To fish or not to fish?

[Damien Kilcannon]

I recently hopped on my archer and added my fishing so I could go out and fish up some pearls for our crafter's house. While doing so I have apparently inspired some others to work fishing up on some char or other of their own and promptly started to completely bash it as a skill and probably made it sound like it was not worth it.

I just wanted to post here and let you guys know that nothing could be further from the truth! Yes, the skill takes forever to GM, in my opinion at least. It is a very boring skill to raise so I wanted to offer some advice to any aspiring fisherpeople currently working or thinking of working the skill.

When you start out just fish from any docks or from any river in the land. I actually got a boat and then followed the shores of the islands and continents just for a change of scenery. That also taught me great boat handling skills...hehe...Most people and even Stratics I believe will tell you that you need to stay in "shallow water" until you get to 70-75. Then you want to head to deeper water. "Shallow water" is any water within 10 tiles of shore. "Deep water" is of course is anything farther from shore than that. I myself headed to deeper water at 65 or so and seemed to do just fine.

Once you start fishing in deeper water you will start to pull up sea serpents and the occasional kraken. I am not sure if the chance to fish up one of these is skill dependant or not. On some of those creatures, after you kill them, you will find a bottle that appears to be a wine bottle or something but when you hover the cursor over them they will say "message in a bottle". Double click this bottle and you will get an sos. If you open it you will then see some coordinates and if you navigate your boat to that location and start fishing you will pull up some assorted junk, pillows, globes and the like and also a chest.

The loot in the chests is not all that great and I cannot say if char luck has any bearing on what you find. I used to just open chest and take the jewels and gold then throw the chest overboard. I now take it home and unravel everything in it. Have gotten decent imbuing gains and of course tons of residue and even a few essence.

You can also find fishing nets on those creatures you fish up. Also, some of the messages in bottles are actually ancient sos's(white scrolls). Of course in addition to sos's and fishing nets you can also fish up white pearls which are used for crafting Pendants of the Magi as well as imbuing. Minimum skill to fish up white pearls is 80. You can also fish up the delicate scales which are an imbuing ingredient of limited usefulness.

Now, I personally recommend adding the fishing to your archer and carry a decently fast bow with good damage. You need to have a way to defend yourself against the monsters you fish up and the ones that naturally spawn out there. Some people use their tamers and have a spell casting pet defend them. Others just use a straight mage. The choice is up to you!

If you open the sos's and go fish up the chests as you work your fishing skill it can help to alleviate some of the bordom and hopefully keep you from breaking your pole over your knee and jumping overboard in frustration and boredom. I recommend saving any ancient sos's and take a couple of folks with you to do those. They can be tough...hehe!

So get you pole and you ship deed and I will see you out on the high seas!

[eekamouse]

Yep. I love fishing.

I never pulled up a Kraken just randomly fishing. Only from nets. I have 3 ancient SoS now to try my hand at a Leviathan now

[KDSonoma]

I know someone who used to throw the white nets from either Magincia or Bucs Den docks, to fight stuff from land (much safer than getting swarmed by the mob on a boat solo).

Does that still work?

I know someone asked if they could solo green or white nets ingame the other day, and I remembered this other PAS telling me how he did it.

If it still works, then that might help some folks to solo some of those nets.

KD

[Damien Kilcannon]

Soloing the nets is not too hard...I do them from the boat...I toss the net and then just as the spawn comes up tell it to go slow forward so I dont have to worry about them hitting me from all sides...I do NOT recommend tossing two at once...LOL...I got brave last night and ended up saying OOOoOoooooO...

[dlwiii]

I am one of those poor souls recently drawn into that 8th circle of hell known as fishing. Actually, it's not too bad! I do find boats awkward to navigate though. I'm at 78 skill now, hoping to get to that magical 80 where I can get White Pearls.

One thing that helps is to have a Crystal ball of knowledge, which you can get from one of the gargoyle quests in Tel Mur. It will tell you when you are in the "Optimal" waters to gain skill.

These pearls are required to make slayer weapons (though not required for super-slayers), so it is good that we have more fishermen these days, so we can keep up a good armory.

Does anyone know how long a boat can stay unattended in the ocean? It is tedious to bring it back to the harbor when done playing. if I could leave it out in the ocean and just pop back once a day to refresh it, that would remove at least that part of the tedium.

[Damien Kilcannon]

They say you have up to 7 days before it will sinki if not refreshed. I have heard of people losing their boats in less time than that. I would say if you recall out once a day and open and shut plank then you will be safe. It is what I am doing. I do not like docking it either. LOL!