I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 35: Chapter 35: Fishing is Tiring Too

Watching the fisherman leave, Gu Nan contentedly resumed fishing. With that two thousand yuan, his bank account balance was back over five thousand, just a bit over six thousand.

’If I work hard, I hope that after I collect a full set of green Fengqi Fishing Rods, my balance can break twenty thousand.’

He picked up his rod and continued fishing. But before the next fish had even shown a sign of biting, the phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated. Someone had sent him a WeChat message.

Gu Nan took it out to look. It turned out someone in the fishing group had @’d everyone.

"I’m screwed. I’m stuck on the bridge pier and can’t get back. Any pros with a boat who can come pick me up?"

It was from the same fisherman who had just bought his fish. There was a picture to go with it.

However, seeing the familiar photo of a striped beakfish, Gu Nan couldn’t help but chuckle. That fisherman was quite a character.

Over the next two hours, his catch was excellent, much better than it had been over by the reef.

Previously, when he was fishing by the reef, fish from the Fengqi Coast made up a high percentage of his catch.

But here at the bridge pier, local fish species accounted for almost a quarter of the haul, which was quite good.

Moreover, there were no scorpionfish here. He caught a few more black sea bream and Yellowfin Gidai, some Sea Bass too, and another three striped beakfish, although they weren’t as big, only weighing a pound or two.

Striped beakfish of this weight didn’t fetch such a high price, selling for only around 120 yuan locally at Yangjiang Port.

Once the fishing ban ended, the price would drop even lower.

It was now 10:41. Gu Nan messaged the boat owner twenty minutes early. He wanted to head back a little sooner to avoid other fishermen rummaging through his catch on the boat.

Compared to the other fishermen, the boat owner wouldn’t be nearly as curious.

Soon, the boat owner motored over. "There’s still some time left. Why’d you call me over early?"

"I’ve got a lot of stuff here. I figured coming back early would save you some time later, sir." Gu Nan had already packed up his keepnet. All the fish were in plastic and foam coolers, the lids sealed tight.

"That’s true. You do have a lot of gear. Looks like you’re here to stock up for a store. So, how was the catch tonight?"

As he spoke, the boat owner helped lift a plastic cooler. The moment he took hold, a strange look crossed his face. "Why’d you fill this with so much water?"

"Got lucky. A school of fish came by tonight, so I caught quite a few," Gu Nan said with a smile as they loaded everything onto the boat.

"Your luck really is good." The boat owner nodded in agreement, thinking of the two-thousand-yuan fish from earlier.

He secretly made a mental note of this bridge pier, deciding to come try his luck fishing here himself tomorrow.

He had started this ferrying business when the fishing ban began. Although he had to take turns with a few other families in the village and wasn’t out here every day, he had never seen anyone with luck as good as Gu Nan’s.

But he suspected it was more that the bridge pier was a lucky spot, with lots of fish underneath.

The wooden boat quickly returned to the shore. As expected, the boat owner wasn’t overly curious and didn’t try to open Gu Nan’s coolers.

Not that he had the time to, anyway. After dropping Gu Nan off, other fishermen started contacting him, and he had to head right back out.

The reason he set the end time at eleven was that the next hour would be spent ferrying customers back to shore.

If it were just transporting people, he could bring everyone back in one trip.

But every fisherman brought a considerable amount of gear, fish containers, and tackle boxes, and his boat wasn’t very big, so he had to make several trips back and forth.

While the boat owner was busy, Gu Nan was already leisurely driving his tricycle back.

There was hardly any traffic on the road this late at night, so he could keep the throttle cranked to the max.

Half an hour later, he successfully made it back to his shop.

The shop’s entrance was small, so the tricycle couldn’t fit inside. He had to park it out front.

’I’ll have to buy a power strip tomorrow, or there’ll be nowhere to charge the tricycle.’

Gu Nan first moved the foam coolers inside, followed by the heavier plastic ones.

It was a good thing he was young and strong. If it had been An Jun or Ye Jing, they really wouldn’t have been able to move them.

Afterward, Gu Nan began sorting the fish, placing them into various tanks to be kept alive, and taking inventory.

He wasn’t just counting tonight’s haul, but all the fish in the shop that he had caught himself.

Three striped beakfish. Including the ones that hadn’t sold yet, there were five Sea Bass.

A total of seven black sea bream and two Yellowfin Gidai.

One small mangrove red snapper, three Ugly Countrymen.

"Ugly Countrymen" was the fishermen’s slang for them. They were actually Ugly Country Redfish, an imported foreign species. They weren’t expensive, only about fifteen yuan per jin.

But their meat tasted pretty good, and some people quite liked eating them.

Those were the local fish species he had caught. There were many more fish from the Fengqi Coast.

He now had sixteen Star Chicken Fish, and nine Bushi Golden Needlefish.

Five Black-striped Small Stripes Buri, seven Ball-nosed Fish.

He caught a ton of clownfish today, nineteen in total, and five Stab-tailed Fish.

Poured into the tanks, they looked quite pretty.

Tomorrow, Gu Nan planned to visit an ornamental fish store to buy some seaweed for the Stab-tailed Fish and clownfish to eat.

A total of four Blue-striped Gidai and three Yellowfin Gidai.

He had only caught that one long-snouted trevally tonight, and hadn’t managed to get a second one.

As for four-star fish, he hadn’t caught any. It was clear that the higher the star-rating, the harder the fish were to encounter.

Gu Nan didn’t bother weighing them, since they would be weighed at the time of sale anyway.

Once the inventory was tallied, he would also track how many he could sell each day.

Only then would he know if the fish were piling up. If he was catching them faster than he could sell them, only then would Gu Nan consider offloading some to his neighbor, Ji Jinxin.

At the same time, he wrote down the price for each type of fish. Even within the same species, different sizes would have different prices.

For example, the small mangrove red snapper he caught today was just over a jin and had a market price of sixty yuan, but the price for one over three jin would be a bit higher.

Yi Chen would be starting work tomorrow. Even if Gu Nan explained the prices of all the fish to her, as a newcomer to the shop, she would probably have a hard time remembering them all.

She might remember them for a little while but would easily forget later, so writing them down in a notebook was best.

When he finished all the work, he stretched lazily.

He was only human, after all. After several days of poor sleep, combined with standing while fishing at high intensity, not only were his back and legs sore, but even the muscles in his arms were aching.

Even with a young person’s good recovery ability, he was starting to feel like he couldn’t take it anymore.

"Hiss~ Looks like I’ll have to drag An Jun along for a massage tomorrow. I’m so tired!"

At this moment, Gu Nan felt that places like Feiyun Pavilion were quite necessary. That masseuse, Number 666, from last time... ignoring her mouth, her technique was actually quite good.

They offered purely "green" services, relying on their skill and technique to make a living. Otherwise, what sucker would be willing to spend several hundred yuan to come here?

The massages there weren’t that painful, but they effectively relieved his fatigue.

Gu Nan had also been to those blind massage parlors, or even hospitals. The pain there... sometimes he’d feel better afterward, but other times he’d feel even worse, and he never knew why.

He glanced around the shop one last time to make sure everything was in order, then closed the door and rode the tricycle home. The electric scooter would stay at the shop to charge; he’d probably be using it less in the future.