Back to the Past to Become a Fishing King

Chapter 876 - 585: Three States of Silver Carp and Bighead Carp Bait in Water (Part 2)

The two brothers looked like they had seen a ghost in broad daylight, glancing at the bait in the water, then at Zhang Yang, and finally at the rest of Zhang Yang’s team, trying to find an answer.

Zhang Yang was pleased with their expressions and grinned as he asked, "Now that I say I can fish with a 2g bobber weight, do you believe me?"

"Wow, Teacher Zhang Yang, you’re amazing! How did you do it?"

Xu Cheng rubbed his bearded face, picked up a handful of bait, kneaded it just like Zhang Yang did, and tossed it into the water.

As expected, it quickly sank to the bottom.

Da Bing, not wanting to be outdone, tried the same thing, with the same result.

Zhang Yang watched as the two tried repeatedly and didn’t rush to explain the reasoning.

Not until they had tried many times and were about to give up did Zhang Yang chuckle and start explaining, "A simple junior high physics question for you. When an object falls into water, what is the key factor determining if it floats, sinks, or suspends?"

Xu Cheng and Da Bing exchanged glances, seeing only confusion in each other’s eyes.

As products of slipping through the cracks of nine years of compulsory education, Da Bing and Xu Cheng shared similar experiences, having spent school years flirting and sneaking out at night to play games, leaving no memory of junior high physics.

"What? You don’t know? I guess you didn’t pay attention in school! If you don’t study well, you can’t fish well either!

Okay, I’ll just give you the answer! Remember, the main parameter that determines an object’s state in water is its density!

And what is density? It’s the mass per unit volume of the object!

Relating this to the bait, in simple terms, it’s how tightly you knead it with your hands!

The more tightly you knead the bait, the greater the density, and the faster it sinks after entering the water!

The more loosely you knead, the smaller the density, and the easier it is to float on the surface after entering the water!

As for suspension, that’s the hardest. When the bait’s density is close to water’s density, it can descend slowly or remain suspended for some time!

Now that you’ve heard the theory, you should know what to do practically, right? There’s still some bait left; go and try it out!

Even though Xu Cheng and Da Bing didn’t study seriously at school, they understood Zhang Yang’s meticulous explanation.

So, after listening to Zhang Yang, they started trying again.

Once they understood the principle, what’s left is practice. Xu Cheng and Da Bing are both smart, and after some trials and adjustments, they could soon get the bait to float on the surface. It was just a matter of applying enough force to compact the outer layer while retaining the loose inner structure.

Making the bait sink to the bottom is easy; getting it to float on the surface is not hard either. The real challenge is getting the bait to maintain a near-suspension state.

As the two were on the verge of collapse, Zhang Yang skillfully demonstrated it in person several times, and when a bowl of bait was almost used up, Xu Cheng finally succeeded once.

"Hahaha, look! Look at the bait in the water! It’s suspended; it really can suspend!" Xu Cheng shouted excitedly, as if he had won a lottery.

"When you first train with this thing, it might be a bit troublesome, but once you use it a lot, it becomes a matter of feel. Don’t get too thrilled over succeeding once; you’re still far from the real deal!

I’ve taught you the technique; now it’s just constant practice! My personal suggestion is to start practicing as soon as you prepare the bait, this way you can reduce the difficulty of technique later on!

Alright, continue your research! You still have the whole afternoon. I’m going to continue fishing and challenge the big carp in East Lake Reservoir; there’s still an afternoon left!"

After Zhang Yang showed his skill, he gave Xu Cheng and Da Bing a direction to strive for.

The two brothers stopped fishing and each opened up a bowl of bait to continuously practice Zhang Yang’s taught technique.

Now, Zhang Yang somewhat understood the ancient adage about not casually passing on skills or selling them cheaply. The elite team back home watched over Zhang Yang, a national treasure-level sport fishing artist, every day, yet their eagerness to train and learn was just okay, not low, but definitely not zealous. However, look at Xu Cheng nearby—practicing with extreme focus in the sweltering room temperature of over thirty degrees.

Zhang Yang shook his head, dispelling these strange thoughts from his mind.

There wasn’t much bait left after Xu Cheng’s and their experiments, so Zhang Yang opened a few more packs and, somewhat pained, added a few drops of concentrated essence before trying again.

By the time Zhang Yang finished teaching the technique and had the bait ready again, it was already 2:40 PM.

Noon might not be an ideal time for fishing other types of fish, given the saying that not even a god can fish at noon.

However, in large reservoir waters, fishing for silver carp, which are filter feeders, isn’t too affected by this time. In fact, due to the increased water temperature, silver carp can be more active than during the cooler morning.

During lunchtime, the fishing spot Zhang Yang had set up became quiet for about an hour or two because of this, and the baited area on the waterbed had already dissipated considerably due to the flow. The fish school that had been gathered by consistent casting could also be impacted by the scarcity of bait.

But none of these factors bothered Zhang Yang. After all, the fishing fee was reimbursed, and he had almost finished filming his videos. Now, Zhang Yang was carefree, able to fish however he wished without needing to consider any factors.

With this mindset, Zhang Yang’s afternoon fishing style became much more relaxed.

He stopped the frequent casting and switched to leisurely hand-casting of bait balls, each about the size of a walnut, into the fishing area, one at a time. The bait on the hook was also kneaded much more tightly. One cast could take over a minute to dissolve and come off.

While leisurely fishing for a while, Zhang Yang noticed the fish in the reservoir became noticeably more active around this time.

Especially the little fish like the white bream that hardly moved in the morning were now extremely excited on the surface. Every time the bait entered the water, the bobber jumped repeatedly before eventually sinking.

In this situation, using a small weight bobber wasn’t quite suitable, so Zhang Yang decisively switched to a larger No. 3 bobber with over 4g lead, allowing the larger lead weight to pierce through the water layers quickly, reducing the disturbance from small fish.

Indeed, after adjusting his approach, the bobber movements became much more pleasant. Every now and then, there would be a bite, not as frequent as the morning’s fast sequence of bites, but enough to keep him busy, which was just a form of enjoyment for Zhang Yang, who had nothing to do at the moment.

After catching several silver carp of different sizes, Zhang Yang started pondering another question.

With the water temperature rising, the fish activity increased, yet the fishing depth still remained the same as the morning’s without any adjustments. Where would the big fish around the baited area be?

In the morning, Zhang Yang had tried fishing at a depth of over three meters, aiming to catch a large native reservoir fish, but without any bites. Now, without the pressure of fishing fees and filming, why not try again?

Once this thought crossed his mind, Zhang Yang immediately started making adjustments.

He pulled up the line and moved the bobber holder to around three meters, then baited and cast to test bites. Upon realizing that silver carp could still be caught at this depth and were generally larger than those at the previous depths, Zhang Yang gritted his teeth and raised the bobber holder almost another meter.

Now, the water depth at the bottom was just over five meters, and Zhang Yang was already fishing at depths of about 3.8 or 3.9 meters, having adjusted from mid-depth to near the bottom.