Folks fishing is a great habbit to pick up. It is by far one of the most resilant tradeskills of them all. You fish its kinda like pulling FREE money outta the water. Before we get started lets clear up something, YOU ARE GONNA BREAK FISHING RODS. If you wanna skill up at an decent rate you hafta take chances, risk vs reward.
First things first, JOIN THE FISHING GUILD. You can't skill up if you are not part of the guild, so head over to Port Windurst and join up. Most guides on this board say grab a Composite or Mythian and head for the moat carps. Bad idea.
NOTE: if you have Lu Shang's Fishing Rod, definitly use it and just ignore the rod suggestion below. These suggestions are for people w/o Lu Shang's Fishing Rod.
Skill 0-5
First thing ya should do is grab a couple bamboo rods and some handfuls of little worms and high tail it over to Bastok Mines area. Use your bamboo rod and your little worms to fish up some crayfish outta the sewers. These little suckers may not look like much (DONT SELL UM) but they along with your trusty bamboo rod will LVL your fishing skill up rather quickly. Here are a few reasons to use the bamboo. It's the single best rod for beginner fisherman to use and skill up on and it is designed for smaller fish,so none of those pesky "too small" messages. Not to mention it's cheap as hell. Bastok Mines area, well little worms in that area will pretty much single out only crayfish. Taget fish for good skil gains early on.
Skill 5-8
After getting a 5 in fishing you can off your bamboo rod/rods you won't be needing them anymore. Grab yourself a Carbon fishing rod and a Sabaki Rig and head over to the fishing guild in Port Windurst. Fish off the pier there and yank up Bastore Sardines 1-3 at a time YEEE HAW. These suckers will take you to a skill LVL of 9 you can chop them up to start your cooking career or hang onto them for later use. the choice is yours. AT skill LVL 8 make sure to hit the guild for your first promotion.
Skill 8-11
Moat carp's galore. If you have a LVL 29+ in cooking now would be a perfect time to use it. Earth Crystal Millionear Corn, Little Worm, Distilled Water. Insect paste, I suggest using Carbon or Glass Fiber rods. You can sell off the moat carps or turn them in for Lu Shangs. You should make a pretty good profit during this time. Use the money made during this stage and invest in fishing clothes, they make a difference.
Skill 11-20
Copper frogs my ass. Head down into Para mines and half the time you will catch monsters for no gains and the other half the time you will find yourself with nothing on the end of your pole. Fishing for Copper Frogs just plain put my ass to sleep. I swear folks it will knock and insomnic out. Instead grab yourself a Glass Fiber rod head to East Ronfare and use a fly lure. Pulling in Salmon/Shining trout you will be LVL 20 in no time flat. The fish East Ronfare river can snap your Glass pole and on occasion your line will snap. This is one of the fastest LVLin in fishing I have done to date, didn't wanna sleep it was that fun AT LVL 18 you are do another promotion take one of your salmon to windurst with ya when ya head back to promote. You can stick around till ya hit 20 you will cap at 20 without your LVL 18 promotion so it's all good.
Skill 20-30
Ok if you wanna catch Catfish. Well damn I will ask those that skilled on catfish. Was I doing something wrong here? I catch at MOST 4 Giant Catfish a day trying the West Saruta Moat Composite/Sinking Minnow. I was seriously dying there, fell outta my computer chair twice because of shear bordem. Let the money FLOW. INSECT PASTE/Carbon Rods (take 2 one for a back up) Head to Jugar Forest head to the lake use nothing but insect paste. OMG this lake is OFF THE HOOK. Even with a crappy moon you are going to get a bite almost every toss. I can't brag enough about this lake so lemme give some pointers. Don't forget your promotion at LVL 28 Giant Catfish is needed.
The lake in Jugar Forest is a gold mine for fishing skill LVLing. THe entire carp family lives in the lake (don't fish the river BTW) Tricolor Carp will take your fishing skill to 27 (these guys have a chance to snap your rod) The sell for 103 gil per fish in Jeuno to the NPC's didn't bother collecting and giving them in to the guild in windurst. Dark Bass will skill you up to LVL 33 (these have a chance to snap your rod). Dark bass sold for 40 gil a pop in Jeuno to the NPC's. Moat Carp bite here also, no skill gain great to sell or turn in for Lu Shangs these fellas will not break your rod. Gold Carp also bite here, they are rare, will skill to LVL 56 so dont expect gains (these have a chance to snap your rod) they are worth 600 gil to the NPC's in Jeuno. And last but not least by any means the ol Rusty Cap (these have a chance to snap your rod). Folks first time to the Lake O Gil I caught 5 of them and threw them away... caught a 6th and headed to Jeuno with it and hit the sell button and saw the man offer 2,596 gil I was kicking myself for bout 10 minutes straight and a steady flow of profanity flowed from my lips. DO NOT THROW THEM AWAY! LOL No skill gains but they will pay for your broken rods in a hurry. WHEN you break rods in this lake, shake it off folks, sell broken rods back on the AH and pick up some more. It shouldn't happen that often but it will happen, expect it. Because of monsters caught on this lake I suggest being LVL 45+ to fish in the area. If not be prepare to die some. You will pull up Pugils/Crabs and Leeches but not very often.
Skill 20-30 Alternate
There is an alternate route to 30 using those Crayfish you caught at the early LVL's. If you have a umm..46+ in cooking you can make Crayfish Paste best way to skill your cooking from 46-51 BTW Earth, 3 Crayfish, San Doria Flour, Distilled Water. Used on the Selbina-Muhara Ferry you can catch Nebomnites which sell REALLY well. They are used to make Black ink used in many of the Ninjitsu tools. They are also used in Fish Kabobs as well and a few other things. These will net you some nice cash, you wanna burn off some Crayfish paste this is a good way to do it.
Skill 30-40
Sliced Sardines on the coastline in Eastern Sarutabaruta is the place to be. This is the point at which you are gonna want to use those Composite/Mythian Rods. The bling bling at this stage will start to flow really well. If ya need bait fish up some Bastore Sardines! Chop um up! You will Catch Gold Lobster / Bluetail/ Bream in this area. The Bream like to snap rods. You can keep the Bluetail if you want for bait at later LVL's.
40-53
Buburimu Peninsula (beach)
Mithran Rod/Rogue Rig
Warning! (It has been pointed out to me that this portion is not 100% safe as there is the chance of catching Bluetail, which can break the mithran. Please keep that in mind. I will research another path to 53, and update this ASAP.)
In this area, you're primary focus will be on shall shells. I don't recall the price, but I think they sold for about 600g per to NPC, or if you AH them, about 10k per stack. the rogue rig is quite expensive, but 2 stacks of shells on AH will earn it back. HOWEVER, any lure will work here for shal shells. Just not as effectively as rogue rig. The setup I described should have you making about 10-20k per hour depending on moon. If you use any other lure, expect it to cut into your profit potential.
40-55 alternate
Composit/minnow
East/West Sarutabaruta (Sea)
Bluetail and Bastore Bream
53-69
East Sarutabaruta (lake)
Composite Rod/Fly Lure
This is where fishing becomes extremely slow to gain. Especially at early levels. It'll take you to level 69, and the crescent fish sell to the guild for 1300 gil.
69-86
Bastore Bream
Port Windurst
Composite/minnow
86-96
Black Sole
Composite Fishing Rod
Sinking Minnow Jeuno Port
96-100
Titanictus
Lu Shang's Fishing Rod/Meatball Ship
Events for Skill Gains...the working Hypothesis
For now I won't call it so much of a law, but more of a working progress. Although I do not like to get technical because things like this tend to give people headaches, so I will try to keep it simple. Again for the record this is my thoughts, I didn't read this off any message board or buy it off ebay. This is data collected from what I have experianced thus far.
For starters for these "rules" to be in effect you must be fishing for fish appropriate to your LVL. 5 LVLs to 10 LVLs from your current skill. This is the prime target which you should attempt to stay in. Anything more/less skill gains come slower and if you try to fish too high above your skill you will get no gains just like fishing for fish below your lvl. The approximations are based on a single point of fishing skill between LVLs 1-50. I haven't had the chance to test fishing gains above LVL 50 but due to the fact that other trade skills slow down after LVL 50 I am lead to believe Fishing will follow the same basic set of rules. OK on to the meat of it!
Fishing skill 0.0 - 0.8
During this time is when it is most possible to make successful skill gains if you get a "Something caught the hook!" during this time. "Something caught the hook!" rate for this time to gain skill is approximately 5% + any additional "Bonus events that raise"
Fishing skill 0.8 - 1.0
During this time "Something caught the hook!" are reduced dramatically. By dramatically I mean by as much as 80% of normal skill gain rates. "Something caught the hook!" rate for this time to gain skill is approximately 1% + any additional "Bonus events that raise"
Bonus events that raise:
The following is a list of events in fishing that I believe give bonuses to raise your skill and the approximate % chance to raise skill.
Your line broke! + 10% chance to raise skill
Your rod broke! + 10% chance to raise skill
You caught <name of fish> + 5% chance to raise skill
Events that do not raise fishing skill:
Rusty Items
Gil
Rings
Monsters
Fish to far above or below current fishing skill.
"You did not catch anything."
That being said, dont be foolish enough to break rods on purpose, it won't work. For instance using bamboo rods to fish out Giant Catfish. The fishing tackle/rod used during skill gains must have a chance to catch the target fish. A small rod designed for small fish will always break (with the exception of Lu Shangs of course ^^ )if you attempt to catch a fish designated "BIG"
I furthermore believe that "organic baits" have a better chance to attract bites versus lures of the appropriate type. For instance Sliced Sardines have a better strike rate for Bluefin as opposed to a Sinking Minnow Lure.
Hope this helps explain a little about fishing and how to gain skill. ^^
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