Starting fishing soon? Please read me.Follow

To answer your question. Yes theirs money in it! It�s true. Yes it�s a cheap craft.


Before I begin I would like to note this is not a leveling guild. This guide is intended for starting fishermen. Or to those that have given up to quickly to enjoy the perks of fishing. I�m sorry for the bad grammar and spelling. Please try to over look this as I�m trying to help =)


You have to remember fishing takes time and lots of it. It is worth it if you put in the time like everything else. When I started fishing I hated it. But once I got in to the 11�s (and started to understand fishing) I started to love it. It may seem very boring at first but once you do your home work and read up about fishing your time spent will be reduced. Homework?

Essential home work.:

You don�t just buy any old rod and a piece of bait and cast it out there. There are lots of factors to fishing. Type of bait/lure and rod determine what fish you�re targeting. Is the fish in salt or fresh water? What day, time, moon phase also play a factor in fishing.

There are a lot of nice guides out. People have taken the time and gave us the path they took. Please keep in mind that your results will differ. I used a lot of guides on this site. Some of the paths mentioned were excellent! Others were a nightmare for me. This doesn�t mean their data is incorrect.

An example. When it became time for me to cliff fish I think I started around 33 I read from a lot of guides to go outside of Windy and park your self on botter�s cove. This was a nightmare for me. Everything was right but after 6 hours of fishing I got .2 skill ups. Were they wrong? Heck no! There�s times when you fish it just seems like the areas dry. So you move. After an hour I should have moved, but I just put in Lord of the rings and I didn�t want to pause it.

So I went outside of Bastok out on those cliffs and gained fast. First time I ever got a .4 in one cast. But again some times that dry spell would hit Bastok so I�d move to windy again.

If you don�t make out well in an area please move. Sometimes I�ll fish an area for a few days in a row, then even with all of the conditions supporting me I don�t catch many things the following day. This is going to happen. You�re not doing anything wrong. Try another area and see how you make out. You�re bound to find a good spot.

In my option 1-10 is hardest leveling for fishing. You�re not filmier with fishing, and it�s extremely slow. You�re not going to make hardly any Gil. It scares a lot of people off. Just read up and hang in there things will get better! �You didn�t catch anything� This will be burnt in to your monitor screen. This message will never go away but it does get better. A lot better. Don�t second guess your self why you are fishing. These levels are going to suck. There�s no way around it. It�s hard, it�s no fun but things will get better.

Another Example:

I do a lot of moat fishing. Through out your early fishing career you will come back to these for Gil or later to do the Lu Shang quest. When I go moat hunting now I catch these baby�s like crazy! There�s times I�ll catch a stack in 16 casts. You can do it. It seems impossible, it seems so far off but you�ll get there.

You will have plenty of time to fish. At least on my server when your character hits the 50�s Party invites slow down. It�s not uncommon for me to wait over a month some times for a party (I�m not a mage). So what better to fill my time with? More often then not a nice fishing spot is near a cookie cutter leveling area. So just Park yourself down there and let the Gil flow.

Don�t burn your self out. I�ve done this. While fishing for my level 40 gear I started to go nuts. I like to break it up, craft, put a few things on the ah, fish for a while then farm. When I cycle around back to fishing now it�s a blessing. The day your fishing can out do your farming feels good. There are rewarding moments in fishing just like in any craft.

When you catch a new fish it�s just like an HQ snyth. Makes you feel proud.

Here is a quick example just this last weekend. I was coming back from Shell Shall fishing. I jumped on the ferry to head back to Bastok. I decided to toss my line out there on the way and see what happens. To my surprise I jumped for joy. I caught three Noble Ladies before my rod snapped. I�ve never caught them before. After I got off the boat I quickly went to the Fishing guild to find they are worth 900gil each to vendor. If I only had Lu Shang how many more could I have caught? I only wish I could mount these fish on my wall in my mog.

There are lots of moments like this in fishing. To many times I hear people knock fishing. It really is fulfilling. It can be exciting. It will make you nice money.


Yes fishing can be boring too. I�ll share with you what gets me by in these times.

When I first started fishing again I didn�t like fishing at first. I always told my self �Think how much you can make later�

A nice Link Shell: Nothing better then chatting away while you making money.

A fishing buddy: This is the greatest help. I ended up getting my friend in to fishing and we always fish together. This helps a lot not only for some one to talk to but also for support. We can also try out new areas together and try a few different types of bait/lure and see which one works best.

A good book or movie: Unlike any other craft there�s no clicking around every where for different items. Setup your macro and hit (example) Control 1. Or if you have a controller that rumbles watch a movie and wait for it to shake.

A lot of times I just fish and do nothing but that. The more you level the faster you catch things. Every time I pull up another fish or item I smile. The closer I get to Lu Shang the better I feel.

Cooking is a craft that complements fishing very well. Some times Millicorn prices sky rocket thus Insect Paste (bait for moat carps) price increases. You the consumer get nailed with this, plus having to run to windy to get 40 stacks of paste is a pain all the time. Once you level cooking you�ll thank your self. You save a lot of inventory room for those long hauls fishing and you save Gil and it adds up over time.


In closing I hope this was helpful in someway. Fishing is going to be hard, tough, boring and slow at first. Just remember it gets much better and you won�t be sorry.













Edited, Mon Aug 9 22:30:30 2004 by toxicmoon

Great post ..I love fishing as well, and yes cooking skills are deently a plus for bait crafting.
At level 23 I'm just trying to level up on Tricolored carp, which doesn't seem much income, but lately i've been also catching Gold carp like crazy (600 Gil each sale to NPC) so i'm doing pretty good even at this lower level. I completely stopped farming, to me is not worth the stress and the time anymore.
Once I did 2 crazy 8 hours fishing sessions in Rabao I came back home with 150,000 + Gil, invested part of it in crafting, I had 250,000 Gil few days later.
Try doing that killing Crawlers for silk lol

Actually, I went from 0-11 on carps alone. I got some very good money out of it, even if I didn't craft my insect paste by then. I spent my time in Knightwell using little worms as bait. I caught some crayfish and carps, so it was all good. Then I saw that my catch rate on carps wasn't cutting it, so I decided to lvl fishing.

I got it to 28 ish when skillups started to slow down, went to cliffs and it sucked, so my lvl 40 fishing friend suggested Rabao. After getting there I never looked back.


One thing though, lately fishing has been sucking alot. Even in Rabao it's turned to crap mostly, anyone know why this is? I'm talking 6-7 casts with no bites. Cap fishers getting 2 caps in 2 hours, me getting 3 carps in one hour, it's crazy.

I started playing a couple of days ago, i'm trying to become a Ranger/Ninja or a Dragoon/Samuarai... but anyways i'm lv 10 now and exp was gettin slow... so I decided to get into a craft... I though woodworking... for making arrows and bows and stuff... but my friend was sending me insect paste to sell for money... but I bought a round just to see how it would go... becuase I hate having to use stupid crystals and go for tother items... so I went to west ron and found the lake and threw my line in once and I caught a fish on my fish try... I was OH YEA!... so now i'm gonna do fishing... and i'm more excited to get the fishing clothes instead of getting to lv 18 to get my sub job... lol... and this thread really help me and got me more excited to start fishing even more... even though now I don't catch anything but i'm still havin a blast... I NEED FISHIN CLOTHES lol... but they are hella expensive!!

To make a short story long , I started fishing on Sereph when i was a lvl 14 Warrior no sub and found I liked it when i was lfg in the dunes fishing in Selbina.Caought a lot of fish and lvl the skill to lvl 10 when sometold me i had to go back to the guild to get by the cap.In less then a week i went from lvl 2 fishing to lvl 14 just off and on fishing.

Now to the rest of the story.I am now on Titan server and started fishing again with a new char to take a break from farming.I started to do the same things i did before but am now rather dissapointed in the results.I read a lot of the faq's and other guides to fishing and have invested a huge amount of time and gil to get fishing again.Only to spend 20+ hours fishing with many different combos of rods and bait to not get to lvl 3 fishing yet.I just spent 2 hours traveling the world trying to find a decent spot to fish and with no results(i travel as a 42 whm with 5/6 teleport spells so i can get around rather efficient)My results from this last round of fishing was about like this:

time: 2 hours
areas: windurst,bastok and rabao(rabao just for kicks didnt stay long)
target fish: crayfish and moat carp
rods: carbon,bamboo and one other i forget (for small fish)
bait:little worms , insect paste and sabiki rig
had one line break , about 7 "you lost your catch" and the rest were "you didn't catch anything"
skill up's : one for .2
fish caught: 0

any ideas if SE changed fishing that much from when i last went fishing or is it just <incredibly tough> bad luck ?

and please dont let my post discourage any other new fisherman out there , as stated above you're results may vary.And I apologise for a long post

any help, ideas or other suggestions are welcomed

Just to clear this up a bit, gil can be made like this in every craft. (expt cooking, not shur there). So its not to say fishing is the best for gil, its just one way ^^

I picked up fishing when I was board...well...was doing mhaura quest and was taking boat back and forth, and that 7K mithran (I think it was) did not seem alot to me anymore. So I bought it and I ended up fishing for like 3-4 hours (was new moon also) back and forth. Got to 3. In a months time I got to 8 just by fishing as i waited for airship, or elemental weather in qufim.

hard to go out and fish since not much can be made at 8 fishing >< and just fishing for moat carps is boring. I like to sit and watch and help for a monster to pop out for me to kill :p

[quote][/quote]hard to go out and fish since not much can be made at 8 fishing >< and just fishing for moat carps is boring. I like to sit and watch and help for a monster to pop out for me to kill :p

I know what you mean. But there is a nice spot to detour this. Go to La Theine and fish in the southeast part of the map in the more northern pond. Using insect paste you will catch alot of carps and some dark bass. Now...La Theine gets alot of rainy weather and that area just happens to be a spawn point for water ele. You can easily stock up on clusters and combined with the moat carp stacks, you can make some really nice gil fishing there and killing. :)

I always hear these comments about the rumble in controller fishers. Im PS2, and used to fish and got aggravated from all the comp fish bots. I can see how the rumble works but do you just sit around with it in your hand, and wait for rumble? What happens if you dont get a bite? Is your macro set to auto-recast or something?

Must...get...rumble...pad....*drool*


Damn that would make fishing so much easier, then i could read and fish at the same time!

oooo...THX!