"Fuck, finally got a bite!" Liu Wenjun steadied his rod with his right hand, muttering under his breath.

It took nearly an hour of continuous casting to steal a fish from Zhang Yang's spot, and Old Liu had never felt this frustrated before.

Catching a fish now is better than nothing; let's get the job done first!

Old Liu, guiding the fish deliberately, tilted toward Zhang Yang's side every time the fish in the water exerted force, directing the fish near Zhang Yang's fishing spot.

This tactic is quite sly. A regular angler might not have the skills to manage such precise maneuvering, but who is Liu Wenjun? He's a champion angler.

Under his guidance, this hard-won fish swam back and forth near Zhang Yang's fishing spot several times before Old Liu reeled it back.

"Hey hey hey! Really sorry, Zhang Yang, the fish is a bit big, I didn't dare to exert too much force! Scared your spot there!!" Liu Wenjun took advantage and feigned innocence as he apologized to Zhang Yang.

"No worries, you didn't do it on purpose! It's understandable!" Zhang Yang shrugged, appearing indifferent.

In truth, Zhang Yang was quite annoyed, but the opponent's actions were within the rules, so he couldn't take it seriously. As a seasoned angler, Liu Wenjun knew exactly where the edge of the rules lay; his actions always skirted the edge without crossing the line.

The disturbance caused by Liu Wenjun's fish significantly affected the fish population in Zhang Yang's spot.

After Zhang Yang cast again and changed the bait, he watched the bobber until the bait dissolved, yet there was no bite.

Zhang Yang made seven or eight more casts, replenishing the spot, but still, there was no bite.

Zhang Yang thought to himself, damn it, the spot's been disrupted, the fish scared away!

What to do?

Should he continue casting frequently to regain the fish, or change tactics?

After a brief consideration, Zhang Yang decided to employ both strategies.

Replenishing the spot with frequency is essential, but other tactics need to be employed as well.

Liu Wenjun's fish disturbance could only affect the shallower water layers, given the physical distance between their spots; deeper layers were beyond his reach.

With this in mind, Zhang Yang adjusted his bobber position, moving it up by about seventy centimeters.

This adjustment shifted his fishing depth from the shallow upper layer of about over one meter to approximately two meters in the mid-layer.

Now, even if Liu Wenjun tried his fish disturbance tactics again, he wouldn't be able to reach such depths.

Changing the fishing depth, Zhang Yang continued casting to maintain his spot, no longer considering the late-afternoon bottom layer fish opening.

Since carps could enter the spot, one carp could weigh five or six pounds at least, which is far more alluring than carps.

Furthermore, with the previous few dozen pounds of carps, even if he didn't catch another fish before the competition ends, Zhang Yang figured his catch should at least secure a point in the group.

With this mindset, Zhang Yang cast steadily stick by stick in the spot, waiting for the startled carps to return.

Maybe it was because Zhang Yang's fishing depth was slightly deeper now, but after diving into the task for another half hour, his spot remained inactive.

Meanwhile, Liu Wenjun caught two more carps.

"Haha! Even without garlic powder and strawberry essence, these carps still take the bait! Unexpected, truly unexpected! This one's pretty big, too!"

Liu Wenjun cast again, catching a fish, his hands pulling at the rod, making a double-edged statement.

Seeing this, Zhang Yang, laid-back as he might be, started feeling the burn.

Being considerate of Liu Wenjun's status, Zhang Yang had been courteous—didn't retaliate when weighted leads disturbed his spot, didn't confront him when Liu Wenjun intruded his space—but now it seemed Liu Wenjun's sly moves had left Zhang Yang without any bite, and Liu Wenjun had the audacity to brag.

Zhang Yang was not one to let provocations go unanswered, immediately pondering, damn it, how can he create some trouble for the opponent?

In ordinary situations, Zhang Yang had plenty of methods to handle someone but now it's different; Liu Wenjun was too experienced, many effective tricks against others wouldn't work on him.

After revisiting possibilities for a few minutes, Zhang Yang hadn't devised a way to retaliate colorfully.

Should he just endure it? Frustrated, Zhang Yang scratched his head.

Just as he was feeling stifled, having no suitable outlet for his annoyance, suddenly, the bobber at the spot moved.

A very gentle, slight motion, barely a jiggle, then quickly returning to its original state.

This movement hardly counted as a bite—it was akin to a large fish far away wagging its tail, causing residual bobber ripples.

For regular anglers, it would be tough to notice these minor irrelevant details.

But who was Zhang Yang? Seeing the bobber's motion, he instantly held his breath.

Once carps arrive, the spot calmed down from disturbances by small fish; this motion was definitely not from small fish, leaving one possibility: another large fish was nearby.

With this in mind, Zhang Yang gently flicked the tip of his rod and slowly laid down the rod.

The carps' bait naturally offered great dissolution effects; consciously flicking the rod tip would inevitably release plenty of powdery particles, creating a dense localized dissolution zone.

Such teasing action works well with small fish, but when targeting large fish, it can also be quite effective in many situations.

Sure enough, just after teasing the bobber back into position, less than two seconds later—thump! A powerful bite.

A bite of one and a half bobber indicators, with the action so sudden.

Seeing this, Zhang Yang decisively struck—gotcha!

Heavy!

Very heavy!

Extremely heavy!

Attempting to completely hoist the rod to stabilize the fish, Zhang Yang found he could hardly lift beyond fifty degrees. The fish underwater resisted guidance, no matter how he levered it upward.

Upon the first strike, Zhang Yang even fancied a momentary illusion—did he hook the fish's tail?

The fish underwater didn't panic or dart away but remained unusually steady, like a little pig in the water.

Shit! Did I hit the jackpot?

Zhang Yang's heart skipped a beat, immediately feeling tense.

Before contracting this Yaokeng Reservoir, Zhang Yang had heard tales of large fish from the village's secretary.

Despite most of the large fish being harvested before Zhang Yang took over, given the reservoir's vastness, some inevitably slipped through.

During the summer live stream earlier, Liu Zi even spotted a nearly meter-long bighead carp sunbathing on the water surface; if correct, this might be one of the original elder fish in the reservoir. Exactly how large, nobody knew.

Thinking of this, Zhang Yang immediately crouched down, placing the rod against the ground, fully leveraging the rod's bend.

Lucky for Zhang Yang, his technique of striking fish with the rod was quite sound, for this time was no exception—the large fish, after hooked, hadn't suddenly exerted wild effort in escape but, oblivious of being caught, leisurely swam with slow pace.

Facing such massive elder fish, direct confrontation would be challenging; Zhang Yang's three-plus-two line setup offered no chance of a head-on clash.

Aware of this, Zhang Yang calmly and cautiously followed the large fish's movements, consistently maintaining his rod's bend, ensuring the fish line maintained about a right-angle with the fish's mouth, in conducting directional guidance.

Commonly referred to as fish guiding technique; what Zhang Yang performed now was the most standard fish guiding technique.

Directly colliding with a large fish isn't guiding—it's mere tug-of-war.

True guiding is utilizing minimal force to control maximum fish, leveraging the rod's power direction to offset the fish's forward force, guiding it along desired trajectories within controllable areas.

Aligning the fishing line direction with the fish's head direction in a ninety-degree tangent offers the best offset guide effect—an old angler's wisdom, albeit perfect execution during fish guiding is rare. Clearly, Zhang Yang counted among such fish guiding masters.

Underwater, the large fish hesitated to surface and swam back and forth like a submarine; each time Zhang Yang applied himself fully to control its head, twice nearly inserting the rod into water. Throughout the guiding process was a precarious wire walk—slight misstep or just a bit of bad luck, all would be wasted.

However, with Zhang Yang's exquisite technique, earlier intense confrontations were admirably handled.