Chapter 128: First Battle Victory
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It was a gloomy day, with rain and snow on the sea. Two simple diesel boats separated from the Wind Wing one after another, facing the surging waves, and sailed slowly and steadily towards the rear of the group of ships.
The boat gradually went farther and farther away, shrinking continuously. Twenty minutes later, there were only two inconspicuous black dots left at the junction of the sea and the sky. At the same time, ten bright and eye-catching rafts fell into the water one after another, the hum of the engine sounded, and a gorgeous orange dragon swam out.
It is not appropriate to go fishing with a group. The Giant has trouble turning around, and they are about to use a large trawling net. The area where the ship is parked can be said to be contracted by them. It is not realistic to fish in troubled waters. In order not to return empty-handed, the Wind Wing and the Ever Leap can only go to waters a little further away.
It cannot be too close, nor too far. There is no reference point on the boundless sea. If you are not careful, you will lose your sense of direction and get lost in this vast ocean.
Gu Mengran was well prepared, with a compass, a paper map, and a small latitude and longitude meter, but he still didn't dare to go too far. After all, the Giant was going out to haul fish, and without its protection, any big wave could push the Wind Wing and Ever Leap hundreds of meters away.
The sea is beautiful and mysterious.
In front of it, humans exist like ants.
After sailing northwest for an hour and a half, the two diesel boats stopped side by side in a relatively calm sea with less wind and waves.
It was the first time for everyone to go fishing in the true sense of the word, and they were all very excited.
The chilly sea breeze made people shiver, but Zheng Yijie and Xu Xinghe seemed not to feel the cold. As soon as the boat came to a stop, they crawled out from under the awning and stood in the wind and snow, shouting at the top of their lungs: "Gu Mengran, Liang Zhao, shall we start now?"
The chill penetrated deep into my bones, as if I had entered someone's freezer. It was extremely cold.
Now that we are here, what else can we do if we don't start? Gu Mengran sniffed, and he and Liang Zhao carried half a sack of bait that they had prepared in advance, and bent over to get out of the awning.
The sack was filled with a fishy smell, and water was still dripping from the bottom. Xu Xinghe looked at the sack that suddenly appeared in the hands of the two men, his nose twitching slightly, and asked curiously: "What is this, Brother Liang? It smells fishy and unpleasant."
"Bait."
Liang Zhao walked to the side of the boat and passed the sack over with one hand.
The sack was very large and contained a lot of things, but seeing Liang Zhao lifting it so easily, Xu Xinghe thought it was not heavy and also just stretched out one hand to take it.
Unexpectedly, just as he grasped the mouth of the sack, Liang Zhao let go, and the heavy sack pulled him straight forward. Fortunately, Zheng Yijie reacted quickly and pulled him in time, otherwise he would have to take a cold shower.
After dragging the sack back to the cabin with great effort, Xu Xinghe, who was full of curiosity, couldn't help but untie the rope and take a look inside. It doesn't matter if you don't look, but after just a casual glance, he exclaimed in amazement: "Wow, such a big fish, such good shrimps are used as bait?"
The finest yellow croaker, silver pomfret that has not yet thawed, big and plump shrimps... How many people can't have these delicious seafood on their dinner tables, and use them as bait?
Zheng Yijie also went over to take a look, his eyes suddenly widened, "Isn't this too extravagant?"
"What can we do? We are not Jiang Taigong. If we don't put out bait, are we going to wait for willing crabs to enter the cage?" Gu Mengran put the sack in the cabin and squatted on the ground to dismantle the crab cage.
Zheng Yijie frowned slightly and murmured, "There's no need to be so extravagant. You can actually put some other bait in there."
"For example?" Gu Mengran asked him back.
Zheng Yijie: "For example, the entrails of chickens, ducks, or geese, or the fish meat, or the fish head. At worst, you can use some small fish and shrimps. It hurts to see such big shrimps."
After hearing his suggestion, Gu Mengran paused as he was dismantling the crab cage and said unhappily, "Why didn't you do that earlier? You only know how to talk after the fact."
It would have been better if he didn't say it. As soon as he said it, Gu Mengran began to feel distressed.
The main reason was that there was really dirty chicken and duck entrails in the space, but in front of Xu Xinghe, they couldn't take them out and use them directly, so they had to bite the bullet and use fish and shrimp as bait.
At the critical moment, even with such good materials, it is possible that it will all end up in vain!
Crab cages are suitable for shallow sea areas, and the water depth of 30 to 50 meters is more suitable. However, the depth of this sea area has increased several times. If you put the crab cage down today, it is a problem whether you can still find it tomorrow.
Never mind. If it doesn’t work out, just consider it as tuition payment.
The new crab cages were disassembled one by one and assembled carefully. Considering the deep water, they added two ropes to the top of the ropes of the crab cages to extend them and ensure that the ropes could stay on the sea surface.
The buoys and floating balls are always a bit small, and there is no place to fix the ropes. Worried that they will not be found tomorrow, Gu Mengran prepared ten inflatable swimming rings in advance, and placed one in each crab cage, which were used with the floating balls to provide double insurance.
After the crab cage is ready, use scissors to cut the fish and shrimp into pieces and stuff them all into the bait cage. All the preparations are done.
They were late and inexperienced, and after all the trouble, it was getting dark. The four of them didn't even have time to wash their hands, and they immediately drove away with the stinking fishy smell on their bodies.
There are not many technical requirements for placing crab cages, just put them down steadily along the sea surface. However, the crab cages that Gu Mengran bought were large, and it was difficult for one person to operate them. In addition, each crab cage had to be about 100 meters apart, so the boat had to sail for a while and stop for a while.
Hurry up and put all the crab cages into the water before dark.
The orange swimming ring was particularly eye-catching. The diesel boat turned around and went back. Gu Mengran looked back and saw that the gray sea surface was also like a donut.
After working for quite some time and putting out twenty crab cages, Gu Mengran still felt unsatisfied.
So he returned to the anchorage in the dark. When he saw the outline of Feng Yi from a distance, he immediately asked Liang Zhao to stop the boat, took out the hand-cast net from the cabin, and practiced casting the net overtime.
Probably because they thought it was interesting, Zheng Yijie and Xu Xinghe also chose to stop the boat and join in. But they regretted it not long after, because this thing looked simple, but it was very difficult to operate in practice.
There are three common ways to throw a hand net. The simplest is the Frisbee method. Hold the rope with your left hand, hold the net with your right hand, and throw the net out with your side like throwing a Frisbee.
Theoretically, the net and the rope flew out together, and as the body rotated, a large net would spread out on the water. But in reality, Gu Mengran gathered strength in his arms and threw it forward suddenly. The net was the same in his hand as it was in the water.
Gu Mengran tried all the theories in his head, including the two-throw method and the twist method. Not only did he fail to throw the net successfully, but he also got the net tangled because of the wrong throwing posture.
A sense of frustration naturally arose, and what made him even more frustrated was that after untangling the tangled fishing net, Liang Zhao tried once again to imitate his original Frisbee net casting method. He held the rope with his left hand, supported the net with his right hand, leaned back, and suddenly threw it with force -
The fishing net spread out layer by layer in the air like ripples on the water. The lead fell and collided with the sea water, making a sound, and then a complete circular fishing net entered the water perfectly.
A textbook-level method of casting a net! Gu Mengran stood up and looked at Liang Zhao in disbelief. "No, you have learned it before? How can you succeed in one try?"
Liang Zhao slowly put away the fishing net, shook off the water, and with a smile on his face, he replied calmly, "I haven't learned it before, maybe I just did it by accident."
"Is it true? Why don't I believe it?" Gu Mengran raised his chin at him, "Try it again."
"Okay." Liang Zhao agreed straightforwardly and started to sort out the network again.
The same posture, the same speed, the same round fishing net was put into the water again.
Some people are born to be fishermen. Gu Mengran couldn't help but accept it. He grabbed Liang Zhao's arm and shook it back and forth, "Teach me, teach me. Hurry up, I want to cast a net too!"
With his hands full of water, Liang Zhao rubbed his head against Gu Mengran and said, "It's too late. Let's go tomorrow. We should go out early tomorrow. After we put down the crab cage, we will have plenty of time to cast the net."
"No, I won't be able to sleep tonight if I can't learn it!" Gu Mengran refused to give in.
"Aren't you hungry?" Liang Zhao asked.
Gu Mengran was stunned for a moment, and then he felt it carefully, "It seems a little bit."
"Then go back."
"Walk."
Nothing is difficult in the world as long as you are willing to give up.
…
I didn't sleep well the whole night thinking about the crab cage, so I got up very early the next day. When it was dawn, the four of us had already boarded the diesel boat, even though we were too sleepy to open our eyes.
I feel cold and sleepy. If I am not careful, I will catch a cold.
Sitting in the cold cabin, he didn't dare to catch up on sleep. He had to yawn to get through the one and a half hour journey. When he arrived at the coordinate location, Gu Mengran was already so sleepy that he was half conscious.
"Meng Ran, wake up Meng Ran... We are here."
Gu Mengran didn't hear a word of what was said before. When the four words "We're here" came out, it was like a bucket of cold water poured over his head. Gu Mengran woke up instantly and looked around. "Are we here? Are we here? Where is our swimming ring?"
It was rainy and snowy in the morning, with the rain heavier than the snow. Layers of water mist covered the sea surface, significantly reducing visibility.
There was no sight of the eye-catching orange swimming ring, nor was there any trace of the fist-sized white buoy. Gu Mengran's heart skipped a beat, and he looked at Liang Zhao with his last hope, "Are the coordinates correct? Is there any deviation? How come there is nothing there..."
"The coordinates are correct." Liang Zhao frowned slightly, but soon relaxed. He patted Gu Mengran on the shoulder and comforted him softly, "Don't worry. The rope we left is long. It was windy last night, so it might have been blown away. Let's look around first."
Having said that, Liang Zhao picked up the walkie-talkie and called diesel boat No. 2. Immediately, the two boats dispersed to the left and right and began searching everywhere.
Facts proved that Liang Zhao was right. In less than five minutes, Zheng Yijie and Xu Xinghe found the missing swimming ring and buoy to the left/front of the coordinates.
The swimming rings were large and were easily blown away by the wind. Only eighteen of the twenty swimming rings remained, but the ropes were intact, not a single strand was broken. Three swimming rings were lost, but they were still floating on the sea surface, held by another safety buoy.
So far, they are more than halfway there.
Whether we can place more crab cages in the future depends on whether these eighteen cages are stocked.
After untying the rope and taking the swimming ring back to the cabin, Liang Zhao tied the rope to the hand-cranked noose that he had prepared in advance. One person held the rope and pulled it back, while another person held the crank to retrieve it. Soon, a large iron cage successfully floated to the surface of the water.
Gu Mengran was the one responsible for pulling the rope. In fact, when he was halfway through pulling it, he already felt that the crab cage was very light, very light, and basically no different from when he put it down yesterday.
"Blah."
Water splashed everywhere, and a complete crab cage emerged from the water.
Everyone looked over with expectation, and as expected, the crab cages were empty. The bait had been swollen by the seawater, turning into rotten fish and shrimp that had lost their smell, and there wasn't even a single crab leg to be found in the cages.
It was impossible not to be disappointed. Just as Gu Mengran was about to sigh, Zheng Yijie and Xu Xinghe echoed the same tune:
"Well, other people keep them for a day or two, but we've only kept them for one night, so it's normal to have an empty cage."
"Yes, there are still so many left. Let's continue collecting. If we can catch one today, it will be a success."
Needless to say, the anger in his chest was relieved a little after the two interrupted him. Gu Mengran wiped away the gloom and raised his chin, "No problem, let's collect it first, and collect it together."
There is no disappointment without expectation. Gu Mengran no longer cared and was even ready to try somewhere else. But at this moment, Liang Zhao turned the winch plate and brought up the second cage. The moment the black cage floated to the surface of the water, a bright blue suddenly flashed before his eyes.
Gu Mengran took a closer look and saw blue crab legs and blue crab claws.
This is - orchid crab.
When he had given up hope, he was given a sweet treat. Gu Mengran danced with excitement. Although he was a crab living alone in a big house, this at least proved that this method was feasible!
"Pull in, pull in, keep pulling in!" Gu Mengran was like a chicken with its blood pumped up, and hurriedly went to pull the swimming ring again.
It was destined to be an extraordinary day. Almost at the same time, good news came from the ship:
"Orchid crab, woc! Such a fat orchid crab!"
"Brother Gu, Brother Liang, our cage has exploded! This cage is full!"