The Top Fishing
Chapter 211 - 148: Giant Fish Tail_2

Chapter 211: Chapter 148: Giant Fish Tail_2

Now, the lure rod in Lin Yang’s hand and its matching fishing reel are pretty much the best quality available on the market.

The precision of the bearings and gear structures far exceeds that of the ordinary products out there. Each time he turned the handle to reel in the line, he could sense the subtle transmission of force. In the face of the strong torque, the fishing line was reeled in bit by bit at a uniform speed, ensuring the smoothness and stability of the line retrieval as much as possible.

After retrieving about ten-plus meters of line, it seemed like the fish underwater sensed the threat and surged forward again, darting out.

This time, having already familiarized himself with it, Lin Yang did not indulge it. He consciously twisted to unload the force, slightly increasing the resistance of the line going out.

Although the resistance only increased by a few notches on the scale, the effect on the outgoing line was markedly noticeable.

This time, the fish underwater only bolted out about ten meters before it was nearly exhausted and was quickly pulled back in by him.

"I thought I caught a big one, but it turns out to be a paper tiger. Just two rounds and it’s already running out of strength...." Lin Yang locked the drag system tightly and bowed the rod, reeling the line in at a steady pace.

After several rounds of struggle, the fish underwater had clearly calmed down a lot, and was forcibly pulled close by him, soon breaking the water surface.

In the camera’s view, a silvery fish flipped over at the water’s surface, thrashing wildly for a few moments before diving back into the water.

A fleeting glimpse showed that the fish wasn’t too big, only slightly longer than the dogfish caught earlier, with an estimated body length of around 60 centimeters. It had a slender streamlined body with no extra spots or patterns, mainly silver-white in color.

But the fish had one very distinctive feature: its head was pointed and small, seemingly out of proportion with the rest of its body.

"Wow, what kind of fish is this? It looks smaller than the dogfish, but its strength is significantly greater."

"Its burst power seems pretty formidable, but its stamina isn’t that great."

"Blind guess, it must be some kind of fish that is no less fierce than the dogfish...."

Faced with an unknown species of fish, the audience in the live stream immediately started to discuss.

After another ten or so seconds, Lin Yang pulled the fish out of the water again. This time, he finally subdued the sharp-mouthed odd fish. He secured it with the fish grip and presented it in front of the camera.

The fish had a long and cylindrical body with its lower jaw slightly longer than the upper one, a sharp elongated mouth, densely packed fine scales, a deeply forked caudal fin with the lower lobe slightly longer than the upper, grayish-black color on its back, and faintly red pectoral fins.

What is this fish? At this moment, everyone’s mind was filled with question marks.

"Does anyone in the live stream recognize what fish this is? Let’s test everyone. The first one to correctly name it gets a gift of rice wine." After seeing the fish clearly, Lin Yang became somewhat excited and started interacting with the audience in the live stream.

"I don’t recognize it. Baidu’s image search suggests it’s a Bream, but clearly it’s not the same. I guess it could be some kind of pike, it looks a bit like one judging by the shape and details."

"Pike +1. But it doesn’t quite match the pikes I’ve seen before. Rare species?"

Faced with this half-meter long fish, the live stream audience rarely couldn’t identify it correctly.

At this moment, university student Xiao Li, who had been sitting at the bow of the boat, said hesitantly, "This should be a Zong Fish, right? I think I’ve read about it in a book. Its main characteristics match those described in the book. However, wild Zong Fish are quite rare to encounter nowadays."

Lin Yang smiled and nodded, "This is indeed a Zong Fish, also known as Sharp-headed Catfish, Swordfish, or Horsehead Whale. It’s a large, carnivorous, and fierce fish species that lives in the middle and lower layers of water bodies, feeding on smaller fish, shrimp, and other aquatic animals. It’s no less fierce than the dogfish, but because it’s now rare, few people have seen or heard of it...."

Zong Fish are vigorous and fierce by nature with strong swimming abilities, capable of devouring other fish fry during their fry stage. Before reaching a body length of 30cm, they prey on other fish species while living in the middle and upper layers of water, and as adults, they use their elongated snouts to hunt for larger fish in the middle and lower layers.

Even if their digestive tracts are already filled with food, they continue to consume and then expel semi-digested food from their anus.

Zong Fish, like the pike, grow rapidly. Within a year, they can grow over 50 centimeters and weigh about three pounds. In three years, they can reach 70 centimeters, almost ten pounds, and the growth of Zong Fish over five years old accelerates even more, with the largest individuals weighing over 70kg. They are a large, fierce, economically valuable species of fish, yet their natural output isn’t as high as that of the Sharp-headed Catfish.

Because they consume a large number of other fish fry from an early age, they are highly damaging to the four major domestic fishes—Bream, grass carp, silver carp, and bighead carp—and thus are considered by aquaculture industry as pests that must be eradicated.

Moreover, in the past ten to twenty years, due to overfishing and the blockage between rivers and lakes affecting the young fish’s ability to enter lakes to live and grow, the overall fish resources in the major rivers have declined, resulting in a shortage of food for Zong Fish as large and fierce carnivorous fish. Thus, the population of Zong Fish started to decline sharply more than twenty years ago, and now they are extremely difficult to spot.

After unlocking knowledge about the Zong Fish, Lin Yang glanced at the rewards for the fish compendium and found that the rewards were almost the same as for the dogfish.

This wasn’t hard to understand, though. Even though Zong Fish are rare now and difficult to encounter, decades ago, this type of fish, like the pike and Blackfish, were relatively common predatory fish species and were not considered particularly rare.