Groupers were fiercely territorial. Once one grouper appeared somewhere, there generally would not be a second. If there was, they would attack each other, and the winner would reign!
When Ye Yaodong saw that it was two groupers fighting, he was so surprised that he did not dare get too close. He kept his distance and stayed where he was, watching from afar. Luckily, there was still a fair amount of light.
He widened his eyes, studying the two groupers nearby to see what species they were.
Many groupers had spotted markings; only the shapes of the spots differed, and some looked very similar.
They needed careful identification, or they could easily be mistaken for something else. But one glance told him they were definitely groupers. He had that much of an eye.
The two groupers, one large and one small, charged at each other, appearing and disappearing among the seaweed. Some small fish gathered around them had not dispersed and were still swimming nearby. The sight made him itch to get closer. How could he see clearly from this far away?
The two groupers looked like different species, but they kept darting through the seaweed without staying out in the open for long. For the moment, he could not make out exactly what they were.
After watching for a while and seeing that they were still attacking each other fiercely, he simply swam toward the reef rocks beside them, searching for bigfin reef squid while keeping an eye on the pair.
These fish were fierce and slippery, and they swam much faster than he did. How could he just rush up and catch them?
He would just watch. First, he needed to look for bigfin reef squid. Those were the valuable catches he could actually get his hands on.