27: Deep Sea Fishing 1

The sky changed from black to gray, the sea surface rippled slightly, the eastern horizon gradually brightened, and the edge of the sun slowly emerged, like a ruby, emitting a soft glow.

It dyed the entire sea surface golden, and a gentle breeze blew, like a scattering of crushed gold.

The fishing boat, gently caressed by the sea breeze, sailed on the sparkling sea, a picturesque and refreshing scene.

Yang Qi stood quietly on the deck, his state of mind seemingly elevated.

While the boat was moving, besides the stern where trolling was possible, it was generally difficult to cast a line from the bow or sides.

After standing for a while, Yang Qi returned to the lounge to watch Zhang Jun and the others play cards.

Feeling bored sitting around, Yang Qi saw that his phone still had one bar of signal, so he tried to send the photos and videos of the sunrise he had just taken to Bai Xue.

"Hehehe! Not bad, it actually sent!"

He quickly drafted a message, explaining that he might soon lose signal and would chat more when he returned!

"Everyone get ready, we're almost at the first fishing spot! There are big catches nearby!" The captain's voice came over the broadcast. It was repeated three times!

Everyone started heading outside one after another, all to get their fishing gear.

In less than half an hour, the boat had stopped.

Yang Qi's fishing gear was already at his spot, so he walked over, activated his ability, and discovered:

This sea area was about 40 meters deep, with continuous coral reefs and dense aquatic plants at the bottom. However, most of it was just reefs without corals, with only a small portion of colorful corals scattered across the seabed.

Despite only having scattered corals, the seabed was still very lively.

The complex and varied terrain of the coral reefs was very suitable for small fish and shrimp to hide and escape predation by larger fish.

This is precisely why a large number of large predators were attracted to the area.

Big fish ate small fish, small fish ate shrimp, and shrimp ate microorganisms and aquatic plants. The seabed was vibrant and bustling.

There was a wide variety of fish species nearby: such as Grouper, amberjack, red amberjack, Black Seabream, yellow seabream, yellowfin seabream, Spanish Mackerel, lizardfish, conger eel, Yellow Chicken Fish, and so on.

By then, the sun was already quite hot, so Yang Qi put on his sun-protective clothing, hat, gloves, and large sunglasses.

Carrying a small bucket, he collected some live shrimp and a few packs of antarctic shrimp brick from the boat owner. (These were written into the contract when the boat was chartered. Later, live shrimp would be free, but antarctic shrimp brick would need to be paid for.)

Yang Qi first rigged his high-power electric reel with a string of hooks, baited them with live shrimp, and then broke off some antarctic shrimp brick to fill the chum cage.

He cast it into the water, letting it sink and stop at a depth of about twenty meters, activating his 'go with the flow' method.

He then took out his 3.0-meter boat Rock fishing rod (boat rock fishing rod), baited it with live shrimp, and began to precisely search for fish.

About 40 meters ahead, a school of fish was feeding, and they were Yang Qi's target at that moment.

He cast the rod and reeled in the line.

The live shrimp sank with the lead weight, struggling all the way, immediately attracting the attention of one of the fish.

With a fierce lunge, it "chomped" and swallowed the small shrimp. By the time it felt the prick and tried to escape, it was too late.

At the same time, Yang Qi felt the fishing rod in his hand suddenly dip, forming a strong bend.

Mechanically, he lifted the rod to set the hook, and the line from the spool whirred out. Yang Qi quickly tightened the drag and began to wrestle with the fish, reeling in furiously.

"No, you can't reel in that fast, you need to pull it up slowly," a strange voice suddenly said.

Yang Qi looked back and saw that it was a Ship worker.

Since the boat had already stopped at the fishing spot, the crewmen also began to do a final check of each fishing spot's condition, to facilitate the anglers' fishing later.

Walking over to Yang Qi, the Ship worker explained that deep-sea fish couldn't be pulled up quickly like that, or they would all die.

After all, live fish and dead fish differed greatly in price, so it was best to keep them alive until they were brought ashore!

Because deep-sea fish live in deeper waters, and the depth of seawater is directly proportional to water pressure,

these deep-water fish species, in order to adapt to this high-pressure environment, would shrink their swim bladders, maintaining internal and external equilibrium.

If the hook pulled it up rapidly, it wouldn't have time to adjust the internal pressure, causing the internal pressure to be higher than the external water pressure, which would lead to the swim bladder bursting, eyes bulging, and internal organs expanding out of its mouth, among other things.

This would cause some fish that could have survived to die directly.

The best way to avoid these situations was to reel in slowly, pulling the fish up gradually. For every 10 meters reeled in, pause briefly to allow the fish to adapt to the pressure.

Another method was to "decompress" the fish brought up. This meant, before the swim bladder burst, puncturing it with a needle to release the air pressure inside, balancing the internal and external pressures. This could also greatly increase the fish's survival rate.

Yang Qi was very grateful to the Ship worker for clarifying this after hearing his explanation.

He readily followed the advice, pausing every ten meters to allow the fish to adapt to the water pressure.

The fish slowly floated to the surface, and a red figure appeared before his eyes.

"Whoa~, it's a Bigeye Snapper, probably about twelve or thirteen catties, a very good start!"

The Ship worker deftly used a landing net to scoop up the fish and lift it onto the deck.

The fish in the landing net was entirely pink, with not only unusually large eyes but also a considerable mouth, somewhat distorted and cracked. Its body was elongated and oval, with a bright red back, some black spots between the fin membranes, and a silvery-white belly. It was very charming.

Bigeye Snapper, also known as "Bigeye Trevally," mostly lives in the deep seabed. Not only is it beautiful to look at, but its market price is also attractive, generally around 50-100 yuan per catty.

Ship worker Xiao Wang picked up a towel to cover the fish's eyes, removed the hook, tied Yang Qi's green zip tie onto it, and then quickly sent the fish to the live fish tank.

Before leaving, he also reminded Yang Qi that the electric reel had also caught a fish.

Yang Qi, of course, knew he had a fish on, but he didn't immediately pull up the rod.

Because he knew that with his string of hooks, he had only caught one fish, and he couldn't pull up the rod yet. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worthy of his 'cheater' status.

He baited the boat rock fishing rod with live shrimp and cast it towards the same school of fish again.

"Hello! Your delivery has arrived, please sign for it!"

Immediately, another fish quickly came to pick up the "express delivery" and was undoubtedly pulled away again.

This time, Yang Qi followed Xiao Wang's instructions, inserting the fishing rod into the nearby rod holder, reeling in 10 meters of line, and then pausing for a while.

He also checked the electric reel; it was doing well, four hooks had fish on them. He casually pressed the retrieve button, and the electric reel made a faint humming sound, beginning to reel in automatically.

He then started attending to the boat rock fishing rod again, reeling in at a steady pace. As soon as 10 meters were reeled in, he stopped again, waited for a bit, and then reeled in more.

Indeed, it was another Bigeye Snapper, about the same size as the previous one. He inserted the fishing rod into the rod holder, preparing to use the landing net to scoop the fish.

"Holy cow! A Bigeye Snapper! Brother, you're amazing, let me net it for you, to catch some of your good luck!"

It turned out Zhang Jun and the others had come over with their fishing gear.

Zhang Jun put down his own gear and quickly came over to take the landing net.

Yang Qi was also happy to let him, and didn't bother with the Bigeye Snapper anymore.

After all, besides not being able to catch fish, Zhang Jun was quite skilled at everything else, let alone merely netting a fish.

It was not worth mentioning!