The Top Fishing
Chapter 107: Fishing for Gu Fish

Chapter 107: Chapter 107: Fishing for Gu Fish

Feeling the tug of a fish, he immediately began to swiftly reel in the line, and soon he saw a slender little fish the size of his palm being pulled up from the water.

He had caught this type of fish before; it was a small, colorless Makou Fish weighing at most only about a couple of ounces. Naturally, the feeling of reeling in such a small fish could not compare to the thrill of landing a big one.

Lin Yang had realized that lure fishing didn’t compare with traditional fishing methods, and even felt like he was getting something for nothing...

Everyone knows that fishing is both simple and complicated.

It’s simple because all you need is a fishing rod, line, float, and hook, and then dig up some earthworms to start fishing.

It’s complicated because if you want a better catch, you need to study rods, lines, floats, hooks, and even prepare the bait to attract the fish, sometimes even requiring proper commercial bait.

Apart from not being cheap, the main issue is that preparation takes a long time.

Lure fishing is different when it comes to catch size; it’s nowhere near as productive as conventional fishing.

After all, it targets predatory fish species, which already halves the options compared to regular fishing. Without bait to draw a school, you can only hope to catch them one at a time.

Maybe someone would argue that with rich resources, lure fishing might not fall short of normal fishing, but in reality, as long as the resources are good, traditional fishing will definitely yield more than lure fishing.

But there’s one aspect traditional fishing can’t match with lure fishing—convenience. Lure fishing doesn’t require finding a spot, rushing for Hua Jian, or racing to a backwater curve. It even allows you to fish while standing, just find some rapids, throw in a lure, and you’re set—it’s very convenient.

Also, the feeling of getting something for nothing that Lin Yang had at the moment is something that can’t be compared with stationary fishing.

People love to get advantages; the victorious feeling in fishing is about winning big with little, after all a bag of bait costs how much? Just a few yuan, the good ones maybe a dozen yuan.

If those baits can catch a big fish, then it’s a bargain, even if it’s just small fish being caught. Wild small white fish go for fifteen yuan per pound these days.

With lure fishing, there isn’t even bait to speak of, it’s purely getting something for nothing—subtracting the cost of the rod, everything you catch is profit.

It’s like two people who go out—the first gambles with a budget of fifteen yuan, lose it and it’s gone, but win and they bring some fish back home.

While the other one just aimlessly wanders the streets picking up fish. He finds some, then good, if not, just forget it. One can’t say who’s better, it’s all about what suits whom.

"It’s quite fun, but catching only small fish isn’t very interesting..."

Lin Yang had been fishing by the stream for over half an hour and had only caught five little ones, three Makou Fish and two Brook fish. There were none of the larger predatory fish like cutmouth, Black fish, or Gu fish to be seen.

He threw the few small fish back into the water, planning to head to a deeper area downstream.

Just as he was packing up his gear to leave, he saw a small bamboo raft drifting down from upstream. On it stood two people equipped with a black battery.

At that moment, both men were wearing rubber waders; the one in front was paddling downstream while the other was using two electric rods connected to the battery to fish in the water.

In no time, many fish who were shocked by the electricity in the battery surged to the water’s surface. When it seemed enough fish were incapacitated, the man would cast a net to scoop them up.

Watching this scene, Lin Yang’s eyes narrowed.

As an angler, he despised such destructive practices as electrofishing, net casting, poisoning, contaminating water sources, and careless release of fish.

He was also a bit surprised as to why Wang Bo used to be able to catch Black fish here, but now he could hardly catch any fish at all.

Turned out this river had become a target for electrofishing.

Lin Yang saw numerous nets already set up on the small bamboo raft and couldn’t help but pick up his phone to call the police.

"Whee-oo~ Whee-oo~ Whee-oo~"

This time of day wasn’t peak hours or anything, and since the river was quite close to town, Qingyang Town police station’s response was swift. Within merely five or six minutes, the sound of police sirens could be heard in the distance.

As soon as they heard the sirens, the two men on the raft were visibly startled, obviously not their first time being caught. They immediately tried to get the raft to shore in an attempt to flee, but the police car had already approached the riverbank.

Seeing no way to reach this side, the men could only steer the raft to the opposite bank.

And they were greedy indeed. Once across, they not only thought of escaping but wanted to take the fish, nets, and battery with them.

However, the officers had seen them immediately upon arrival. Recognizing their setup, they needed no further explanation. The police car stopped, and the officers ran over—the creek wasn’t deep, the deepest part being just over three feet.

But what Lin Yang hadn’t expected was that one of the police officers was really fierce and actually plunged into the water, then swam to the other shore in a few strokes, and directly apprehended the two men there.

By then, the other police officers had also crossed the river and escorted the two men and their tools used in committing the crime to the other side.

"Officer, thank you for your hard work. I’m the one who reported the case. May I ask what kind of punishment they will receive?" Watching the three officers escort the two men over, Lin Yang got out of the car, ignoring their resentful stares, and asked the police officers.

"Oh, it was you who called the police? Thanks, these two guys are habitual offenders. This time they’ll probably be locked up for about half a month, and we’ll confiscate these things and fine them."

The one who answered Lin Yang was the police officer who had dived into the water. Seeing Lin Yang, he smiled and said this.

"Oh, is that so? I thought there would be a sentence." Lin Yang said with a hint of regret after hearing the officer’s words.

If electrofishing led to imprisonment, there probably would be fewer people engaging in it in the future.

"That’s their sneaky part, this stream doesn’t have any protected animals, otherwise, it wouldn’t be just about electrofishing a national first or second schedule protected species, which could land them a three-year sentence, but now with just small Crucian Carp, small white fish, small Carp, Makou Fish, little Black fish, and such, this river doesn’t have much left. Criminal detention is a big threat to ordinary people, but for these shameless ones, they don’t care."

Hearing Lin Yang’s words, the police officer on this side also expressed his helplessness.

These two habitual offenders were both from Zhu Family Village in Qingshan Town; their village was infamous for using nets and electrofishing, and they never corrected their ways.

Their tools for committing the crime this time were a car battery—new ones are a little over two hundred yuan, and if you search in the used electric scooter market, you could get one for fifty yuan.

Then there are the wetsuits which cost a few tens of yuan, rubber gloves which are just a few yuan, and the rods for electrofishing which they somehow acquired, their rear ends wrapped with bamboo and rubber for grip protection. All this gear put together would cost less than two hundred yuan.

Nowadays, just the small white fish alone sell for fifteen yuan per jin. If they catch about twenty jin of them in a day, they’ve not only earned back the cost of the gear but also have over a hundred yuan left for drinking and eating meat. For them, this kind of activity is like a guaranteed profit since they don’t have any regular jobs.

Watching the two men being taken away in the vehicle, Lin Yang felt much better as his mood, previously dampened by the unsuccessful fishing, improved significantly. He considered this a good deed for the day.

Seeing that it was still early, and knowing that the river had been electrofished, he decided to find another spot to fish for a while.

There probably weren’t any more fish left in the streams around Qingshan Town, which fell under Zhu Family Village’s territory, as they had been electrofished countless times. Lin Yang drove straight back to Qingyang Town.

He remembered his Uncle once mentioned a river in Qingyang Town that had Black fish and Gu fish, but also mentioned that the fish there were hard to catch, so he had never been there before.

After driving towards Qingyang Town for about 20 minutes, Lin Yang arrived at a small river gully, the very place his Uncle had told him about.

Despite the small river gully’s broadest spot being only about ten meters wide, there were already quite a few people sitting on one side of it.

"Wow, there really are quite a few people here!" Lin Yang was surprised to find so many people fishing in this obscure place.

He got out of his car and made a round, only finding one spot available by a gentle slope; all other places were occupied. To avoid disturbing others, he decided to bring his gear over there.

First, he switched out the fake bait and fish hooks since he was here to catch big fish, so his previous bait and hooks needed changing.

However, as he was preparing, he noticed two problems. The first was the presence of undercurrents. Despite the narrowness of the stream, the water was actually quite deep.

The spot where he was seemed to be a shallower part of the riverbed, yet the depth still exceeded three meters, and the numerous undercurrents could cause fish hooks and floats to wander erratically.

Luckily, he was using a Lure rod this time, so it wasn’t an issue.

But the other problem was more troublesome. There were a lot of underwater weeds, which when combined with the constant lure retrieval inherent to Lure fishing, made it easy to get tangled with the underwater vegetation.

Since there were no other spots available nearby, he could only try his luck here.

As he was fiddling with his Lure rod, a man nearby couldn’t help but chuckle and speak up, "Young man, you might want to change your spot, you can’t fish there!"

"It’s okay, I’ll give it a try. But it is indeed deep here, and there are undercurrents," Lin Yang nodded and replied with a smile.

"Of course, it’s deeper than usual around here. Do you know what this place is?" the man asked, clearly aware of some information.

"Yeah, I know. This is the pharmaceutical factory, and there’s still a factory building standing over there," Lin Yang pointed towards a spot upstream about three to four hundred meters away, where there was a cluster of abandoned factory buildings.

Even without Yang Xincheng saying anything, Lin Yang knew there used to be a pharmaceutical factory there. It was well known in their town and even two or three decades earlier, the factory was one of the star industries of their town, with many people proud to work there.

However, due to the factory’s transformation and the imperative to not pollute the environment, it was relocated to an industrial park in the city. Consequently, the location it left behind lingered in a sort of limbo, not part of the city and unappealing due to poor transportation and location, so it remained abandoned to this day.