The Fish I Catch Can Level Up-Chapter 142: The King of Fish

It turned out he had caught an ornate spiny lobster, a species found only in the Taiwan Strait within Chinese waters and normally requiring import.
The local population of this lobster was also very small, hence the need for imports.
The one Chu Mingcheng had caught was over two jin—considered a relatively large individual.
In terms of price, it was only slightly more expensive than a green spiny lobster, but not by much.
Chu Mingcheng put it in his mesh bag. If he didn't find any other lobsters tonight, he would cook this one.
The fish resources in the shallow water were still scarce. He glanced at his dive watch and decided to head to the deep water area to take a look.
Sure enough, as soon as he reached the deeper waters, schools of fish were swimming over the coral reef—sea wolves, sea bream, and various other species Chu Mingcheng had seen before.
There were even more small ornamental fish, but he was only interested in catching food, not keeping pets.
Today, Chu Mingcheng's main target was the groupers that liked to hide among the coral reefs. As for the fish swimming in the middle and upper layers, he would let them go for now.
The main reason was that they weren't big or fat enough to have much economic value.
He climbed over a coral formation and was surprised to find a very large devil ray slowly swimming past, not far in front of him.
He couldn't identify the exact species for the moment, but from its size, it had to be at least a hundred jin.
Chu Mingcheng hesitated for a long time but ultimately decided not to go back and get his speargun.
No matter how big a devil ray was, it wouldn't sell for much, even one that looked to be over a hundred jin.
Even if he went to the trouble of getting it onto the boat and then transporting it back to the pier, probably no one would want it.
He might even have to cut it into pieces to sell, and in the end, a few hundred yuan would be a good price.
But Chu Mingcheng still followed it, adjusted the camera on his head, and filmed its swimming patterns.
After following for a few minutes, Chu Mingcheng discovered a rather large cave at the bottom—one that he could just barely squeeze into.
He came to the mouth of the cave and found a parrotfish inside, its body green with a hint of yellow.
This fish was a green-spotted parrotfish, also known as a green wrasse.
It was usually used to pass off as a true green wrasse—the Cheilinus undulatus—but in reality, it was just a false green wrasse. Fortunately, it wasn't cheap either, selling for around one hundred thirty yuan per jin.
The green-spotted parrotfish inside was quite large. It had been hiding peacefully in this completely enclosed cave, but it was startled by his sudden intrusion and began to dart around, though it didn't dare run out of the cave entrance.
Chu Mingcheng went straight up and blocked the entrance, then picked up his fish spear.
Because of his presence, the cave suddenly became very crowded, and the green-spotted parrotfish hid in a corner, trembling.
This made it convenient for him to hunt. He aimed the fish spear, and with a "thud," the arrowhead pierced its flesh.
The green-spotted parrotfish struggled desperately, but Chu Mingcheng pressed down on the fish spear, pinning it inside and leaving it no way to resist.
After a while, the fish stopped moving and was carried out by him with both hands.
It was quite big—at least over ten jin—but its mouth was not large, so the live fish stringer wouldn't work well.
Therefore, Chu Mingcheng had to make a trip back to the boat and place it on the crushed ice in the foam box for preservation.
The fish was very fat and beautiful—a pleasing sight.
He checked the time; more than ten minutes had passed. Chu Mingcheng went back into the water and first went to check the traps.
The result was also gratifying—the earliest trap had already yielded a catch.
He lifted the bamboo skewer, only to find it was a peacock mantis shrimp, its body emerald green and its abdomen red and black.
This was also a species of mantis shrimp, just not as large, growing to a maximum of eighteen centimeters.
Chu Mingcheng looked at the mantis shrimp caught in the trap and ultimately decided to take it back.
He put the mantis shrimp in the bottle and continued to look for the second trap.
Eight out of ten burrows had catches. Besides one mantis shrimp, the rest were all harlequin mantis shrimp.
The smallest was as big as that mantis shrimp. Chu Mingcheng collected them all—he could eat the smaller ones himself.
After making the rounds, he set the ten traps again and continued to swim toward the deep water.
Then, a fish slowly swimming on the coral made his heart race.
Its body was brownish-white, the brown being quite light, and it was covered with black dots. Its back was high and arched, but its head was very small—a bit like a mouse.
This was an extremely precious wild humphead wrasse. Unfortunately, it was a bit small, probably just over a jin.
Chu Mingcheng raised his fish spear and slowly approached, but the humphead wrasse was exceptionally cautious. He was still seven or eight meters away when it bolted.
He immediately gave chase. The humphead wrasse swam in a panic, but its burst of speed was high, and after a certain distance, it slowed down, unable to maintain the sprint.
This allowed Chu Mingcheng to keep up, though he couldn't catch it.
Seemingly realizing it couldn't escape, the humphead wrasse suddenly darted into a crevice in the coral reef below.
Chu Mingcheng's eyes lit up. Now it couldn't escape.
Slowly approaching, he looked down from above to find where the humphead wrasse was hiding.
Soon, he found that the humphead wrasse was just hiding under a rock that looked like the bottom of an arch bridge.
The space was not large—just enough for it to hide.
This was a perfect hiding spot!
Chu Mingcheng put away his fish spear and approached from its diagonal rear, so it couldn't see him.
When he was very close, he reached out and blocked both the front and back of its hiding place.
This was only possible because he could almost ignore the resistance in the water, making his movements so agile.
If it were someone else, they wouldn't be able to catch this humphead wrasse by blocking it like this. The water resistance would slow down a normal person's movements.
And the water flow would also alert the humphead wrasse, causing it to flee directly.
Blocked from front and back, the humphead wrasse tried to escape from the crevice but was squeezed against the rock by Chu Mingcheng's hand.
Then, it was controlled by his hands and caught.
Successfully catching a live humphead wrasse made Chu Mingcheng happier than spearing the green-spotted parrotfish.
Don't underestimate this humphead wrasse being just over a jin—the price could probably reach five hundred yuan.
The price of humphead wrasse was just that expensive. A live one-jin fish would cost four to five hundred, and the bigger, the more expensive.
But if it were dead, it would probably only be eighty to a hundred yuan.
Some fish, whether live or dead, didn't have much price difference, and many sea fish couldn't even survive until they reached shore, so there was no live fish premium at all.
But the difference between a live and dead humphead wrasse was enormous, which was why Chu Mingcheng was so happy to catch a live one.
He took the humphead wrasse directly back to the boat and put it in the fish box with an oxygen pump.
The king of the four great fish of Hong Kong deserved such treatment.
Then he looked at his fish spear and felt that directly killing such a precious fish would be a bit of a waste.
So he didn't go back into the water. He took out fishing line, a hook, and a sinker from his tackle box, tied them together, and then cut some squid meat.
It was more reliable to use bait to lure them out of the groupers' dens. Now that it was almost evening, it would be the active time for groupers until nine-thirty. The effect of fishing should be good then.
After cutting the squid meat, Chu Mingcheng put everything aside and went back into the water empty-handed.
He had to hurry and catch the harlequin mantis shrimp before dark. After dinner, he would go fishing for groupers.
He was busy until five-thirty. He had caught a total of twenty-seven harlequin mantis shrimp. Chu Mingcheng collected the bottles and put them all in the livewell.
This thing took up a lot of space. If he put them outside, the mantis shrimp would easily die. He now understood why others didn't do this at sea.
Not only was it troublesome, but it took up space and was difficult to preserve. They would rather fish for some cheap fish to increase quantity than bother with this.
He wiped the seawater from his body with a towel. In the water, he didn't feel cold.
But once he was out and blown by the sea breeze, Chu Mingcheng couldn't stand it.
After wiping himself dry, he quickly walked into the cockpit and turned on the heater before he felt comfortable.
He still had to go into the water at night, so he didn't take a shower.
He took out the six-bar angelfish, cleaned it, and steamed it. After steaming, he poured steamed fish soy sauce, sprinkled some chopped green onions and Thai chilies, and poured hot oil over it. It was instantly fragrant.
This fish wasn't sold for food at the market, but the meat was very tender and tasted excellent. Chu Mingcheng was very satisfied.
He just didn't know why no one bought it to eat at the market. Although the quantity was small, it wasn't as precious and rare as a wild humphead wrasse.
After dinner, he rested in the cockpit for a while. Chu Mingcheng took a half-full mesh bag of cut squid meat and his rigged line and hook and went back into the water.
This time, he didn't wear the camera because he had to wear a diving headlamp.
Now was the peak time for fish activity. As soon as he entered the water, Chu Mingcheng saw many valuable coral fish and groupers swimming at the bottom. He could occasionally see large fish hunting smaller ones.
Chu Mingcheng swam at a height of about ten meters above the bottom. This height generally wouldn't make the fish wary, and it would be easy for him to pull them up after a hook-up.
He was using Dyneema line and a steel wire leader, so he wasn't afraid of it breaking.
Soon, Chu Mingcheng locked onto his target.
A grouper whose color wasn't very clear, even with the light, looked a bit like a leopard coral grouper from its shape.
Chu Mingcheng slowly lowered the bait, stopping about twenty or thirty centimeters above the fish.
He could clearly see the fish being attracted, swimming back and forth under the baited hook.
Because of its presence, the small fish gathered around, though greedy for the bait, did not dare to get too close.
Then Chu Mingcheng watched as this grouper came to the baited hook and swallowed it in one bite.
A strong force was immediately transmitted to his hand. He happily pulled back the line, first pulling it to the middle layer of the water, then letting it circle around him for a while.
When it was a little tired, Chu Mingcheng pulled all the fishing line back and reached out to grab this grouper.
He hadn't expected it to be a leopard coral grouper, probably weighing three or four jin.
He first used a live fish stringer to pass through the fish's gills and secure it, then he removed the hook from its mouth.
Letting the fish float about two meters behind him, Chu Mingcheng took out a piece of squid meat from the mesh bag, re-baited the hook, and looked for the next suitable target.
There were so many fish, it made him a little dizzy.
After swimming for more than twenty meters, he finally found another suitable target fish. It was a true green wrasse—the Cheilinus undulatus.
The fish was very large, a full size bigger than the green-spotted parrotfish from earlier.
The resources in the coral reef at night were indeed excellent, but if he were fishing from the boat, the results might be average.
Compared to the precious fish, there were more miscellaneous fish here, and they were easier to hook.
This way, although it was a bit more trouble, the accuracy was high.
And Chu Mingcheng was much more comfortable in the water. After all, with "Effortless Swim," even in the cold seawater, he would still feel comfortable. But fishing on the boat and being blown by the sea breeze was not so pleasant.
The Cheilinus undulatus was a bit confused. It had come out at night just to find some food to fill its stomach.
Its main food consisted of hard-shelled shellfish, sea urchins, and slow-moving mollusks.
Who knew that a piece of meat would suddenly appear above its head? Between eating and not eating, it only hesitated for three seconds before biting the food.
Who knew that eating a piece of squid meat would cost it its life.
The fish was very large, and pulling it up was much more strenuous than the previous leopard coral grouper. Chu Mingcheng simply adjusted its position and let it pull him around in the open middle layer of the water.
Without the help of the coral for leverage, but with its weight, the Cheilinus undulatus only ran for a while before surrendering and being pulled to his front.
This fish's teeth were ugly, but its bite force was no joke, and the fish was big enough—possibly twenty jin.
Therefore, he took it directly back to the boat, placed the fish in the livewell to keep it alive, and put the leopard coral grouper together with the humphead wrasse.