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Yue Feng rode his scooter straight to Qinglong Lake, and after more than half an hour, he arrived at a place downstream on the west bank called Wangjiazhuang.
Standing on the riverbank looking down, the weather was good, and there were quite a few people fishing by the river. The better spots on the river beaches, at a glance, were crowded with people, at least several dozen of them.
But after observing for a while, Yue Feng noticed that nobody seemed to be catching any fish.
As the old saying goes, it's hard to catch fish at noon, and the situation by the river confirmed this. The fish were difficult to catch at that time of day.
Going fishing with the intention of both completing a task and testing bait, Yue Feng chose a spot quite close to other anglers.
He picked a spot with no one around and set down his simple fishing gear.
As usual, before fishing, he needed to bait the spot. After preparing it with his homemade bait, Yue Feng adjusted his line assembly and patiently waited.
Traditional trolling with a Seven-star float was relatively simple as well, as long as he roughly found the bottom and let three to four star beans peek out from the water.
Perhaps it was because there was a higher density of fish at Wangjiazhuang's section, but just under five minutes after he had baited his spot, Yue Feng began to notice more fish activity around it.
Holding his rod, he teased the water up and down a bit, and the three-star float on the surface was violently pulled under.
From the look of the float, it should have been a solid bite, but when Yue Feng lifted his rod, he came up empty, catching no fish.
"The hook isn't even big, what's going on?" Yue Feng, with his limited fishing experience, was mystified.
Several more casts had similar actions, but still he came up short.
After lifting his rod again, Yue Feng noticed that the worms he had on his Sky Hook had been stolen by the fish.
This time, an idea suddenly struck him – perhaps the fish were too small, unable to swallow the large worms!
He baited his hook again, this time only using a tiny segment of worm, just big enough to cover the hook. If a fish took the bait, it would likely be able to swallow it.
After this adjustment, things improved a lot. The float made another large movement, and upon lifting the rod, a small fish only the length of two fingers was hooked – a Wheat-ear Fish!
Ding! Congratulations on unlocking a new species: Wheat-ear Fish!
Ding! Congratulations, you have earned 20 Points!
Damn! That's stingy!
Only twenty points for unlocking Wheat-ear Fish left Yue Feng a bit disappointed. He had thought that unlocking a new species of fish would always give him a hundred points!
Having solved the issue of not catching fish, Yue Feng's catch gradually stabilized, and he hooked five or six little Wheat-ear Fish in quick succession, quieting down the baited spot a bit.
After about another five minutes, Yue Feng's baited spot had quieted down for a few minutes before he had another bite.
This time, the float's movements were much steadier than before, a light dip followed by a dipping action, and both underwater star floats were pushed up.
He lifted the rod to set the hook, and the force transmitted from the water told Yue Feng that the fish was pretty big, not another Wheat-ear Fish!
A Crucian Carp nearly one pound in weight!
From when Yue Feng started learning to fish as a child with his village friends to now, this was the first time he had ever caught such a big Crucian Carp. After the fish emerged from the water, he felt a surge of excitement, his hand gripping the rod trembling slightly.
While everyone else wasn't catching anything, Yue Feng's catch of a big Crucian Carp quickly drew the attention of the other fishermen!
"Holy shit! Look over there, that young guy caught a big one!"
"That Crucian Carp is big, looks to be over a pound! Beautiful!"
With the first big Crucian Carp hooked, Yue Feng began a series of continued catches.
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After one in the afternoon, a peculiar scene emerged on the western bank of Qinglong Lake downstream in Wangjiazhuang,
a young man seated on a folding stool, carrying a fertilizer bucket, with a short glass fiber rod in hand, was incredibly pulling in fish left and right during midday when everyone else wasn't getting any bites!
After the bait hit the water, the interval between bites became shorter and shorter, soon turning into a constant state of bites as soon as the bait reached the bottom; the larger fish weighed over half a pound and the smaller ones a couple of ounces. It seemed like the fish in the baited spot were inexhaustible.
As a result, it wasn't long before Yue Feng attracted a crowd of onlookers!
A group of people put down their rods and started to gather around, inquiring about the miraculous substance Yue Feng was using. The fish had gone crazy in the blistering midday sun!
Yue Feng's initial purpose for coming to the riverside was to experiment with bait and advertise for himself. Surrounded by a group of anglers inquiring about his methods, Yue Feng was not stingy and distributed all the bait he brought with him, also raking in a wave of System Points as rewards for promoting his shop.
Thus, today, the anglers fishing on the west bank of Wangjiazhuang all knew that a new fishing gear shop had opened in town.
Actual fishing proved that the Bait Wine Rice concocted by Yue Feng worked quite well in Qinglong Lake.
Not long after the new bait spot was established, people began to catch fish one after another, and although their success wasn't as exaggerated as Yue Feng's rapid catches, the fact that many were catching fish in the dead of afternoon exceeded everyone's expectations.
Everyone was immersed in the excitement of the fish biting, and Yue Feng was unlocking new fish species in succession.
Ding! Congratulations on unlocking a new fish species, Blue Knife Fish!
Ding! Congratulations on earning 20 Points!
Ding! Congratulations on unlocking a new fish species, Makou Fish!
Ding! Congratulations on earning 200 Points!
Ding! Congratulations on unlocking a new fish species, Qiaozui Ba!
Ding! Congratulations on earning 100 Points!
Ding! Congratulations on unlocking a new fish species, Can Tiao!
Ding! Congratulations on earning 20 Points!
After several hours of fishing, Yue Feng had not only unlocked the Crucian Carp Wheat Ear but also unlocked four other common freshwater species, bringing his total unlocked species to six.
In addition to completing the system task for unlocking fish species, Yue Feng also earned 1660 System Points as a reward, along with the mobile phone and WeChat contacts of over ten fellow anglers.
It was only when Yue Feng truly concentrated on doing something that he realized Points weren't as hard to come by as he had imagined!
He stayed at Qinglong Lake until evening, before finally packing up his gear reluctantly to head back.
Back at the shop, Yue Feng was confronted with nearly half a bucket of fish and didn't know what to do with them.
Returning fish after traditional fishing was a bit slow, and considering he had had bites on and off all afternoon, plus the fish caught from the small reservoir in the morning, the total weight of the catch was at least twenty pounds or more.
These were only the fish Yue Feng had carefully selected; he had simply released the smaller ones back into the water, not even placing them in the bucket.
There was only a small fridge in the shop for storing earthworms and bloodworms; there was nowhere to put so many fish. What to do?
While mulling over this, an idea suddenly struck Yue Feng—not far from the door was the night market. He decided to keep a few for himself to eat and sell the surplus at the night market!
No sooner had he thought it than he did it. Before long, next to the vegetable stands at the night market, there appeared a young man sitting on a folding stool with a bucket of live wild crucian carp in front of him, the bucket filled with water, and the fish mostly alive.
Freshwater fish just thawed out in spring were at their plumpest and most delicious. Usually, even the fish less than half a pound sold for at least eight yuan per pound at the market, but Yue Feng's, which were obviously of much higher quality, also sold for eight yuan per pound!
In less than half an hour, discerning buyers had swiftly snapped up all the fish.