Chapter 30: Targeting Large Fish

Chu Mingcheng never thought he would one day be so willing to spend money on equipment, but now that he had the new gear, he just wanted to find a place to go fishing as soon as possible.

As for the fishing spot, the mountain reservoir was definitely stocked with plenty of fish, but having fished there daily for a while, he had grown somewhat tired of it, so he decided to change locations.

In the vicinity of Le City, suitable fishing spots were actually quite limited.

Most of the rivers were very dirty and, despite some efforts to clean them up in recent years, they hadn't improved much.

Since he sold the fish he caught, he was embarrassed to sell fish from these rivers; it just didn't sit right with him.

Therefore, his target was the small rivers of Zhe Province, where there were many rivers flowing near Le City, including Qing River to the north and Ou River to the south.

Chu Mingcheng checked his phone's map and found that Qing River was over thirty kilometers away and the roads were in poor condition.

But the Ou River was only thirteen kilometers away, directly accessible via National Highway 228.

Was there even a choice? It was clearly the Ou River.

He went home, picked up Xiao Mi, and Chu Mingcheng drove off.

He hadn't brought it along before because they weren't very close.

Now that Xiao Mi had begun to act more affectionate towards him and allowed him to pet it freely, it had gradually taken on the appearance of a house cat, so naturally, he could take it out to accompany him while fishing.

Twenty or so minutes later, Chu Mingcheng arrived at his destination.

The location off National Highway 228 was where the Ou River flowed into the sea, and he could see a few people fishing around.

Many people also came here to fish for sea bass, and with some luck, the catch could be quite good.

This year, Zhe Province implemented its first fishing ban in the eight major basins, including the Ou River.

From March first to June thirtieth was the closed season, during which no fishing activities were allowed.

However, it was now late October, well past the closed season.

Chu Mingcheng didn't fish at the estuary; instead, he drove upstream a bit, aiming for large freshwater fish like Qing fish, grass carp, and Lianyong.

He found a secluded spot with few people, took all his equipment out of the car, and after a couple of trips, Xiao Mi followed him and then jumped onto a small stool and lay flat.

Chu Mingcheng just kept busy with his tasks. Ever since the cat had been with him, it had become quite lazy, not at all the active type expected of a tabby cat, although it still occasionally caught mice.

First, he set up the stand, a 6+4 line setup, and used a size 10 Japanese hook, which was suitable for catching fish under 20 pounds.

However, other smaller fish such as Qiao Zui could also be hooked.

Once everything was in place, he placed the fishing rod on the stand then Chu Mingcheng took out a basin.

He then took out the Wild Attack Milk Fragrance Universal Edition ground bait, opened it, and poured it into the basin; the shop owner had given this to him, and had also provided two bags.

He poured in rice wine, which the shop owner had also gifted him two bags of.

After adding water and stirring evenly, he formed the mixture into fist-sized balls, making a total of six, and threw them into the water not far in front of him.

After baiting the spot, he had to wait an hour.

Waiting an hour was actually quite boring, so Chu Mingcheng took out a lure rod to see if he could catch something for Xiao Mi's dinner.

He took out a lure, choosing a seven-gram spinner. The water temperature still hadn't dropped, so fish like Qiao Zui were more active, moving in the upper and middle layers.

"Swoosh~"

Chu Mingcheng flicked his wrist, and the spinner soared high, landing in the water about twenty meters away.

As he reeled in, the spinner moved horizontally and swished its tail, making a rather striking display on the water's surface, though the first cast naturally yielded no catch.

In our country, the fishing resources are quite abundant, and it's rare to come up totally empty-handed when shore fishing.

However, lure fishing resources were relatively scarce. Pole fishing doesn't require a specific region, but lure fishing demands that the fishing area must host predatory fish species.

Such as Qiao Zui, black fish, crucian carp, sea bass, and so on.

And the numbers of these kinds of fish were far less than those suitable for pole fishing like crucian carp and carp, so lure fishers often went home empty-handed, unlike pole fishers.

Chu Mingcheng cast his line over twenty times with no fish biting at all.

Although this was normal, he still felt that lure fishing was not quite suitable for beginners; a beginner's enthusiasm would have vanished long before.

However, more than half an hour had passed, and the baiting might have started to take effect.

This time, Chu Mingcheng cast his lure toward the baited spot, but unfortunately, the wind plus the spinning reel's lack of precision meant that he missed the exact spot multiple times.

Fortunately, this didn't affect the fishing. As long as there were fish at the baited spot, they would be attracted to the lure he had cast nearby.

Sure enough, as he reeled the line in, and the lure tumbled, it suddenly disappeared from sight, followed immediately by the tip of the rod bending sharply as it was yanked down.

At last, there was a fish, and Chu Mingcheng suddenly felt energized.

Today, he was using an M-hardness lure rod, and the fish on the line was quite fierce; the rod almost bent into a reverse U-shape.

Chu Mingcheng pulled the rod to the side, steering the fish toward the right.

The fishing line was taut, occasionally making a beautiful slicing sound through the water.

After a back-and-forth tussle for about two or three minutes, the fish totally ran out of energy and floated belly up to the surface—a Qiao Zui.

Seeing this, Chu Mingcheng quickly reeled in the line, grabbing the fishing line directly without needing a net to lift it up.

He then picked up the hook remover, gripped it on the fish's lip to pry its mouth wide open, first removed the lure, and then checked the weight of the Qiao Zui.

Not bad, it was 1563 grams, just over three pounds.

"Meow~" Little Mimi couldn't stay still after seeing the fish; it hadn't eaten dinner yet!

It jumped down from the little stool and even rubbed against his leg, letting out a delicate meow.

"Here you go, hang on a second!"

Chu Mingcheng couldn't help but smile wryly, having thought he had a high-spirited cat, only to find out it was a cuddly food-lover.

Throwing the Qiao Zui on the ground, Little Mimi dashed over and bit directly into the fish's head.

But a three-pound Qiao Zui was a bit large for it. After a few flicks of the fish's tail, it could no longer keep its hold and had to let go to find another opportunity.

Seeing this Chu Mingcheng rummaged through his tool bag, pulled out a bleeding knife, and quickly pinned the Qiao Zui down to mercifully kill it.

Little Mimi was now content, moved forward to bite into the fish's head and began eating, making purring and lip-smacking sounds.

Chu Mingcheng, seeing it eat so happily, couldn't help but smile, then he checked the time—it had been about forty minutes since he baited the spot.

Although he was supposed to wait an hour for the bait to take effect, this wasn't exactly necessary, so he took out two bags of fishing bait, one fragrant and one fishy.

He poured both types into a basin, using less of the fishy one, then added water in a ratio of approximately 1:0.9.

He kneaded the fishing bait into a large ball, then pinched off a few dumpling-sized pieces, took one of them, hooked it onto the fishing hook, and cast it to the baited spot with the rod.

He then tied the slipknot to his wrist, and all that was left was to wait for the float to sink.

Turning his head to continue watching Little Mimi eat the fish, Chu Mingcheng, inspired, took out his phone and captured the moment of the cat eating the fish.

He took shots from the side, the front, close-ups, and long shots, only stopping when Little Mimi cleaned the blood off its mouth after finishing its meal.

In the future, he would definitely film videos of sea fishing, but for now, footage of Little Mimi eating fish and mice could be useful for practice editing.

The Qiao Zui was eaten more than halfway, and Chu Mingcheng took the remaining half and threw it back into the river, offering it to an unknown future lucky one.