Chapter 811: Chapter 551: Tactical Disagreement (Part 2)

If they both fish on the bottom, Zhang Yang’s skill at grabbing bites and doubling up is extremely strong. Huang Zheng can’t get an edge that way, so he might as well go all-in on one path. If he gets lucky and manages to lure the small crucian school back in from around him, he could completely turn the tables.

With all this in mind, within less than two minutes from the start, Zhang Yang and Huang Zheng’s fishing styles underwent a clear change.

The changes in the anglers’ tactics on stage, under the aid of HD cameras, were shown clearly to the commentary desk below and to the livestream audience.

Sun Yi couldn’t help saying, "Teacher Yu, look—Zhang Yang and Huang Zheng on the stage seem to have completely different plans for their tactics now!"

Yu Wensheng nodded. "Exactly. Xiao Sun, you’re observing quite carefully. Zhang Yang only test-fished two casts before he immediately stood up and switched to his backup rod.

As for Huang Zheng, he glanced over just now, so he definitely noticed this detail, but he didn’t follow suit with any adjustment. He’s still rapidly casting to build the swim!"

"Zhang Yang is fishing on the bottom and has started twitching the rod tip again. This has basically become his signature move in this match! If my judgement’s not wrong, he should be going back to his previous tactic—fishing on the bottom!

Next door, Huang Zheng is still desperately upping the casting frequency to draw fish, and he’s using a very short bobber too. Is he planning to continue the fast surface bite from the first half and keep fishing mid-water?

Teacher Yu, how do you see their tactical choices?"

Yu Wensheng squinted and watched for several seconds before slowly picking up the thread: "Your analysis is pretty accurate. From how the two anglers are fishing, they’ve indeed developed a big tactical divergence!"

"Then who are you more optimistic about? The fish conditions in this Competition Pond No.1 are a bit weird. In the first half you could clearly fish mid-water, but after just a ten-minute break, we start the second half and suddenly there are no bites!" Sun Yi locked onto this topic and kept guiding the guest to keep talking.

In this situation, the probabilities for either scenario are about the same. If the fish stay calm and don’t get frenzied, Zhang Yang will clearly win. If Huang Zheng manages to draw the school of small crucian back, then he’ll turn it around.

Given this reality, from Old Yu’s standpoint, it wasn’t appropriate to state a position publicly; if luck turned, he’d get slapped in the face.

But this little lass Sun Yi seemed determined to settle the score for her embarrassment in the first half, clinging stubbornly to this topic.

Yu Wensheng really couldn’t dodge it anymore, so he could only bite the bullet and analyze: "With the fish situation still unclear, it’s hard to say whose tactics are better right now! Before the second half started, I said that the aerator might have dispersed the small crucian school. I didn’t expect to really see signs of that now!

If, within five minutes, Huang Zheng’s swim clearly picks up, then he’ll have some chance to win. Otherwise, Zhang Yang’s odds will be greater!"

"Uh... Five minutes is going to be the key node in the second half? I’m a bit slow and can’t keep up with your train of thought. Could you break it down?"

Yu Wensheng continued explaining: "It’s simple. Normally, when he’s fishing on the bottom, after about five minutes of building the swim, Zhang Yang’s bottom bites will start to speed up!

If Huang Zheng can lure the small-sized crucian school back before that, then with the super-high efficiency of fishing mid-water, he still has a shot at catching up or even overtaking!

If he manages to draw the small fish in the surface layer within that five-minute window, Zhang Yang will immediately abandon the bottom swim he built and switch back to fishing mid-water!

But after five minutes, Zhang Yang’s bites will no longer be slow, and it’s impossible for Huang Zheng to suddenly explode into back-to-back fish. Going back to change tactics at that point won’t have much real effect!"

"Not necessarily, right? Why are you so sure that as long as Huang Zheng brings the small crucian school back, Zhang Yang will immediately adjust?"

Sun Yi had already understood what Yu Wensheng meant, but she questioned his tone of certainty.

Yu Wensheng grinned and said, "Look at you—I just praised you for being smart and now you’re getting muddled again! Why? Because the small crucian in Pond No.1 naturally move in schools!

If Huang Zheng is suddenly getting lots of bites, that means the small crucian school has come back. With Zhang Yang and Huang Zheng’s pegs so close to each other, the distance between them is tiny. Once the school comes in, those small crucian don’t care whether they’re on the left peg or the right peg. Fishing mid-water is so爽快, you think Zhang Yang doesn’t know the difference?"

"Uh, uh... Looked at that way, it still seems like Huang Zheng is more passive, and Zhang Yang’s odds of winning are higher."

Now it was Sun Yi’s turn to stall. She accidentally exposed her shallow understanding again. But she thick-skinnedly changed the subject, and her performance in the livestream still looked smooth enough, not too awkward.

"Of course, with a four-fish lead in hand, Zhang Yang’s odds are definitely much higher! If Huang Zheng wants to come from behind, he has to perform even better than Zhang Yang. But Zhang Yang happens to be an angler whose technique is extremely stable! This match is looking tough for him!"

...

Old Yu’s analysis was very reasonable, but the fish situation didn’t develop in the direction he was hoping to see.

On Pond No.1, there had already been many matches before this. The only time they ran into a big school of small crucian and got those continuous hook-ups on the match pegs was in the first half of this round. Even just from a probability standpoint, the chance of Huang Zheng drawing fish in the second half was not very high.

That’s exactly how it played out. Zhang Yang kept his head down, twitching the rod tip to attract fish and build the swim for several minutes. The bites in his swim clearly became more frequent. As for Huang Zheng? Over the same period, he basically wasted his effort. At the surface level he’d fished in the first half, he just couldn’t gather any decent number of fish.

When Zhang Yang extended his lead to six fish, Huang Zheng couldn’t hold it in anymore. Even though he knew it was a slow death, he still reluctantly gave up fishing mid-water and switched back to bottom fishing like Zhang Yang.

The moment Huang Zheng stood up to switch to his backup rod, Old Yu at the commentary desk shook his head. There were still nine minutes left in the match, but it was basically certain that Huang Zheng was very likely to lose this one.

"Luck still isn’t on Huang Zheng’s side. After all that high-frequency casting, the small crucian school never came back! He’s given up on fishing mid-water now!" Yu Wensheng said with a touch of regret.

"Even though the mid-water tactic failed, he still has a chance, right? After all, he’s put a lot of bait in. There’s got to be some fish holding on the bottom of that swim, no? Nine minutes left—there should still be a chance!" Sun Yi tried to patch things up, not entirely convinced herself.

"Uh, the way you put it, there really might be some possibility!" Yu Wensheng frowned slightly and froze for a moment before adding, half a beat late.

Old Yu really hadn’t considered that. After all, Huang Zheng wasn’t some rookie idiot. While he was casting at high frequency, he’d made sure to leave himself a bit of a fallback. He hadn’t thrown the bait as far and as wide as possible, but kept the drop zone around the normal bottom-fishing swim.

In a relatively dense Competition Pond, you can’t underestimate the effect of those bits of leftover bait—they still do something. It’s just that the effect is a bit weaker than Zhang Yang directly twitching the rod at off-bottom height and shaking the bait off there.

Having been basically "sentenced to death" by Old Yu, once Huang Zheng switched his rigs and started bottom fishing again, his very first cast got him a lift-bite, and he successfully landed one.

"Haha, see, Teacher Yu? I wasn’t wrong! Huang Zheng’s first bottom cast and he gets a fish! And Zhang Yang blanks on this one. The gap goes from six fish back down to five!" Sun Yi said, a little excited.

"Haha, you’re right. This time I didn’t think it through! Tsk tsk, youth is great—quick mind. These old bones of mine can’t quite keep up anymore!" Yu Wensheng took the chance to climb down gracefully, giving Sun Yi full credit.

"Do you think this gap in fish count will keep shrinking?"

"Hard to say. Let’s see who hooks up on the next cast! Just now there was a lift-bite about ten-plus centimeters off the bottom in Huang Zheng’s swim, so all that earlier high-frequency casting wasn’t completely wasted!"

If there are fish biting, it’s indeed not totally wasted effort. But compared to diligently working the swim, going for a gamble with high-frequency mid-water casting while trying to build the swim is obviously far less effective at drawing fish.

Sure enough, on the very next cast, Zhang Yang nailed a beautiful double-up, stretching the gap from five fish back to seven!