Best fishing areas for skill-up?Follow

Hi. I've just started fishing; I want to disregard profits for the time being and focus totally on skilling up. I'm only level 11 in Fishing currently, but I do have a Lu Shang's Rod which was given to me a while back when a friend stopped playing. I have tried reading the guides but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

This one, in particular, seems to be focused on skill-ups;

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=24&mid=1079637243927981626

But I've caught over 230 Cheval Salmon in East Ronfaure since yesterday and I have yet to get a single skill-up. Also, if there is a guide on getting a Pelican Ring, could someone please direct me? Am I too low level to get a decent ranking in the contest?

Thanks in advance

Edited, Jan 6th 2010 1:13pm by Poubelle

First things first. Skilling up in fishing is 100x slower than skilling up in regular crafts. Some days you will not see any skill ups and other days you might see a couple .1-.2 back to back. From 0-50 consider it a great day if you get anywhere close to a whole level in one session.

Few theories here to consider and follow the one that best suites your taste.

1. I read somewhere long time ago, that people "thought" they were getting faster skill-ups by targeting skill-cap fish. I can't prove or dis-prove this as I don't have the reference anymore. If you want to try it, here's the fish.

Turn in Lvl/Fish/Rank
8-10 Moat Carp (Recruit)
18-20 Cheval Salmon (Initiate)
28-30 Giant Catfish (Novice)
38-40 Gugru Tuna (Apprentice)
48-50 Monke-Onke (Journeyman)
58-60 Bhefhel Marlin (Craftsman)
68-70 Bladefish (Artisan)
78-80 Three-eyed Fish (Adept)
88-90 Gigant Squid (Veteran)

2. Other crafts you need to be within 15 levels of target to even attempt the recipe, only get skill-ups on success, and skill-ups on fails when within 5 levels. Fishing is different, you can catch a level 90 fish when you're only level 10 fishing, with a bit of luck. As you increase your fishing skill level, the higher level fish bite rate seems to increase. If you feel there is some sort of similarity between regular crafting and fishing, you could try to stay on target fish within 5-10 levels of your skill. Again, there is no evidence this works or not. If you want to try it here are some fish.

(These are suggested based on ability to narrow catches to target fish by bait and location while minimizing time spent on catching other species.)

Fish level cap/Fish
11 Moat Carp (Insect Paste, West Ronfaure (Knightwell)
17 Yellow Globe (Sabiki Rig, Qufim Island (Ice Pond)
27 Nebimonite (Crayfish Ball, Ferry)
31 Giant Catfish/33 Dark Bass (Minnow, West Sarutabaruta (Pond)
41 Gugru Tuna (Sliced Sardine, Ferry)
47 Black Eel (Worm Lure, Zeruhn Mines)
53 Shall Shell (Robber Rig/rogue rig, Buburimu Peninsula (cliffs)
56 Gold Carp (Shrimp Lure, Windurst Walls)
71 Bladefish (meatball, East Sarutabaruta (sea)
81 Gaviel Fish (Meatball, Gusgen Mines)
96 Black Sole (Sinking Minnow, Qufim Island (Ice Pond)
100 Armored Picses (Minnow, Oldton Movalpolos)


3. Another option is to target money fish that can skill you up. This way you can just enjoy filling your wallet and let the skill-ups come as bonuses. Fishing skill-ups are so slow, that if you fish just watching for skill-ups you will go insane. Best suggestion is to fish for fun/money/crafting and let the skill-ups come as they may.

Level range/ Fish/ bait area
27 Nebimonite (Shrimp Lure, Sea Serpents Grotto)
53 Shall Shell (Robber Rig/rogue rig, Buburimu Peninsula (cliffs)
61 Bhefhel Marlin (Sliced Bluetail, Ferry)"Note: will also catch 48 Cone Calamary and 76 Silver Shark"
90 Grimmonite (Shrimp Lure, Sea Serpents Grotto)
96 Black Sole (Sinking Minnow, Qufim Island (Ice Pond)




Edited, Jan 7th 2010 6:03pm by RobbyFaces

Really? That's kinda lame, I used to like fishing from the cliffs. They added gobs to all the cliffs and that wasn't enough; The botters were hacking to the islands to fish most of the time anyway.

Lol thats soooo not true. I skilled 27-53 on shall shells in buburimu peninsula only a month ago.

And use robber rig, the bite rate is much better than rogue rig with them in my experience.

Were you using halycon+robber rig? If you were, then sucks to be you I guess, but you can still fish there with decent bite rate.


though If you really just want to skillup, everyone knows you go to Nashmau 27-86!

Yes each server is has it's own participants. Also I believe the fish requested very server to server.

Havent played for a while (I have a ring, 2 charges left and have one spare) but when I won my second one there were 70+ Entiries. It's probably died down a lot now as the top 20 people each time got a ring. And Odin isn't as busy as it once was/is made out to be.