Zhang Yang attempted a few casts with the small yellow face scatter cannon, and quickly the nest was abuzz, but the gathered fish were still very picky eaters.

Despite obvious bites, he frustratingly kept missing them. After a simple attempt, the hit rate was even lower than 30%, compared to the target fish. After ten casts, he only caught three fish, one of which was snagged.

A hooked carp came up — a huge head with a slender body that looked like a giant tadpole, extremely deformed, showing signs of malnutrition.

When fishing for small crucian carp, you can use the state advantage of jelly bait to determine the strategy, but such bait is clearly unsuitable for mixed ponds.

The old fish in mixed ponds swipe the bait seriously, are bold, and become motionless after getting hooked, like someone struck their pressure points. These features are typical symptoms of top-level sly old fish.

Against such fish, conventional small bait flavors naturally prove ineffective. To put it bluntly, with so many anglers playing with small bait, these old fish have tasted every mainstream flavor; without lowering their vigilance, swiping bait cannot be solved, making the fish naturally difficult to catch.

Originally planned to summarize the fish situation at lunchtime, but other members couldn't wait until noon and were already impatient.

Why? Can't catch fish!

Even though the bait was in the water, ready for fish, and there were fish, they just couldn't be caught using all seventy-two skills, which can severely hit an angler's confidence.

"Boss, how do we fish here? Liu Zi and I are completely confused! We've tried every trick, but there's no success rate!" Meng Fan found Zhang Yang, grumbling with a sour face.

Zhang Yang looked up at Meng Fan: "Doesn't the fish situation here feel more difficult than at previous competition areas?"

"Yes! There are plenty of fish, but we can't catch them! Feeling uncertain!" Meng Fan nodded, grumbling.

Zhang Yang grinned: "You all keep fishing here; I'm heading out to buy something! Such fish conditions are too unfriendly, and without some strong tactics, it's hard to achieve results!"

"Can I come with you?"

"No need, just stay put and watch my gear. I'll be back soon!"

After a brief chat, Zhang Yang got up from the fishing spot without even packing his rod and walked towards the pedestrian entrance.

If it was a regular Class Four game, Zhang Yang could endure knowing the fish conditions were tricky since it's fair for everyone.

But this time is different, involving a bet and face-saving issue, naturally making the mindset less laid-back. Zhang Yang decided to use a trump card.

Zhang Yang walked to the entrance and soon raised his hand to hail a cab.

"Hello sir, where to? W City Taxi at your service!"

"Hello, please take me to the nearest agricultural fishery market, or a large supermarket works too! I plan to buy some shrimp, preferably alive; if they're fresh enough, dead will do!" Zhang Yang said honestly upon getting in the car.

"Got guests at home? Live shrimp in this season isn't cheap! Our most comprehensive market is the Fusheng Agricultural Market! But it's a bit far from here!"

"Sorry for the trouble, let's head directly to Fusheng!"

After a brief discussion, the taxi driver took Zhang Yang to the Fusheng Agricultural Market.

After a brief stroll around the market, Zhang Yang found a seafood store selling live shrimp.

Fifty-eight bucks a pound for large live shrimp. Zhang Yang had no idea about the species, but after asking the price, he bought a hundred bucks' worth without batting an eye.

After paying, Zhang Yang asked the seafood store owner to help process them, removing the heads and tails on the spot and extracting the shrimp meat, then using a blender to make a relatively fine shrimp paste.

With the shrimp meat processed, Zhang Yang carried it out in a convenience bag, leaving the market behind shortly, and caught a cab back to Sun Bay.

The round trip took about an hour, and by the time Zhang Yang returned to Sun Bay Fishing Ground, it was past nine in the morning.

By now, anglers had arrived one after another to practice their casts. The two pits were occupied by more than two-thirds, with people packed densely, making for a lively scene.

Zhang Yang took the shrimp paste back to his fishing spot, and as soon as he sat down, he sensed something was off.

Meng Fan with a somewhat grim expression got up and approached Zhang Yang.

"Yang bro, while you were out, Qian Wenjun brought people over! Challenged us to a fish-off, but I didn't agree! They left after spewing a bunch of garbage!" Meng Fan said.

"That's how the story goes, but the details aren't like that, right? Did they provoke you?" Zhang Yang asked, knowing the usual.

"You weren't here, and we couldn't figure out the fishing, so didn't dare to rashly accept the challenge. That son of a bitch deliberately used provocation tactics on me and Fan bro. If Brother Zhou hadn't held us back, we'd have fought them even at the risk of losing!" Liu Zi added from the side.

Zhang Yang nodded after listening: "Not acting rashly is wise! Here, grab a basin, I'll mix some new bait for you guys to try!"

Soon, Zhang Yang took out the finely ground shrimp paste and added water, followed by expansion powder and a bit of sesame dumpling gel, and after thorough mixing, successfully made a batch of bait that looked grayish and eye-wise barely different from conventional jelly bait.

"What's this? Jelly bait? Wasn't there some before?" Meng Fan watched from start to finish, with a bright question mark in his mind.

Zhang Yang grinned: "We'll talk later, first try out how it works! Mash the bait for mixed fish; for target fish, the bait ball is smaller, and slightly slower with the technique!"

"Oh, then I'll give it a shot!"

Soon everyone shared Zhang Yang's newly brought secret weapon and started trying again.

As strange as it may sound, although visually similar, during actual fishing, the effects differed vastly!

With previous commercial bait, even with expansion powder, there was still a high probability of missing bites, but after switching to Zhang Yang's shrimp bait, the miss rate greatly decreased.

Meng Fan tried casting a dozen or so times and quickly found the rhythm — later on, even with slightly relaxed bites, he could catch doubletails.

The fishhook swallowed deeper than with regular bait; clearly, the fish's wariness in eating reduced significantly.

After verifying the new bait's special effect, Meng Fan returned smiling.

He approached Zhang Yang, lowered his voice, and asked: "Boss, this stuff is amazing! The bites are really firm! Even easy to get them deep! Works great for target fish; I'll go try it on mixed fish!"

Zhang Yang nodded: "Go give it a try, if effective, I'll make more for tomorrow's competition!"

Just as the two were whispering, they heard an arrogant and disdainful greeting from behind.

"Yo? Meng Fan, your master is back huh? He doesn't look very old, hey, mate, what do they call you!"

Zhang Yang naturally turned to look, seeing a young angler with some delinquent demeanor standing not far behind with six or seven others.

Zhang Yang habitually smirked and asked: "I'm Zhang Yang, Meng Fan's team captain, what do they call you, mate?"

"I'm Qian Wenjun, heard of Dongxing Fishing Tackle?"

"Dongxing Fishing Tackle? Is it famous? Haven't heard of it!" Zhang Yang pretended to be clueless, deliberately shaking his head, giving no face.

"You..." Qian Wenjun was almost choked, unable to catch his breath.

"Do you have any business here?" Zhang Yang paid no mind to his adversary's embarrassed expression and continued asking.

"You're the fishing expert Meng Fan brought in, right? We agreed on a fish-off at the Jin Garden's last Class Four game!"

"Right, I'm aware of that, and? Isn't the competition starting tomorrow?"

"Competition's aside, we came over wanting to warm up today. But Meng Fan didn't dare accept! Now that you're back, dare to fish-off and let us see the fishing experts of W City shine?"

Qian Wenjun boldly challenged without considering Zhang Yang and his crew, speaking as if victory was assured.

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