The fishing wasn't great this afternoon. After Grandpa Chen and Yan Shuting each caught seven or eight sea bass, they didn't catch anything big.
In one hour, the two caught a few small barracuda weighing about two pounds each, as well as some other small fish, and then lost interest in fishing.
The two simply took out their hand net, then used the remaining prawns to create a feeding area, and immediately began casting the net to catch fish.
Surprisingly, this method is quite effective.
Although Grandpa Chen's net didn't catch a single big fish, it was filled with small fish weighing a pound or two.
The shrimp with added bait attracted many sea fish, including turbot, yellowfin tuna, small sea bass, and yellow croaker, but there were more mackerel.
With just one net cast, they caught nearly 20 pounds of fish, and the old man was overjoyed.
Yan Shuting's fishing net, which she pulled up from the sea, yielded an even more impressive catch.
A large sea bass weighing over 6 pounds, two black sea bream, two turbot, and more than ten mackerel.
After tasting the sweetness of success, Grandpa Chen and Yan Shuting became addicted, casting net after net as if they would never get tired.
The fish the two caught with their nets quickly changed from various valuable rock bream to ordinary sea fish that cost twenty or thirty yuan per kilogram.
Before long, most of the fish they caught were worthless mackerel and various small miscellaneous fish.
Although we only caught small fish, we still caught several in one net, enough to make a dish at home.
The two worked tirelessly, constantly using large shrimp to create a feeding area, then casting and retrieving their fishing nets into the sea.
The buckets they had brought to pump water from the pit came in handy, and the several buckets were full of lively sea fish, which made the two of them even more excited.
Even though all that's left in the sea are worthless little fish, the two of them still refuse to give up.
Chen Zhiyao and Chen Weiqiang swam more than 100 meters and finally returned with all sorts of seafood they had caught on the seabed.
As a result, the father and daughter had just swum to the surface when they were immediately covered by a net.
Chen Zhiyao: "..."
Chen Weiqiang: "......"
The father and daughter were completely bewildered. What was going on?
Chen Zhiyao looked at the hand-thrown net that had trapped her completely, then at her equally disheveled father not far away, and was speechless.
Although she did swim up from the seabed, she's not a mermaid, so why would we capture her?
Yan Shuting, still engrossed in fishing, never expected that her daughter would emerge from the water just as she cast the net, only to be caught in the net over her head.
This luck is just unbelievable.
To make the net sink quickly in the water, small iron blocks are hung at the bottom of the hand-thrown net; if you get hit by one, it hurts.
Fortunately, Chen Zhiyao was wrapped up tightly in diving equipment; otherwise, such a blow would have been very painful.
Yan Shuting quickly threw the rope into the water and then pulled her daughter up.
"Tangtang, are you alright? Did you not hit your head?"
"It's okay, it's okay. I was right in the middle of the net, so I wasn't hit."
"That's good. My mind isn't very sharp to begin with, what if it gets even dumber?" Yan Shuting said in her excitement, and accidentally blurted out the truth.
Chen Zhiyao, standing to the side, immediately became unhappy, giving her mother a resentful look:
"I'm still here. Besides, if I'm not very bright, it's because I inherited it from you, Mom." Like father, like son, so you can't blame her.
"You silly child, I just blurted it out in my haste. Our Tangtang is very smart." Yan Shuting reacted quickly and immediately corrected herself.
Compared to the warm yet slightly awkward atmosphere between the mother and daughter, things were much quieter with Chen Weiqiang and his grandfather.
Neither father nor son spoke, tacitly ignoring the awkward moment that had just occurred.
The two of them lowered their heads and silently sorted through the various seafood they had just brought back from the sea.
The father and daughter had a great haul from the water today, each bringing back dozens of kilograms of seafood.
Working together, the four of them finished packing all the valuable seafood in less than half an hour.
Chen Weiqiang's side doesn't have many outstanding products, but it has the advantage of large quantity.
There were seven or eight pepper snapper alone, and they were all large, weighing two or three pounds each. In addition, there were also quite a few various kinds of conger eels and crabs.
Chen Zhiyao's items, on the other hand, were more varied, with a greater variety of good things.
The four or five-pound red-spotted fish alone was enough to surprise the rest of the family, not to mention the many small green lobsters and coconut snails.
While packing, Chen Zhiyao paid special attention to the coconut snails and abalone that the two had just brought back from the seabed.
I've looked through it several times with X-ray glasses, but unfortunately I haven't found any Melo pearls or abalone pearls.
After cleaning up all the fish caught on the boat, it's only 2:30, not yet time to go home.
Seeing that the catch was ready, Chen Zhiyao didn't even have time to rest. She immediately went into the driver's seat, ready to set off to retrieve the nets she had set that morning.
Chen Weiqiang had just taken a sip of water and was preparing to fish for a while when he saw the fishing boat being started up. He immediately went to the wheelhouse.
"Tangtang, there's no rush to go back, right? It's not far from the dock, we can still go and collect the nets at 3:30."
Chen Weiqiang hadn't fished all day, and he felt itchy to go fishing. He was really looking forward to casting a couple of lines.
Unfortunately, his daughter refused, saying, "No, I have a feeling that today's fishing nets and traps will have a bumper harvest, and even better than yesterday's catch."
"There's no rush. These fish are stuck in the fishing net and can't escape. An hour won't make a difference."
"But the fishing nets were set down early in the morning, and they've been there for so long that the fish caught have lost their vitality."
Chen Zhiyao had a premonition that today's nets and traps would bring a big surprise, and she wanted to collect them as soon as possible.
"Alright, alright, let's go collect the nets." Chen Weiqiang was reluctantly persuaded.
Everyone else on the boat was laughing and joking, assuming she just wanted to go back and rest early.
It's understandable that they don't believe it, given how impressive yesterday's harvest was.
The group were all experienced fishermen, and they naturally knew that such good luck wouldn't come every day.
Therefore, the three of them did not think much of it and, as usual, used the crane at the stern of the boat to retrieve the fishing nets from the sea bit by bit.
"Haha, so many mackerel, and they're quite big too, bigger than the mackerel we caught yesterday."
As soon as Chen Weiqiang finished speaking, the old man next to him glared at him with annoyance:
"What kind of eyesight do you have? Even with my old eyes, I can see it clearly—it's a net full of angelfish. At your age, you still can't tell the difference between mackerel and angelfish."
Chen Weiqiang stared wide-eyed at the fishing net that had just been pulled onto the deck; it really was a flower fairy fish.
Immediately afterwards, he, still unable to justify his argument, stubbornly insisted:
"You can't blame me for this. These two kinds of fish look so similar and are about the same size. It's normal to mistake one for the other."
The flower nymph and the mackerel look very similar, the biggest difference being that the flower nymph has fewer small bones.
But he didn't get to eat it, so how would he know how many bones were in it?
"quibble."
While the father and son were still bickering, the second netting was pulled up by the crane.
Red sea bream, black sea bream, pepper sea bream, bigeye sea bream, and striped pepper sea bream are all basically rock sea bream.
The net that just caught 200 jin of angelfish weighed at least, but the fish were cheap, only about 10 yuan per jin, so no one paid much attention to it.
When the net of rock bream was finally pulled up, the four men on the boat were overjoyed, their mouths practically stretched to their ears.
This net full of over 200 jin (100 kg) of rock bream is estimated to be worth tens of thousands of yuan.
The third net did not disappoint, yielding a catch of over 200 jin (approximately 100 kg) of fish, mostly turbot weighing two to three jin (approximately 1 kg to 1.5 kg), with a few golden pomfret and white pomfret mixed in.
The last net was even more surprising.
One pearl grouper, two large green groupers, two sesame groupers, and one wavy grouper—each one was a large fish weighing seven or eight pounds.
Meanwhile, the crab traps and ground traps also yielded a bumper harvest, with various crabs weighing dozens of kilograms in total, not to mention that the ground traps also contained 8 large lobsters and 2 longtail snapper.
Today's catch was two-thirds more than yesterday's, and the majority of the catch consisted of expensive seafood.
Although the fish haven't been sold yet, everyone knows that these things are worth at least tens of thousands.
Grandpa Chen looked at the fish on the boat, beaming with joy as he muttered to himself:
"Strange, there weren't many fish around when I set the net this morning, so how did I catch so many fish all of a sudden?"
"Exactly, exactly! I don't know what incredible luck we had today, we definitely have to go to the Sea God Temple to pray when we get back," Chen Weiqiang said cheerfully from the side.
Chen Zhiyao shrugged innocently, pretending not to know anything, and said:
"Who knows, maybe they came later."
She said that, but she knew very well that all the fish she caught were attracted by the bait additives.
When they arrived in the morning, the four of them wandered around the reef island but couldn't find a suitable place to set up their fishing nets and traps.
Later, Chen Zhiyao had a bright idea and secretly poured two bottles of bait additive onto the fishing tools.
Since there were no fish around, she could simply lure them over.
Moreover, all the fish attracted by the bait companion will be counted as points, which is a win-win situation.
She never expected that the bait would work even better than she imagined; it was practically a cheat code.
Whether you're fishing, pumping water into ponds, or catching fish and crabs, this is a must-have tool for any sea voyage.
Chen Zhiyao thought that she had tens of thousands of points on hand and planned to go back and stock up on another batch of this bait companion.
And she needs to stock up on more, in case the system takes it off the shelves later, she'll be devastated.
On the way back, Grandpa Chen was in charge of driving the boat, while the rest of the people focused on cleaning up the catch.
There were so many fish that they didn't have enough manpower, so the group could only roughly sort them by type.
While cleaning up the net, Chen Zhiyao also found two longtail snapper and two red-spotted fish.
These little guys weren't very big and blended in with the rock bream.
The fishing boats were filled with laughter all along the way.
After laughing all the way back to the dock, everyone finally stopped smiling.
"I can't refuse, I can't refuse either," Chen Zhiyao said, her smile becoming stiff.
The Chen family's fishing boats have now become an important partner of the Yang family's purchasing station.
Upon receiving news of Chen Weiqiang's return, Yang Jiajun and his men were already waiting at the dock to receive the catch.
Despite being mentally prepared, Yang Jiajun was still taken aback by the sheer number of top-quality seafood.
The dock was crowded and noisy, so no one spoke. They quickly transported the goods to the Yang family's purchasing station.
"Red-spotted fish, longtailed sea bream, large blue wrasse, small green dragon, conch and coconut snail, and all kinds of rock bream, what good luck you all have today."
Yang Jiajun was overjoyed to see baskets of good stuff.
I can make a fortune reselling these fish. Hehe, looks like I'll be able to buy a new car soon.
Chen Zhiyao had a lot of good stuff, so Yang Jiajun happily started weighing the fish for her, while Li Qingqing and the shop's helpers took care of the rest of the fish.
Yang Jiajun beamed as he weighed the item and gave her a quote:
"This big red-spotted fish weighs 4.6 jin (2.3 kg), at 800 yuan per jin, that's 3680 yuan in total. Wow, this sea cucumber weighs a full 8 liang (400 grams), I'll take it for 500 yuan."
"The large coconut snails weigh 9 jin (4.5 kg) in total, at 180 yuan per jin, for a total of 1620 yuan. The small ones weigh 11.6 jin (7.8 kg) in total, at 100 yuan per jin, for a total of 1160 yuan."
"The large bluefish weighs 3.7 jin (1.85 kg) and costs 160 yuan per jin, totaling 592 yuan. The small ones weigh 6.4 jin (3.2 catties) and cost 88 yuan per jin, totaling 563 yuan."
"The conch weighs 12.7 jin (6.8 kg), at 108 yuan per jin, totaling 1372 yuan. The small green dragon weighs 9.6 jin (4.8 kg), at 188 yuan per jin, totaling 1805 yuan."
"Nine catties of conger eel, totaling 522 yuan. Other sea fish totaled 1180 yuan, and various crabs and conch totaled 1490 yuan."
After all the fish had been weighed, Yang Jiajun spent a long time calculating with a calculator before finally finishing the calculation.
Chen Zhiyao sold a total of [amount] yuan worth of seafood she caught today through beachcombing and diving.
Meanwhile, Li Qingqing, along with several of the shop's employees, calculated the catch of everyone else's fish.
Grandpa Chen: 2950 yuan.
Yan Shuting: 3188 yuan.
Chen Weiqiang: 2856 yuan.
Fish caught by the fishing boat: a total of [number] pieces, averaging [number] pieces per person.
With the catch from the fishing boats, everyone's earnings exceeded 10,000 yuan.
Grandpa Chen: Total income.
Chen Weiqiang: Total revenue in blocks.
Yan Shuting: Total revenue in blocks.
Chen Zhiyao: Total revenue.
Moreover, most of today's catch was obtained through diving and baiting, which increased the points again.
Chen Zhiyao was overjoyed to receive 30,000 yuan in one go, just like her little snowball at home, both silly and sweet.
The others were similar, just like Ah Huang at home, their smiles were both simple and silly.
Today's harvest is the largest we've ever had since we set sail, leaving even the well-traveled Grandpa Chen somewhat bewildered.
After leaving Yang's purchasing station, the group ran straight to the fishing boat, fearing that someone might come and rob them.
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