Super Zoo

Chapter 368 Wuchang Fish

After Gu's fishing boat reached the center of the Yangtze River, they finally pulled up the first net. Suming, a bit excited, put down his rod and ran to the back of the boat to see the catch.

It wasn't the scene one might imagine, where the net would be bursting with fish. A rather large net contained about twenty or thirty fish of various sizes. Gu, assisted by his helper, "picked" the fish out of the net and tossed them one by one into the fish hold.

The majority were carps and silver carps, and there were also a few palm-sized yellow cheek fish.

The yellow cheek fish had a yellow belly, and their short bony fins were as sharp as saw teeth, which could easily cut hands if not handled with care. Whenever Gu touched one, it would make a 'gulping' sound, which resembled the crowing of a rooster.@@@@

"Not bad, it's early morning now, and the fish aren't very active. The catch will be better by noon. Mr. Su, if you can't wait, go ahead and fish. When the net catches a big one, I'll call you to come see," Gu said smilingly as he held up a silver carp about thirty to forty centimeters long, and tossed it to his helper, "Go clean it up, we'll stew it for soup at noon!"

Back at the bow, Zhao Yun had already cast a line into the water, holding the rod in one hand and slowly turning the reel with the other, dragging the float back toward him. Seeing Suming coming back, he turned and smiled, "Who knows, by noon, the fish we've caught might outdo his haul."

"Brother-in-law, how do you use this thing?" Su Meng, not familiar with fishing, watched as Nangong Huang took a sea rod and, looking puzzled, asked Suming for help.

Suming's fishing skills were mediocre; he only knew the basics and couldn't really say he had any technique. The sea rod was suitable for fishing in open waters. After briefly advising Nangong, who then cast a line, he leaned the rod against the railing, lit a cigarette, crossed his legs, and waited for the small bell on the sea rod to ring while he enjoyed the riverside breeze.

Nangong's fishing method could be seen as 'waiting for a rabbit by the stump'—after casting the line, he just left it, and if a fish bit the bait, the pull on the line would make the small bell on the rod tinkle. It was a purely lazy way of fishing.

Suming picked a piece of chicken intestine to mount on the hook. Clasping the rod with both hands, he gave a low shout in the direction of the wind and twisted his waist sharply, flinging the sinker and the fishing line far out. The line drew an arc in the air and landed in the river, over thirty meters away, with a plop.

His fishing method was the same as Zhao Yun's. As the fishing boat slowly moved, they both stood at the edge of the boat, slowly turning the reel to fish. If any fish near the bait saw it, they would rush over to bite.

The moment Suming's hook hit the water, Zhao Yun's rod, over a meter long, suddenly bent!

"Got one!" Zhao Yun laughed heartily, gripping the rod's handle with one hand and pressing down on the reel with the other. Depending on the fish's movements, he alternated between reeling in and letting out the line.

The wild fish in the river were quite strong, unlike pond fish that were raised on feed and lacked stamina. After about fifteen minutes of the fish pulling back and forth, it finally lost its strength, and Zhao Yun quickly wound the reel, bringing it to the shore.

Water splashed all around as a large carp, nearly three pounds, was scooped onto the boat, twisting its body.

Turns out it had no idea that Suming was fishing. It thought Suming had put something in the water to play with. Wherever the bait was dragged, the Overlord Turtle would follow it and 'protect' it.

With such a big guy 'protecting' near the bait, what fish other than crocodiles would dare to get close? Even if there were any, like this half-meter long big lip-curling fish, it would have been taken out by the Overlord Turtle.

"Bro, you're doing it all wrong!" Suming felt like he was being trampled upon by a herd of alpacas a thousand times over. He quickly communicated with the Overlord Turtle and changed the method of play.

With a few gentle swishes of its three legs in the water, the Overlord Turtle swam a far distance away, and soon circled around the bait, helping Suming to drive all the nearby fish towards the bait.

"Still no bite?" Zhao Yun asked knowingly, with his fishing rod bending again and another fish hooked.

"It's coming!" Suming chuckled.

"Keep dreaming!"

The fish below the surface of the river weren't plentiful. Perhaps there was still a huge number of fish in the Yangtze River, but spread out over such a broad area, the density was quite low. The Overlord Turtle swam around for quite a while and didn't find many decent fish. There were some small fry and little silvery fish, but those things were even smaller than Suming's bait and would never bite. To be honest, the fact that Zhao Yun could continuously catch big fish under these circumstances showed his incredible skill.

While searching, Suming suddenly noticed a group of flat-bodied creatures swimming through the murky water not far away, with small, almost comical heads and slightly upturned mouths.

At first glance, they looked like bream, but upon a closer look, Suming was delighted.

Lucky me, a school of Wuchang Fish!

Wuchang Fish are quite famous among the fish species of the Yangtze River, scientifically known as Megalobrama amblycephala and commonly called Wuchang Fish.

During the Three Kingdoms period, King Sun Hao of Wu wanted to move the capital from Nanjing to Wuchang. A popular saying went, "Rather drink the waters of Jianye than eat the fish of Wuchang," and even the Founding Chairman once wrote a poem, "Jiancai drinks the waters of Changsha, again eats Wuchang Fish," revealing the delicacy of Wuchang Fish, one of the more renowned economic fish species in Huaxia. However, the Chairman's poem had an obvious error; the "Wuchang" of Wuchang Fish referred to the ancient place of Wuchang, not the present Wuchang.

Regardless, Suming directed the Overlord Turtle and charged into the distant school of Wuchang Fish.

Disrupted by this god of slaughter, the orderly formation of the Wuchang Fish immediately scattered. Dozens of the flat fish darted chaotically through the water, escaping in all directions. A few of them, by chance, swam right toward the direction of Suming's bait.