After the net was cast, they had to wait about half an hour to give the fish enough time to get caught in it. During this time, the three of them chatted on the boat to pass the time.
Of course, it was mostly just Yang Hongtao and Yang Fan doing the talking. Yang Xiaohai, on the other hand, remained somewhat quiet. He was reserved, giving short answers, almost like a silent type.
But Yang Little Fandn't mind. After all, Yang Xiaohai had lost his parents at a young age, so it was understandable that he was a bit introverted.
As they talked, time passed quickly. After about half an hour, Yang Hongtao started the boat and headed back to the area where they had dropped the net.
"Splash!"
When the net was pulled up from the water, they saw that it had caught quite a few fish. Although there weren't many big catches, there were plenty of small fish like grass carp, small silver fish, and mullet, all of which were cheap and only worth a few bucks. These were mainly used as bait.
"Whoa, not bad today! We've caught quite a few!"
After hauling the net completely out of the water, Yang Hongtao checked the catch, estimating there were about forty to fifty fish. He grinned, happy with the result.
As he had mentioned earlier, the quality of the bait was extremely important when setting up the hooks. With these freshly caught live fish, the bait was definitely going to be effective today.
After securing the net, the three of them began to clean and prepare the fish. Then, Yang Hongtao took out a kitchen knife and started chopping the fish into pieces to use as bait.
Once the bait was ready, Yang Hongtao started the engine and sailed off in a certain direction.
After about half an hour, they arrived at an unfamiliar area, one that Yang Hongtao had selected as the place to drop the hooks for the day.
"Alright, this is it. I've set hooks here twice in the past six months, and there should still be quite a few fish around. Let's drop them here today."
As he spoke, Yang Hongtao handed the wheel over to Yang Xiaohai, who would steer the boat, while Yang Hongtao began preparing the hooks.
The so-called "hook line" involved tying a series of smaller hooks onto a long main line, followed by weights and sinkers. It was similar to regular fishing, but this method allowed for multiple hooks to be dropped at once.
Today, Yang Hongtao had prepared three baskets of hooks. Each basket contained a 500-meter-long main line with 150 hooks, so in total, they had 450 hooks.
If each set of ten hooks caught one fish, they could expect to catch around forty to fifty fish.
However, the odds of catching fish weren't that high. In fact, Yang Hongtao's fishing success rate was usually only about 5%, meaning that for every twenty hooks, only one fish might be caught.
The odds sounded discouraging, but the truth was that if they were lucky enough to catch a few valuable fish, it would make the whole trip worth it. After all, the price of seafood these days wasn't small. A single expensive fish could sell for several hundred to a thousand yuan.
Fishing in the ocean was like gambling these days. As near-shore fishing resources became scarcer, it was becoming harder for regular fishermen to catch a lot of fish in one trip. They could only hope for a lucky catch, such as a valuable yellow croaker or a red grouper, which would help them make enough to support their families.
Once they had selected the spot for the hooks, Yang Hongtao started setting them up. He quickly dropped two baskets of hooks into the sea.
Just as he was about to drop the last basket, Yang Fan suddenly spoke up.
"Hongtao, don't drop that basket just yet. Let me pick another spot to drop it." Yang Fan smiled at Yang Hongtao.
"Oh? Fan, you want to try it yourself? Alright, I'll leave this basket to you. Let's see who catches more fish, me or you!" Yang Hongtao grinned.
"Deal," Yang Fan replied with a smile.
Then, Yang Fan decided to take a little "shortcut." He squinted and started scanning the sea, trying to find the area with the most fish.
After a while, he realized that the fish in this area weren't many, and most of them were low-value species like wolf fish and sea mullet.
Naturally, Yang Fan wasn't interested in these fish, so he asked Yang Xiaohai to steer the boat further out to sea, while he continued searching for the perfect spot.
Eventually, after a while, Yang Fan spotted something promising: a rocky area where several schools of fish were hiding near the rocks, and they were mostly groupers!
"Xiaohai, steer the boat towards the 9 o'clock direction! There are some rocks under the water there. Be careful not to hit them!"
Yang Xiaohai nodded and immediately followed his instructions.
Once they reached the rocky area, Yang Fan waited for the perfect moment and dropped the last basket of hooks.
After he finished, Yang Hongtao asked, "Why did you make Xiaohai steer the boat all the way out here to drop the hooks? This place isn't as good as the spot I picked earlier. It's such a waste of fuel!"
Yang Fan smiled and replied, "I have a feeling this place will have a lot of fish, so I wanted to drop the hooks here."
"Hah! Feeling? The place you picked definitely won't have as many fish as mine. You just wasted my gas!" Yang Hongtao scoffed.
"Do you not trust my intuition?" Yang Fan chuckled.
"Trust your intuition? Not a chance," Yang Hongtao rolled his eyes.
"Hmm," Yang Fan simply smiled in response.
He wasn't going to argue further. After all, when it came time to retrieve the hooks, he was pretty sure Yang Hongtao's face would end up turning red from the shock!
This book is provided by FunNovel Novel Book | Fan Fiction Novel [Beautiful Free Novel Book]