On the other hand, Xu Xiao initially did not notice Zhang Yang's details regarding bait quantity.
Next door, Zhang Yang's frequent casts gave Xu Xiao a certain pressure, so this guy kept his head down chasing, even trying to surpass by speed.
It wasn't until ten minutes into the fishing session that Xu Xiao habitually glanced at Zhang Yang next door from the corner of his eye, just in time to see Zhang Yang straighten his back and flick his wrist, casting the light pink double-hook bighead carp bait into the water.
Double-hook bait???
Witnessing this scene was like a bolt from the blue for Xu Xiao, nearly scaring him into a cold sweat.
Forcing himself to suppress his fear, he observed Zhang Yang next door a bit longer, realizing that Zhang Yang had consistently used double-hook bait without changing.
This made Xu Xiao a bit panicked, what sort of international joke is this, the bait quantity is double his, what's he going to catch like this?
Feeling somewhat fearful, Xu Xiao quickly found the scissors for trimming the lead sheet and decisively cut it.
Under normal circumstances, adjusting the bobber with bait is a basic maneuver, which professional anglers can perform with their eyes closed; skilled players can even trim the lead to the exact float they desire within a certain range.
Xu Xiao was one of the standouts among them, but today was different, he made a mistake!
With one cut, he quickly attached the dough bait to both hooks and cast the line, but when the bobber turned over, the float level went straight to the bobber's belly.
Nervousness led him to cut the lead sheet too much!
Having a high float level at three, five, or even eight or ten levels poses a challenge to experienced anglers, though the impact isn't too significant.
But cutting straight to the bobber's belly is another matter; at bobber's belly, the remaining buoyancy becomes unreliable.
By then, even if there is a bite, it might not be visible, and even if seen, judging accurately becomes uncertain; further observing the bobber starts to feel like mysticism.
Realizing his mistake due to nervousness, Xu Xiao hurriedly began adding lead to recover, after working busily for a while, finally readjusting the bobber properly.
The time spent doing this was a lesser concern, crucially it affected his competition state.
The change in mentality affected his feel and judgment during the competition, involuntarily.
All these negative situations became objective conditions impacting his performance, starting to truly take effect.
Actually, Xu Xiao's efficiency in spotting, solving, and adjusting mentality issues was high, yet he couldn't avoid lagging behind.
It was this minor mistake that allowed the first fish to fall into Zhang Yang's hands!
Twenty-four minutes in, Zhang Yang's bobber spotted movement first; the initially stable float level suddenly tilted slightly, Zhang Yang had a hunch, knowing there were fish in the spot!
He carefully held the rod and retrieved the fishing rig, then pinched a bait ball of regular size on the upper hook and a small, fingertip-sized bait on the lower hook, flicking his wrist to cast it again.
Due to the bait size adjustment, this cast increased the float level from three to about five and a half, Zhang Yang didn't care about this minor float detail, squinting his eyes, focusing intently on the bobber.
Suddenly, a bite nearly two levels deep appeared without prelude, and Zhang Yang flicked his wrist, lifting the rod to pierce the fish!
Whoosh! A faint sound of slicing through air echoed.
The fishing rod bowed, quickly followed by the sound of the line exciting the angler, whooping, whooping.
The strength of the bighead carp was considerable, Zhang Yang's 4+3 rig wasn't worried about breaking the hook, once the rod took its angle, success was mostly assured; it took three minutes to successfully reel the first bighead carp to the feet.
Because the pre-match strategy was targeting bighead carp, Zhang Yang's landing net this time was relatively large, not only 50cm diameter, but also an entire circle longer at the net bag.
Zhang Yang held the rod in his right hand, grasped the net with his left, aimed at the fish head, and with a probe and pull, got it!
The bighead carp successfully landed in the net, first fish secured!
Seeing the neighboring angler catch the first bighead carp, Xu Xiao, who originally felt confident about the match, suddenly felt uneasy.
Dammit, clearly both were fishing float, mainly targeting bighead carp, yet the other guy landed a fish first, this was not a good sign.
Experienced anglers know this simple truth: fish biting bait is only a surface phenomenon; even if a bite occurs without subsequent nibbling, it doesn't necessarily mean only one fish came to the spot.
Whether in the wild, in commercial fishing ponds, or reservoir breeding, fish mostly move in groups.
Before starting to feed, they often circle around the food.
Apart from rare cases of luck-related coincidences, landing fish first often implies the spot's fish gathering situation is much better than the neighboring angler without a catch.
Feeling a bit anxious, Xu Xiao didn't continue adjusting lead but directly removed the bobber from the rig, searching for the largest belly number three bobber from the box to replace.
Hastening the casting frequency to increase bait quantity and lure the fish in was too late, he needed to increase the bobber's buoyancy for a larger bait holder!
After switching to a bigger bobber, Xu Xiao increased the double-hook bait size to nearly wild chicken egg size, from afar, each time a cast was made, the rig's bait looked like a massive lump.
If neither side had attracted a school, such adjustment might have worked to some extent, but now temporarily changing was not very effective.