The pier wasn't too crowded at noon, mostly fishermen preparing to set out to sea and a group of tourists ready to charter a boat.
Chu Mingcheng's family had moved to the town so many years ago that he didn't have any fisherman acquaintances among his neighbors and friends.
Therefore, without any familiar faces around for the boat charter, he had to ask around one by one.
The fishing boats were moored at the shoreline, but the pier here wasn't large, with only a few docked along the edge.
The rest of the boats were moored side by side; one could board the first fishing boat and walk across to the others.
Chu Mingcheng asked Jiang Luoluo and the others to wait on the pier, while he boarded the fishing boat to look for a suitable boat owner.
He chose not to approach the older men, as they were usually quite cunning, with many tricks up their sleeves.
If they had a big catch that day, any disagreement over the catch could spoil the mood.
Of course, there were honest old men, but he didn't want to take the risk.
After passing several boats, he suddenly saw a bald man cleaning a fishing boat and his eyes lit up.
"Hey, Brother Zhao Jun, what a coincidence!"
The man called Zhao Jun turned his head upon hearing his name and was surprised to see Chu Mingcheng, exclaiming, "Ah Cheng, what are you doing here?"
"I brought some friends over to have fun. We're planning to charter a boat and head out this afternoon. I didn't expect to run into you. Weren't you working out of town? What brings you here?"
Chu Mingcheng was also quite surprised to see Zhao Jun. After all, Zhao Jun spent most of his time away from home, and since they used to play together as kids and meet for drinks at year's end, they maintained a pretty good relationship.
"Business is tough out of town!" sighed Zhao Jun, not wanting to dwell on the subject, but instead asked, "You said you're here to charter a boat with friends? No need to charter, I'll take you out to sea for fun. If we net anything good, you can just take it."
"That won't do, the charter fee has to be paid to you. And only if we charter the boat will my friends find it fun to play." Business is business.
Seeing that Zhao Jun had returned to become a fisherman, Chu Mingcheng figured his days must be tough. Naturally, the money had to be paid, and it wasn't like he was short of it.
After paying, Chu Mingcheng went to get the three people from the pier.
Seeing Jiang Luoluo and Zhou Jiayi's attractiveness, Zhao Jun was suddenly enlightened and covertly came over to pull him aside and whispered, "You lad, you're doing well, both girls are so pretty. Which one is your girlfriend?"
"Just met two days ago. They treated me to a big meal last night, so I had to reciprocate, right?"
"You were treated to a meal? Then it's just a matter of time!"
Zhao Jun wasn't able to obtain any gossip but wasn't bothered as any issues would become apparent eventually.
However, since there were girls involved, he took a sunshade cloth from the storage and said, "Ah Cheng, help me with this, let's set up this awning to block the sun."
"Sure thing!" Chu Mingcheng replied, pulling Zhang Wei along to help.
Zhao Jun's boat had a canopy with a small resting space above the engine, so the person steering at the back wouldn't be exposed to the sun.
But when hauling in the nets, they would need to go to the front deck, and in the summer the sun was too harsh. Even the seasoned old fishermen couldn't stand it for long and would peel from prolonged exposure, so the local fishermen all had a piece of sunshade cloth.
Stretching from the rest cabin to the front tip of the boat, it could cover the entire front deck.
After setting up the sunshade, Zhao Jun started the fishing boat and left the pier to head to his fishing spot.
Chu Mingcheng noted that Zhao Jun's small boat was quite new and knew at a glance that it was freshly purchased. Since he also fancied the idea of going out to fish, he started to inquire about the price of the fishing boat.
"Brother Zhao Jun, your boat's really new, how much did it cost?"
"This boat was 120,000 on the water, thirteen meters long, it's not cheap," said Zhao Jun. The mention of the price made him feel a bit somber. When he went to buy the boat and found out the price, he had quite a shock, never imagining that a small wooden fishing boat could cost so much.
"Ah, this…" Chu Mingcheng was momentarily stunned; he had assumed that wooden boats would be cheaper and hadn't expected their price to be not much different from that of ten-meter-plus fishing boats.
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Since the prices are so high, he might as well take his time and save up to buy a class two fishing boat directly.
"What, do you also want to buy a boat to fish?"
"Not really, the fish resources are too poor around here. Fishing in the coastal waters isn't very interesting."
"Sigh, just getting by day by day, but it's still enough to provide for the family," Zhao Jun sighed.
He had turned to fishing when his business outside couldn't go on, because even if fishing wasn't great, it could still make him a hundred thousand or so a year, albeit with hard work.
But when it comes to providing for the family, what's a bit of hard labor?
Chu Mingcheng, hearing how expensive the boats were, had already begun considering other options.
He decided to first exploit the resources on shore as much as possible, then spend some time each day sea fishing, to slightly level up the common fish species of the East Sea, before considering the strategy of renting a boat spot to go out to sea to fish.
He didn't need too high a level, level 5 would suffice.
Even though the significant effects only start from level 10, a 5% increase in attributes actually has some effect, as long as it doesn't result in a loss.
As Zhao Jun's boat stopped, Chu Mingcheng's thoughts were also pulled back.
"Here we are, it's not time yet, let's wait a bit longer!"
"Brother Zhao Jun, how long has your net been in the water?"
"Almost four hours now. Why, you want to haul in the net already?"
"Let's do it. I need to prepare a big meal this afternoon; it's going to take quite some time."
"Alright, you've chartered the boat, so you're the boss."
It wasn't much different from the usual timing, so since Chu Mingcheng requested it, Zhao Jun naturally had no objections.
Pulling up all six nets would take a lot of time, and once back to process the catch, it would probably be three o'clock in the afternoon, so Chu Mingcheng didn't plan to wait any longer.
"Luoluo, you and Jiayi stand back a bit, we're going to haul in the net."
"Do you need any help?"
"No need, just pick out the crabs and big fish from the catch later."
"Mhm, got it." Jiang Luoluo quickly led Zhou Jiayi towards the cockpit, leaving enough space on the foredeck.
The boat approached the foam buoy of the first net, and Chu Mingcheng, with gloves on, lifted the buoy onboard and then passed the rope of the fishing net to Zhao Jun as he came over.
He took it and tied the rope to the winch, then started it up.
As the winch turned, the underwater fishing net was gradually pulled up.
After the net was fully hauled in, Zhao Jun went to grab the opening of the net and, pulling hard, placed it on the gunwale.
Seeing him struggle, Chu Mingcheng instructed Zhang Wei to don gloves, and the two helped together.
The type of net that Zhao Jun used spread out completely in the water; the rope would draw the net together when pulled, concentrating the catch in the tail end as the net was brought aboard.
The net rope was thick, and the entire net needed to be hauled onboard to dump all the catch onto the deck, unlike gillnets.
Though it was trouble to pull, it wasn't prone to tangling like gillnets, allowing the catch to be dumped on the deck and the net to be immediately cast back for more fishing.
As the net was pulled up, it was entangled with many dead goby fish, most of which were small and wouldn't be cleaned; leaving them on the net could attract other predatory creatures.
Jiang Luoluo and Zhou Jiayi stood at the stern, intently watching the fishing net in the water, but as the tail end of the net also emerged, she suddenly exclaimed with surprise, "Yellow, yellow, there's a big yellow croaker!"
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