CHAPTER 909: CHAPTER 892: BIG FISH! BIG FISH!!!

"Sun Hao, go up and find out what flavor they’re biting on later. Our only chance now is to catch a big fish!"

Sun Hao nodded, "Alright, let’s gamble one more time!"

After Zhongda caught the big fish, Qiu Guoyun was the most excited one. Leading the team out for the competition naturally meant hoping for victory. This big fish equaled a glimpse of victory, but now, that glimpse has faded.

Even though he felt extremely agitated and disappointed inside, he still forcefully suppressed his emotions. It’s a captain’s responsibility; if he lost his temper and reason, the team wouldn’t have been able to hold together, and the last bit of chance would be lost as well.

Zhang Xufei, whose emotions were collapsing, failed to catch any big fish in the next ten minutes of the competition. In the end, he only managed to catch a small carp, widening the score gap once more.

Very soon, Sun Hao took the stage, replacing Zhang Xufei and finding out what flavor bait was being used.

From Zhang Xufei’s mouth, Sun Hao learned that the big fish were biting on the date-flavored ragworm, with quite precise bites, which seemed to be the right flavor.

After sitting atop the fishing box, Sun Hao placed two thumb-sized ragworms on the hooks, plunked them in, and patiently waited for the fish to bite again.

As for the last one to be on stage, Xue Kai, he was quite relaxed. As Wang Xiaomin put it straight, unless the opponent caught two big fish back-to-back in one segment, there was an infinite approximation to zero chance for a comeback.

However, the competition was not just a game of words on paper. At the seventh minute of the fifth round, Sun Hao, who had been keeping low heads and rarely lifted his rod, twitched his wrist to lift and hook a fish, and struck again!

Looking at the bend of the rod, it was another big one!

Realizing that the neighbor had caught a big fish, Xue Kai immediately tightened up!

"What to do? What to do? Should I just mess things up like Ran did so the fish escapes?" Xue Kai’s palms started sweating in an instant.

While Xue Kai was looking for an opportunity, Sun Hao next to him was being extra cautious.

He tried his utmost to control the fish underwater, with no intention to bring the fish towards this side, keeping it as far from the neighbor as possible.

For these professional anglers, once the rod is lifted, the success rate for landing a big fish is quite high, barring any accidents. Using about five minutes, the fish exhausted itself and was successfully scooped into the net.

Eyeballing it, it’s at least a 7 or 8-pound Big Qing fish!

These newly released big fish are not like those old, slick ones in the stagnating practice pole pond. Their release time is short, and their body size and weight are still quite substantial, unlike those old pond fish that look like they’re 7 or 8 pounds but might actually weigh less than 5 pounds when weighed.

As soon as a fish was brought ashore, the atmosphere on the field immediately became tense.

This meant that the opponent’s mid-lane Little Fa Mage had just equipped the Embrace of the Netherflame, and with some luck, catching one more big fish might just turn the tide against Yue Feng!

At this moment, the ideas that Yue Feng had been instilling in the team, as well as his reminders before getting onto the stage, began to take effect.

"No, I can’t panic! Absolutely can’t panic! We are still temporarily in the lead; as long as we catch a few more fish, the weight advantage can exceed that of a big fish, and we’ll win for sure!" Xue Kai comforted himself in his heart, forcing himself to calm down.

In the next second, he lifted the rod but didn’t rush to rebait and cast again. Instead, he closed his eyes for a deep breath to calm himself, then set his gaze to the corner spot at the left front that has been left unhooked since the first round.

The catch in the early rounds now was bearing fruit.

Xue Kai deftly pinched a small lump on the sticky soft ragworm with his fingertips, rolled it into a strip with his thumb, then split it in two with his fingertips to hook on each part separately.

With the bait ready, he chose the private casting ground position, fully stretching his body and extending his arm to its limit.

Cast the line!

The fishing line drew an arc across the air, landing right at the farthest reach possible, with the float flipping quickly downward, soon reaching the target point.

This small area where he consistently cast a few rods during each of the previous four rounds gave a quick response.

The running lead float submerged under the water, and then went completely dark.

Lifted the rod sharply!

Huh? What’s going on? Couldn’t lift it!

For ordinary carp, those youth fish below three pounds, the force needed after hooking is limited and it’s easy to identify. But this fish underwater couldn’t be lifted at all.

It was as if the hook was caught on a huge, incredibly heavy stone instead of a fish.

Did he hook a whale?

This thought flashed through Xue Kai’s mind, and he instinctively lowered his body as much as possible.

Riding on the motorcycle, casting a dragging float far out, the arm stretch made fish control extremely difficult.

The muscle memory trained during regular practice played a critical role at this moment. Xue Kai slowly exerted force, guiding the fish to surface from the bottom.

Feeling the rod slowly rise, Xue Kai held his breath, barely daring to breathe. After a ten-second tug-of-war, the rod finally stood upright.

The moment his empty left hand touched the top of the rod handle, Xue Kai finally let out a breath of relief.

The fishing techniques taught by the instructors and Yue Feng, emphasizing a gentle rod lift, played a crucial role on this fish.

If he had applied just a bit more force while hooking, the startled fish underwater might have given a little wiggle and that would have led to only one result: a cut-line and escaped fish.

The rod was now bent, and Xue Kai steadily controlled the fish, afraid that the opponent would intervene. He pushed his fish-handling skills to the extreme,

Any slight movement at the rod tip resulted in micro-adjustments to the direction of force in his hand, ensuring that the direction of force remained perpendicular to the fish’s swimming direction, minimizing its impact.

Time seemed to slow down, as Xue Kai became completely immersed in the fish-handling state. How to exert force and how to respond were tightly strung nerves in his mind, unknowingly drenching his sunscreen clothing with sweat.

After holding the fish under control for over ten minutes, with three minutes left in the competition, the fish finally exhausted itself, floating belly-up to the surface.

The moment the big fish surfaced, Yue Feng’s live video camera gave a clear close-up.

Oh boy, it boasted a broad, thick body, with a tinge of white on the blue, a sizeable snailshell-marked Qing fish!

This fish outdid the Qing fish caught at Tiancheng by far, estimated to weigh at least 15 pounds.

The fish flipped over, and Xue Kai didn’t rush to net it. With the 45-sized big net head, being extremely cautious, he aligned it several times before netting the fish up.

Luckily, the net bag was deep, unlike the shallow bags commonly used in the Black Pit; such a fish wouldn’t fit neatly otherwise! The deep-bagged net head still left half of the fish’s tail hanging out.

Once the big one was scooped up and carried ashore, Yue Feng laughed and said, "This round is secured!"