As a Fisherman, My Fish Can Level Up
Chapter 593 - 363_2

Chapter 593: Chapter 363_2

It was clear that his preparation was very thorough.

After getting everything ready, Chu Mingcheng asked, "Would you like something to drink?"

Seeing him bustling around so thoroughly, Jiang Luoluo burst into laughter, "Go on, go fish. I’ll make myself some radish juice!"

"I’ll do it!"

"No need, I’m just pregnant, not incapacitated!"

"Alright, just be careful then!"

Seeing Chu Mingcheng so concerned about her warmed Jiang Luoluo’s heart.

Then she juiced herself a glass of radish juice and lay down on a sun lounger with a book she hadn’t finished reading.

Seeing her lying down, Chu Mingcheng began to busy himself with his things, starting with baiting the spot.

He then went back to secure the fishing line. He heard from Sabaleta that piranhas nearly a meter long had been spotted here before.

But most of them were around twenty centimeters in length, similar to the size of a Changyu, not very long.

So his fishing line didn’t need to be too thick, but he did need to pair it with a steel leader to deal with the piranhas’ sharp teeth.

The leader couldn’t be too thin either, or it would still get bitten through.

The bait didn’t need to be anything specific, any meat would do.

Chu Mingcheng prepared some beef because he had plenty of that.

The one thousand six hundred pounds of wild ox they had, even after sending some back home, was still more than the two of them could finish.

Chu Mingcheng removed some of the lesser cuts of meat to use as bait.

Once ready, he went to the lakeside, sat on the tackle box, and started fishing with the beef.

He cast the rod to the spot he had baited with beef earlier, but as soon as it dropped in, the rod started to move.

Chu Mingcheng was startled for a second before lifting the rod, only to find the hook slickly emerging from the water, the piece of beef gone.

"Damn, that was fast?"

He was somewhat surprised, it seemed baiting with beef worked very well.

And the speed at which the piranha took the bait exceeded his imagination. It was gone in just a second of his distraction.

After baiting the hook with another piece of beef, he cast it back into the baited spot.

But this time, Chu Mingcheng focused his attention, watching the float closely.

Just like before, the float reacted the moment the hook hit the water.

Considering what had just happened, Chu Mingcheng immediately lifted the rod.

The rod trembled, and as he expected, the piranha had taken the bait aggressively and he was able to haul it up.

It was as if it had been starving for days. Could it be due to their overpopulation leading to a severe shortage of food?

The thrashing fish immediately caught the attention of Jiang Luoluo beside him. She approached with some curiosity and examined the fish, "So this is a piranha!"

Using a hook remover, Chu Mingcheng extracted the hook and then held the fish’s head to expose its mouthful of sharp teeth, "With these teeth, it could take a chunk out of you with just one bite."

"Tsk tsk tsk, no wonder there’s a sign forbidding swimming nearby!" Jiang Luoluo shook her head, quickly losing interest, and went back to lie down and continue reading her book.

Chu Mingcheng kept fishing and almost every time he cast the rod, there was a fish on the hook—it was faster than restocking. He finally understood what Sabaleta meant by the overpopulation of piranhas.

Fortunately, these piranhas did not resort to cannibalism, otherwise it would be as if he hadn’t fished at all.

A short while later, as Chu Mingcheng was lifting the rod to weed out some of the smaller piranhas and throw them back, a long fish suddenly leaped out of the water and bit the fish hook he had raised.

"And now they even deliver themselves to me?"

He was stunned; in all his time fishing, this was the first he’d encountered such proactive behavior.

It was quite fierce. After biting the hook, it got lodged in the fish’s mouth. After a few thrashes, it failed to dislodge itself and then Chu Mingcheng reeled it back in.

He examined the fish in his hand and found it to be a South American Toothfish, a species known for lying in wait among the aquatic plants to ambush frogs and mice at the water’s edge.

This small lake probably only had these carnivorous and ferocious fish species left.

After fishing for a little while, the simplicity of the task began to bore Chu Mingcheng.

Piranhas were just too abundant, and fishing for them offered no joy at all; in just over half an hour, he had filled half a bucket. Why was it so hard to catch anything else?

So Chu Mingcheng took out his lure rod to try his luck with a fake bait, thinking maybe there might be other species in the lake that could give him a pleasant surprise.

With the lure rod in hand, he didn’t aim for any particular spot; he just casually cast it straight ahead. "Whiz," the fake bait flew out in a nice parabola, landing over fifty meters in front of him.

For someone of Chu Mingcheng’s strength, casually casting forty or fifty meters was quite easy, and even farther would not have been a problem.

It was just that casting with too much force often caused the reel to create bird’s nests.

As the fake bait tumbled back across the water’s surface, the first cast didn’t attract any fish, finally giving the semblance of real fishing.

He reeled in the line with a "whiz" and still caught nothing.

Then, after about ten more casts with no success, Chu Mingcheng’s expression grew odd. Had he been too proud just now?

He decided to change directions, running to the left where there were some aquatic plants.

He had caught a South American Toothfish earlier and guessed there might be more among the weeds.

But on the first cast, the reel in Chu Mingcheng’s hand met with a slight obstruction, as if it snagged on something, possibly weeds or some trash.

Chu Mingcheng forcefully pulled it back and found he could do so with ease, but the weight of it was more noticeable; it seemed a bit heavy and most likely was some trash.

So he reeled the line back in...

"Fuck, fuck~"

A sleek sniper rifle appeared before his eyes, leaving him utterly speechless.

Could this even be caught fishing?

What on earth had happened in this area before?

Chu Mingcheng looked around and noticed that the other fishermen, due to the distance, hadn’t seen what was happening on his end.

Jiang Luoluo had already gone back to the RV for a nap, so he quickly cut the fishing line tangled around the sniper rifle and let it fall back into the water.

Better to leave it for the next fated person to find; Chu Mingcheng had no interest whatsoever.

After retying the fishing line, he didn’t lose interest in lure fishing because of the sniper rifle and continued with his ambitions of an alternative catch.

Given the ongoing piranha catches, he still hoped to fish for other species.

Time moved on, and the afternoon turned to evening.

The lake surface was golden, a sight of breathtaking beauty.

Chu Mingcheng poured the bucket of piranhas he had caught in the afternoon back into the lake—as for lessening the piranha population, that was not his concern, and he wasn’t in his own country.

Then, he packed up his fishing rod, took the remaining two small piranhas and the South American Toothfish to the kitchen, and started preparing dinner.

As for the afternoon’s lure fishing catch, well, best not to mention it!

Some neighboring anglers were still fishing at this time, seemingly ready for night fishing.

Unfortunately, with Jiang Luoluo pregnant, Chu Mingcheng temporarily lost the freedom to fish at night.

However, after fishing for the whole afternoon, he noticed something: not many Argentines fished here; the anglers were almost all from abroad.

But that made sense; Argentines born to comfort primarily focused on eating beef, drinking, falling in love, and watching soccer matches.

Having someone like Sabaleta was already quite rare.

Today, Chu Mingcheng didn’t plan to cook anything complicated; he just gutted the fish, removed the scales, and started pan-frying them with some oil.

The South American Toothfish was easy, but the piranha’s skin turned out to be exceptionally thick, so thick that it was difficult to cut.

Once he managed to cut it open, he discovered that the piranha’s meat was high in fat content, which explained why it was said to taste smooth and delicious.

Generally, fatty fish don’t taste too bad.

In the evening, Jiang Luoluo also tasted the two kinds of fish and, compared to the South American Toothfish, she preferred the taste of the piranha.

"Ah Cheng, do you think if these fish appeared and became rampant in our country, would they be quickly eaten to extinction?"

"It might happen," Chu Mingcheng said with a smile, "but it’s still better not to have them around. We have plenty of delicious freshwater fish in our country, and if these were to adapt to the environment, it would be a disaster for the other species and affect the aquatic ecosystem."

Jiang Luoluo nodded in agreement, "That’s true."