My fishing raft will ask for help.

Chapter 184 Nearby fish farm owners begin vying for territory

"Alright, I'll give it a try." Luo Hao thought about the money Zhou Miao had made when he took him out to sea a few times before, so he gritted his teeth and agreed.

"By the way, Miao, don't think I'm stuck in the kitchen now that the food stall is open. If you ever spot a school of fish at sea, you absolutely have to take me with you!"

As long as he can have this kind of good fortune a few times a year, even if running a food stall results in a small loss, Luo Hao won't mind.

Lu Xingyu's eyes lit up, and he quickly added, "Yes, yes, we can't forget about this kind of good thing."

"Absolutely. I've been quite busy these past few days with the new project at the fish farm. I'll go out to sea for a stroll when I have some free time," Zhou Miao readily agreed.

After all, his two brothers-in-law are now completely tied to him, and he can't let them go without even underwear.

"I'm doing renovations on my place, and since I'm basically just sitting around doing nothing, Qianqian and I will come help out for the next few days. You shouldn't just stay cooped up on the fish raft; get to work!"

Lu Xingyu agreed with Luo Hao's words: "Yes, yes, your career is to conquer the sea, you can leave this small matter of the fish raft to us."

"Alright, I'll head out to sea tomorrow morning!"

Zhou Miao was very pleased that his two brothers-in-law were so sensible.

Moreover, he only has a little over 160,000 in savings right now, and he really can't come up with 350,000, so it's time to harvest the sea urchins from the coral reef.

However, it's already November, so we don't know if this batch of sea urchins is still plump, but the quality is likely not as good as that of the spring batch.

......

It was another night of one against two, and even though his physique had improved, Zhou Miao still felt a soreness in his lower back when he woke up the next day.

Looking at the two women sleeping in such a mess on the bed, you can tell how crazy last night was.

Zhou Miao washed up and went out. After having breakfast, he brought some back with him and went to a fishing tackle shop to buy a special tool for catching sea urchins.

When the time comes, you can simply hang the large net around your neck, open the net, and use a tool to hook it in. It will be very efficient.

Zhou Miao put on his diving gear, along with a bottle of mineral water and the self-heating pot he bought the night before, and boarded the boat. After making sure he had everything he needed, he took out his phone and left a message for the two women, saying that he wouldn't be back at noon, and then set off.

The coral reef is located quite far away, beyond the outer sea area, and has officially entered the open ocean.

Moreover, today is a cloudy day, with the sun hidden by the clouds, and the sea is quite rough.

However, Zhou Miao's fishing boat was not in much trouble, since it was only about 20 nautical miles offshore, which was no different from operating in the open sea.

After finding the right spot, he changed into a diving suit, took a beachcombing hook, and swung into the water with a harpoon on his back.

As expected of a coral reef area, the seawater is crystal clear.

The visibility reached over ten meters, which was much more comfortable than diving in the open sea. On a clear day, he could see even further.

However, the coral reefs underwater were not as beautiful as Zhou Miao had imagined.

His impression of coral reefs was of a beautiful underwater landscape similar to that of the Xisha Islands, but here it was almost entirely white coral rocks.

Furthermore, these coral reefs are covered with a dense swarm of sea urchins, the sheer number of which would frighten anyone with trypophobia.

There weren't many small fish, but we saw quite a few big ones.

Even Zhou Miao saw two wrasses that were over a meter long and had faces resembling those of an old man.

The plump, juicy fish made his mouth water.

These are two mobile phones worth tens of thousands of yuan!

Unfortunately, he didn't bring his fishing rod today. His harpoon couldn't handle the swimming fish, so he had to abandon his efforts and start collecting sea urchins.

Zhou Miao was a beginner and his technique was still clumsy, so he wasn't fast enough at collecting the sea urchins.

Sometimes, if the hook isn't positioned or angled correctly, the sea urchin won't go into the net, and you have to reach out and grab it yourself.

Even so, he quickly filled the large net bag in front of him.

Once it's full, return to the side of the boat. You don't need to get on the boat; just lift the net and pour it onto the boat.

Without direct sunlight, sea urchins can survive for most of the day or even a whole day in waterless environments.

So after Zhou Miao emptied the net, he immediately went back to the bottom of the water to continue collecting sea urchins.

He'll take anything that looks like horse manure or sea urchin from the bottom of the water. Of course, he won't pick up anything that's too small, since it doesn't have any roe inside.

This immersive money-collecting experience makes time fly by; it feels like no time has passed before two bottles of compressed air have been used up.

Fortunately, he bought two more bottles, so he could continue in the afternoon.

When he climbed back onto the ship, he was stunned to see a mountain of sea urchins piled up on the deck. He hadn't expected there to be so many.

He first took out the self-heating pot and heated it up, then poured the sea urchins into the live fish hold.

There's water inside, so the sea urchins we caught this morning will live longer.

The live fish hold on the fishing boat wasn't small, but he had so many sea urchins that it was completely full, with a third of the fish still left unloaded.

Zhou Miao could only bring over the large fish box, fill it with some seawater, and put all the sea urchins inside, eventually filling it to more than half full.

Considering that the quality of sea urchins in November is not as good as in spring, he simply picked two that were of average quality and opened them with a knife.

To his surprise, it was full of yellow, which made Zhou Miao's eyes light up.

He had no knowledge of sea urchins and was unaware that the harvesting season for horse dung sea urchins also falls between mid-October and November.

However, compared to the sea urchins in spring, the sea urchins in this season are softer and less flavorful.

But this is only in comparison to the sea urchins in spring, it doesn't mean they're not tasty.

Cleaning sea urchins is quite troublesome. Zhou Miao removed all the inedible parts, rinsed them with mineral water, and then scooped up a piece of yellow roe to taste.

This was his first time eating sea urchin; before that, he had only watched other people's videos saying how delicious sea urchin was.

This stuff is indeed soft and fluffy, like cream.

The first taste is distinctly salty and savory, but after a while, you'll notice a sweet aftertaste and even a hint of creaminess.

Zhou Miao's eyes lit up as he looked at the sea urchin in his hand in surprise.

For someone like him who eats seafood regularly, sea urchin is indeed a rare delicacy!

However, for people who don't usually eat sea urchins, eating them raw as sashimi might be too much of a challenge.

After all, the salty and savory taste is very obvious when you first taste it, and people who are not used to it may find it a little fishy.

Zhou Miao guessed that the salty and umami flavor of the sea urchins from the horse manure field would be much milder in the spring, and he would compare them again next year when he had the opportunity.

After finishing the two sea urchins, the self-heating hot pot was ready.

The taste of this is far inferior to sea urchin sashimi, and it's not cheap either.

Zhou Miao felt he should buy a small stove so he could use whatever ingredients he could find when eating at sea.

After filling his stomach and resting for a while, he continued to go into the water to explore the beach.

Two and a half hours later, the remaining compressed air was used up, and Zhou Miao did not linger, but directly set sail back to port.

By the time we reached the fish rafts, it was already getting dark.

However, Zhou Miao noticed something different about the waters around the fish rafts. There were many more buoys in the sea, which looked like there were a lot of fish traps.

He thought about it for a moment and realized that other fish rafts had copied his practice of charging for fish traps.

After all, he had taken customers to set up traps for two consecutive days, so anyone with eyes could see it.

Back at his own fishing raft, Zhou Miao saw Lu Xingyu feeding the sea turtles with a long face.

"Brother Miao, you're back!" Lu Xiaoxiao saw the fishing boat and immediately came to the edge of the fishing raft to greet him.

"What's wrong with your brother? He looks so grumpy." Zhou Miao asked curiously after getting off the boat.

"Sigh, he's a little unhappy that his spot for the fish trap was taken today," Lu Xiaoxiao said with a frown.

The large number of people vying for good spots to set up fish traps has directly impacted the fish rafts' income today.

I earned over 3,000 yuan the day before yesterday and yesterday, but today it dropped to 1,500 yuan.

Customers aren't stupid; if there's no good place to put the cages, they won't be ripped off.