directly.

However, lobsters are easy to catch, but not easy to control.

After being taken out of the crack, its tail kept thumping continuously, full of vigor.

Chu Mingcheng, caught off guard, was actually wriggled out of his grip by it.

The lobster immediately started to make a getaway by flapping its tail, but its speed was surprisingly slow—not at all like the speed of some smaller lobsters, and it wasn’t that good at running away.

Chu Mingcheng immediately followed after it, knowing that once such a lobster is spotted, as long as it doesn’t vanish from the Hunter’s sight in an instant, it is destined not to escape.

Jiang Luoluo, holding an underwater camera, swam behind for a short distance, but due to insufficient oxygen, she had to return to the surface to catch her breath.

She hadn’t specifically practiced breath-holding, so she couldn’t hold her breath underwater for long.

Chu Mingcheng looked back at her to make sure she was all right and then, with a flick of his feet, darted above the lobster.

After running for some distance, the lobster sank onto the coral and tried to crawl away, seemingly thinking that by doing this, it could get away.

In the end, however, it was once again caught by Chu Mingcheng with both hands.

And this time, no matter how much it flapped its tail, it could not break free.

Chu Mingcheng, holding the lobster, swam to the surface and said to Jiang Luoluo, who swam over, “Luoluo, you’re in for a treat tonight. We’ve gotten lobster freedom on the very first day.”

“Ah? Eat it? Such a big lobster, if we keep it and take it back, wouldn’t it sell for quite a bit of money?”

Jiang Luoluo had just arrived and was ready to shoot a close-up of the lobster! She hadn’t expected Chu Mingcheng to want to eat this lobster, and she immediately voiced a different opinion.

“What are you thinking? We’re going to stay in Nansha for over twenty days. This lobster won’t last until we get ashore!”

“Uh… seems so!”

Realizing it wouldn’t last until ashore, the lobster in Jiang Luoluo’s eyes instantly turned from money into food. A live lobster was valuable; a dead one would interest no buyers.

Chu Mingcheng brought the lobster back to the boat, first filled the fish box with some water, and then put the lobster in it with an oxygen supply.

So that it wouldn’t be dead before evening.

“Ah Cheng, you go and hunt, how about I follow behind you and shoot?” Jiang Luoluo could sense that Chu Mingcheng, worried about her, wasn’t preparing to go hunting.

On her swim over, not only had she discovered various brightly colored coral fish, but she had also seen many top-quality groupers.

It would be too much of a pity to let these fish go; moreover, she felt that she had no problem with skin diving on the surface, so she actively offered to follow and shoot.

That way, with her following beside, Chu Mingcheng could also feel at ease.

“Okay, then you follow me for now, and if you get tired later, go back to the boat to rest.”

“Mm-hmm, I won’t overdo it.”

Since they planned to hunt in the coral groves, Chu Mingcheng took his Carbon Fish Spear from the boat.

In such an environment, using a wooden spear would be an overkill, while a carbon fish spear or fish spear would be more suitable.

As for catching live fish, it never crossed Chu Mingcheng’s mind.

Drifting on the sea for over twenty days, what fish could survive until ashore?

If on the last day the boat managed to stop again at the coral edge, then he could certainly bring back some live fish.

Holding the fish spear, Chu Mingcheng skin-dived on the surface, his head submerged as he looked for suitable prey.

The resources in Nansha were indeed plentiful. As he went along, he found many parrotfish. The prices of these fish were high and low; ordinarily, he might have taken them.

But he had spotted quite a few red groupers earlier, and these fish were more valuable, making the parrotfish suddenly less appealing.

After swimming for more than twenty meters, they arrived at a waterside that was about ten meters deep.

Soon, Chu Mingcheng spotted some Side Tooth Sea Bass at the bottom.

These fish had tails like swallows’ tails and were also called Yanwei Star Spot because their bodies were spotted with dots like the East Starfish.

The value of wild-caught Yanwei Star Spot was a lot cheaper than that of wild-caught imported East Starfish. After ultra-low-temperature freezing, the unit price should be around two hundred twenty or so.

Chu Mingcheng approached within five meters and saw that the fish were still not alert, so he continued to slowly move closer.

Not until he was three meters away did they sense some danger and begin to swim away.

Chu Mingcheng paused on a large piece of coral, locked onto his target, and lifted his spear, beginning to aim.

The fish he was aiming at was the biggest Yanwei Star Spot, which looked like it should be over sixty centimeters long and quite possibly weighed about ten pounds.

When this Yanwei Star Spot turned to face him sideways, Chu Mingcheng took aim for a second and immediately pressed the trigger.

With a “bang,” the spear pierced the fish just behind the gills.

The other Yanwei Star Spots scattered in all directions, leaving only the largest one struggling in the water, its blood quickly turning the area red.

Chu Mingcheng released the spear and, holding the line, began to swim to the surface.

Once out of the water, he didn’t idle; he pulled the line, slowly retrieving the still struggling fish.

A fatally wounded fish, no matter how large, has difficulty escaping from a Hunter.

Five minutes later, Chu Mingcheng pulled the motionless Yanwei Star Spot to the surface.

But don’t think it was over for the fish; as Chu Mingcheng reached out to grab it and began to bleed it with his diving knife, it fiercely whipped its tail and slipped away within minutes.

But by then it was too late, as its nervous system had been severed, and blood was gushing out of its gills, uncontrollably.

Typically, fish caught by fishermen are bled immediately.

This helps to keep the flesh fresh for longer, preventing contamination by the blood.

Jiang Luoluo captured the entire scene on camera, marking the first time Chu Mingcheng was filmed hunting from a third-party perspective.

After hanging the fish on a live fish hook, Chu Mingcheng continued to pursue the school of Yanwei Star Spots.

However, a slight mishap occurred during the chase when a large, pale blue fish with fine spots appeared in his view.

Chu Mingcheng immediately recognized it as a beautiful Fine-pointed Grouper, also known as a blue melon seed.

He had seen this type of fish before in the seafood market, where a live wild-caught one could sell for three hundred yuan per pound. However, the biggest wild ones never exceeded five pounds, usually weighing only one or two pounds.

Of course, farmed ones usually don’t grow too big either, as farming has to be cost-effective, and it wouldn’t be profitable for them to raise the fish to a large size.

The Fine-pointed Grouper had caught Chu Mingcheng’s attention mainly because of its size.

It was much longer than the Yanwei Star Spot he had just hunted, but unfortunately, it seemed to be just shy of one meter.

It would be a shame not to take such a big one.

He aimed his spear, and in an instant, the arrow pierced the fish’s belly.

To ensure the fish’s appearance, Chu Mingcheng generally didn’t aim for their heads to keep from having an obvious hole in them, which would be unsightly.

This fish struggled more violently than the Yanwei Star Spot had, stirring up the sandy bottom until everything was murky.

Unable to see the fish, Chu Mingcheng had no choice but to swim to the surface and slowly pull on the line.

When he saw Jiang Luoluo had come by and momentarily set down the camera, he handed the line to her, “Want to give it a try?”

“No thanks, I’m afraid the fish will get away!” Jiang Luoluo hesitated and then shook her head in refusal.

“It’s fine, the arrow has already penetrated the fish’s body, it can’t escape.”

“Really? Then I’ll give it a try!”

Once Jiang Luoluo heard that the fish couldn’t escape, she confidently handed the camera back to Chu Mingcheng and took the fishing line herself.

As soon as she took the line, she was caught off guard as her body suddenly sank.

It turned out that the fish had been forcefully pulled up a bit, but when she took over, there was an instant when she relaxed, giving the fish the impression it might escape, and so it made a sudden effort and pulled Jiang Luoluo down a little.

Suddenly frightened, she quickly gripped with both hands, fighting to pull the fish back in.

It was then she discovered how challenging it really was for Chu Mingcheng to bring in the fish with such ease all the time.

Humans lack a point of leverage in the water, and dragging a fish to the surface relies on buoyancy and one’s own weight to exhaust the fish’s energy.

In a pure contest of strength against a fish, even one weighing just over twenty pounds could be more than most people could handle.

Fortunately, this Fine-pointed Grouper had already had its strength sapped by Chu Mingcheng and was also badly injured. After a short struggle, it was slowly brought before Jiang Luoluo.

“So fishing really does take a lot of effort!”

Jiang Luoluo passed the line back to Chu Mingcheng, and, removing her breathing tube, she began to breathe heavily.

“Of course, otherwise this activity wouldn’t be categorized as an extreme sport,” Chu Mingcheng said cheerfully as he took out his diving knife to bleed the fish.

This fish was quite large, seemingly over eighty centimeters long, making it inconvenient to carry.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem as fat as the tiger spot, otherwise it certainly would’ve weighed more than twenty or thirty pounds.

The two swam back to the boat and placed the fish in another box, prepared with a layer of crushed ice.

Then Chu Mingcheng handed his spear over to Jiang Luoluo and suggested, “Luoluo, with such a good opportunity, why not try hunting yourself?”

PS: The side effects after recovering from Yangkang seem quite strong; I’ve become very sleepy.

I took a nap this afternoon to prepare for writing, but when I woke up, it was already past four o’clock.

I’m not sure if I can get the third chapter done today—if not, it will probably be posted around midnight.