267: Chapter 266: Sweep the Top Three 267: Chapter 266: Sweep the Top Three On the third cast, it was another double catch.
On the fourth cast, yet another double catch!
In just a few casts, Yue Feng had continuously caught four double-tails, adding up to eight fish, which now matched Zhen Shuang’s current total catch!
Another cast, this time without a catch, Zhen Shuang finally let out a sigh of relief.
However, what he didn’t notice was that the bait balls Yue Feng had used for this cast were significantly larger.
The reason for not catching any fish wasn’t the lack of fish biting, but was intentionally meant to replenish the spot.
“Damn, missed it, such a good bite!” To tease the chubby guy next to him, Yue Feng even purposely complained in a low voice while lifting his rod, as if he hadn’t handled the bite well.
“Go for it, fish on!” Zhen Shuang, on the other hand, managed to catch a small fish right then and couldn’t help but show off.
“Brother Shuang’s technique is really good, that catch was so steady!” Yue Feng said with a mischievous grin and a compliment that had a teasing undertone.
“This competitive angling is different from wild fishing in the Black Pit, you can’t just empty the spot all at once, or else the fish will stop biting.
The rhythm you had just now wasn’t quite right!” Zhen Shuang, having made a catch, began to lecture Yue Feng, who didn’t counter but allowed his “instruction”.
“Uh, hehe, I’ll pay attention next time!” Yue Feng smirked, the frequency of his casting speeding up a bit more.
Underwater, the fish had already reached a considerable density.
The previous few casts were just Yue Feng finding the most suitable rhythm.
Through several casts, Yue Feng realized that using two small bait balls wasn’t the best approach for this fishing situation, especially in terms of subsequent bites.
While the smaller bait balls made it convenient to catch fish, they didn’t replenish the spot quickly enough.
After making several casts for double-tails, the spot where the fish bit was noticeably lower on the float by several marks on the subsequent cast aimed at replenishing the bait spot.
This indicated that the density of the fish in the spot had been affected.
Maintaining this rhythm risked causing the situation Zhen Shuang mentioned, of emptying the spot.
From this perspective, Zhen Shuang’s assessment, whether it was a guess or a bluff, held some truth.
To solve this problem, Yue Feng made slight adjustments to his double-hook Lure.
The lower hook’s line was a bit longer, hence the bait took slightly longer to settle in place, so Yue Feng made the bait ball for this hook slightly larger, while the one for the upper hook, with a shorter line, was made a bit smaller to facilitate easier bites, in an attempt to find a balance between attracting and catching fish.
Yue Feng lacked the experience of competing with others in a Competition Pit, so these small trials had to be self-taught, verified step by step.
However, understanding the concept was enough, and the targeted adjustments made did have some effect.
The differential size of the double-hook Lure might have slightly affected his speed, but the trade-off was worthwhile.
After casting for double-tails multiple times, the approximate range in which the float indicated bites stabilized.
Zhen Shuang, who previously criticized Yue Feng’s rhythm and frequency, became quiet after seeing Yue Feng continue to catch several double-tails consecutively!
Setting aside the occasional miss, Yue Feng managed to catch seven or eight double-tails in this well-worn competitive pond, where the fish had been caught and released countless times.
So far, except for one case where a fish escaped halfway up, all the others were double-tail catches.
Goodness, originally thinking this rookie was easy to handle, who would’ve thought this newcomer had some solid skills.
Having found the right rhythm for catching fish, Yue Feng felt increasingly less pressured.
Each cast landed almost exactly in the same spot, with a very narrow dispersion that concentrated the bait in the water as much as possible.
This maximized the clustering of fish in a small area, causing a frenzied feeding each time the bait entered the water.
Yue Feng was immersed in the state of casting and choosing the right moment, as if all the irrelevant things around him had disappeared.
Just then, the alarming ringtone of “Sister Sits at the Bow of the Boat” jarringly rang out.
Yue Feng frowned and looked up.
The sound came from Wang Xiaoli’s side, and Yue Feng then realized that this glaring ringtone was Wang Xiaoli’s alarm clock.
“First round of forty-minute fish counting is over!” Wang Xiaoli immediately stood up, dropping his rod as the phone’s ringtone blared, declaring the end of the fish count.
Almost at the same time, everyone put down their rods and stood up.
“Not bad, Boss Li, that’s a pretty useful ringtone!”
“Of course, you think Boss Li has ordinary taste?
No average Joe has this level of appreciation, it’s a classic old song!”
Two anglers who were quite close to Wang Xiaoli sang his praises, joking around.
These two guys had done well in the first round and thought they had it in the bag, so they were in a very good mood.
Wang Xiaoli didn’t seem to care much about the friendly banter and said with a smirk, “Same old rules!
No one move, one person from each end, let’s start the count from both ends.
The guys on the side will supervise, no cheating!”
With that call, the anglers at the two end positions promptly lifted their fish guards and started counting their catch in pairs.
The first round of fish counting showed that the overall catch was quite good.
The two at the end positions had very impressive hauls, with 73 and 77 fish caught in forty minutes, respectively.
If calculated by the hour, that was almost a hundred each.
About a dozen people started counting simultaneously from both ends, and the results of the first round were quickly tallied up.
The two who previously joked with Xiaoli had some difficulty hiding their chagrin, having thought their victory was certain, yet they didn’t even make the top three.
The final results were, first place Liu Fengnian with 87 fish, second place Yue Feng with 86 fish, and third place Zhang Fenglin with 82 fish.
Unsurprisingly, Yue Feng and the other two swept the top three spots.
If you talk about the angling circle in W city, there are some skilled anglers.
In terms of overall technical strength, Liu Fengnian wasn’t considered the very top, as Bai Xu could easily outfish him with crucian carp bait.
Not to mention Wang Xiaoli and the others.
However, the fish today were a bit different.
It’s true that the fish were biting fiercely, but that didn’t mean they weren’t picky.
Wang Xiaoli had a tough lesson with these slippery fish, experiencing severe bait losses—many seemingly sure bites didn’t result in a catch.
In contrast, Old Liu’s approach was much more straightforward and rough.
He started by rolling bigger baits onto a few poles and, after that, inexplicably began catching fish with almost every cast.
After about ten minutes, he almost always hooked a fish with each cast, displaying a great control of frequency and rhythm.
Wang Xiaoli couldn’t help but say to Yue Feng and the others, “Not bad, Uncle Liu!
Your team’s bait is quite tough!”
Liu Fengnian, who won the fish counting round, was quite humble and said with a smile, “The bait condition was just right, which gave me a bit of an edge!
Old Ge told me the pond has been closed for many days and the fish were starving.
Your bait seems too conservative!
What’s the old saying?
Make it big, scatter it early!”
That’s what he said, but other anglers who harbored the same aggressive strategy were fretting internally.
They had been fishing according to the aggressive, fast-fish approach, but it wasn’t effective—the miss rate was too high and unbearable.