Back to the Past to Become a Fishing King

Chapter 672 388: The Home Field Advantage

Zhang Yang had just been invited by Liu Wenjun to join him, because Liu Wenjun valued Zhang Yang's own fishing skills and personal strength, not the group of kids in Zhang Yang's team.

But if Han Mocheng was among these kids, mixing together isn't out of the question.

Once you've reached a certain level in fishing circles, the channels of information are quite smooth. For example, Liu Wenjun knows about the incident where Qin Xiao and Han Mocheng had a dispute and ended it by compensating with a house to calm things down.

To get Qin Xiao to admit defeat despite having the advantage of a contract, Han Mocheng's background can be described as unfathomable. This is definitely worth Liu Wenjun's effort to establish and maintain a certain relationship.

"Brother Liu?" Zhang Yang probed after seeing Liu Wenjun remain silent for a few seconds.

"I'm here! Okay, no problem, later I'll arrange a gathering and call my friends over!" Liu Wenjun quickly concealed his moment of distraction and continued speaking.

"Alright! Let's talk after the competition!"

"Deal!"

...

The two chatted irrelevantly for a few more minutes, and the time for pre-match preparations was thus spent.

The referee's starter gun went off once more, and the competition on the second morning officially began!

At the sound of the starter gun, eighty anglers all uniformly performed the lead-sinked nest-baiting action.

Zhang Yang did the same, but his nest was different from the ones used by anglers outside his team.

With some crushed old altar corn added to yellow flour to prepare a wet scatter bait, he also mixed in small particles of mixed grains from the old altar to leave a trail in the nest. The lead-sinked nest-baiting state was maintained so that the lead could sink the bait while mixing in many particles to leave a trail.

The target for the second day was a weight competition, so the small golden crucian carp and original pond crucian carp were naturally not the primary targets. This could also be seen from the bait used, whose flavor started leaning toward naturally fermented old altar bait.

With a difference in target fish species, the amount of bait used naturally had slight variations as well.

During the initial lead-sinked baiting stage, Zhang Yang directly dumped in a whole basin weighing about three to four pounds of mixed bait, then stopped.

How about Liu Wenjun beside him? His initial baiting idea was half a basin, then replenishing slowly. However, he kept watching Zhang Yang's every move and noticed that Zhang Yang used a large amount of bait, fearing he might be at a disadvantage, he quickly adjusted and also dumped an entire basin of bait.

After several pounds of bait were placed in the water, Zhang Yang didn't idle. The wet scatter bait had become much stickier due to the crushed old altar corn, so Zhang Yang packed large triangular bait onto double hooks, casting one rod after another, maintaining a frequency of about thirty to forty seconds per cast.

The general fish condition of the reservoir turned out exactly as Zhang Yang had predicted pre-match; yesterday, everybody voraciously fished the whole session, hooking more than half of the golden and crucian carp in the reservoir. After logging the results and returning them to the reservoir, these fish would be hard to catch again in a short time.

This led to the situation where, after the opening baiting was completed the next morning, the fish activity was noticeably slower compared to the day before. In the first twenty minutes of fishing, not many anglers caught fish quickly.

With fewer original pond and later released crucian carp entering the nest to eat bait, the bait remained untouched, naturally giving medium-to-large native fish species a chance to take the bait.

The bait activation time was slightly slower than the previous day by about half an hour.

Zhang Yang had anticipated this situation long ago, so at the initial stage when there was no bite in the nest, he wasn't anxious, steadily maintaining a fixed casting frequency, while also paying attention to other anglers around the fishing grounds.

It's worth mentioning that the blended floral-aromatic medicated wine bait Liu Wenjun used indeed had a great fish-attracting effect. While Zhang Yang didn't see any bite, Old Liu's nest first showed signs of activity.

Watching Liu Wenjun's bobber lightly bob up and down, suddenly, a strong dip with a half-eye amplitude occurred.

Old Liu, being an experienced angler known for detecting the right moments by observing the bobber movements, didn't immediately lift the rod and strike, but instead patiently waited for another bite.

After the bobber dipped half-eye, it dipped once more, and after two successive dips, it swiftly rose, floating up.

It topped the bobber!

Seeing this scene, Liu Wenjun naturally couldn't wait any longer. Even though he hadn't lifted the rod yet, from the movement of the bobber, he could determine it was almost certainly a crucian carp taking the bait.

Sure enough, when he struck the line, a pound-sized original pond crucian carp was caught, making Old Liu the first to catch a fish.

With the first fish secured, Old Liu's hanging heart was slightly relieved. Fortunately, despite Zhang Yang's reputation for being bold in fishing, comparing the speed with which adjacent fishing spots dipped, he seemed not as remarkable.

Fish began showing interest in Old Liu's nest, whereas Zhang Yang's bobber hadn't budged; in this first covert clash, it seemed like Old Liu had a slight edge.

The reason for the conditional term "seemed" is because this was merely Old Liu's wishful thinking.

From the moment Zhang Yang prepared for fishing by adding a large amount of crushed old altar corn, it was clear that Zhang Yang's main target fish species today were not small crucian carp.

Experienced anglers know that the larger the carp, the more inclined they are to vegetarian food.

This vegetarian inclination partly refers to plant protein, and partly to the strength of bait flavor.

Under the same fish conditions at a fishing spot, using naturally fermented bait with traditional Chinese medicine wine flavor compared to bait mixed with floral aroma, small fish are definitely more inclined to head for the more aromatic floral scent bait.