Skills/Fishing

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Fishing lets you pull fish from any water in the land, and from deep water at sea, rarer prizes: big fish, special nets, treasure maps and messages in a bottle that lead to sunken treasure.

At a glance

Skill cap	100 (Grandmaster)
Tool	fishing pole (15 gold at fishermen)
Range	Water within 4 tiles
Main uses	Food, magic fish, big fish, treasure maps, messages in a bottle
Stats it trains	Strength and Dexterity

How to fish

1. Equip or carry a fishing pole and double-click it: What water do you want to fish in?
2. Target water within 4 tiles. You can't fish while mounted (You can't fish while riding or flying!).
3. Your character casts the line, and a few seconds later you either catch something or You fish a while, but fail to catch anything.

Each patch of water (an 8 by 8 tile area) holds 5 to 15 fish. Once it's fished out you'll see The fish don't seem to be biting here. Move on: the fish come back in 10 to 20 minutes. Fishing poles break eventually (You broke your fishing pole.).

What you can catch

	Catch	Notes
	Fish	The usual catch. Cut one with a knife into four raw fish steaks for Cooking.
	Old footwear	Boots, shoes, sandals or thigh boots. More common at low skill.
	Magic fish	A small glowing fish you eat for a short boost. See below.
	Big fish	Deep water, 80+ skill. Weighs 3 to 200 stones: Your fishing pole bends as you pull a big fish from the depths!'
	Special fishing net	Deep water, 80+ skill. Brings up sea creatures when thrown into deep water.
	Treasure map	Deep water, 90+ skill. Needs a cartographer to decode.
	Message in a bottle	Deep water, 100 skill. Contains an SOS that leads to a shipwreck.

The game rolls in this order each time you catch something: the deep water prizes first, then a magic fish, then old footwear, then a chance of nothing, and otherwise a fish.

Fishing	Chance to catch something	Magic fish	Footwear	Nothing bites	Each deep water prize
20	20%	4.2%	16.2%	45%	—
50	50%	3.0%	10.5%	38%	—
80	80%	1.8%	4.8%	30%	—
100	100%	1.0%	1.0%	25%	0.5% each
120	100%	0.2%	-2.9%	20%	1.0% each

Sea serpents

When you hook a treasure map, a message in a bottle or a special net, it comes up in the jaws of a sea serpent: Uh oh! That doesn't look like a fish! Usually it's a Sea Serpent, and one time in four a Deep Sea Serpent. Kill it to claim the prize from its corpse.

Magic fish

	Fish	Effect when eaten
	Prized fish	+5 Intelligence for 1 minute
	Wondrous fish	+5 Dexterity for 1 minute
	Truly rare fish	+5 Strength for 1 minute
	Highly peculiar fish	Restores 10 stamina

Double-click a magic fish to swallow it whole (You swallow the fish whole!). You can't stack the same effect: You are already under a similar effect. Magic fish are more common at lower skill.

Messages in a bottle

Open a message in a bottle to get an SOS: a scrap of paper with the coordinates of a sunken ship. Sail to that spot and fish within 60 tiles of it.

• Seven times in eight you pull up shipwrecked items: pieces of wreckage marked as recovered from a shipwreck.
• One time in eight you find the ship: You pull up a heavy chest from the depths of the ocean! The chest is filled like a treasure chest (up to level 4) and always contains a special fishing net. Ancient SOS messages give a fabled fishing net instead.

Training Fishing

• Every cast is a chance to gain, from 0 to 100.
• Deep water prizes start appearing at 80, so finish the climb from a boat.
• Below 10.0 you gain on every attempt, sometimes several tenths at once. Above that, each attempt has a chance to gain 0.1.
• The harder the attempt is for your skill level, the better your chance to gain. Your chance also drops as you get closer to your Fishing cap and to your total skill cap of 700.
• If you've set Fishing to go down (the arrow in your skills list), gains elsewhere can lower it to make room under your total cap. Lock skills you want to keep.
• Reaching 100.0 adds Fishing to the Skills Mastered count on your achievements.
• Fishermen and fisher guildmasters will train you for gold: up to a third of their own skill, at most 42.0, for 1 gold per 0.1 points. Ask them (or use their context menu) to train the skill, then drop the gold on them.

Stats: each successful use has about a 2% chance to raise Strength and about a 2% chance to raise Dexterity by 1 point. Each stat can rise at most once every 10 minutes, and only if it's set to rise.

Suggested path

Fishing	How to train
0 to about 33	Buy it from a fisherman.
33 to 80	Fish from any shore or dock; move along the shore when the fish stop biting.
80 to 100	Fish from a boat in deep water for the chance of big fish, nets and treasure maps.

Messages

Message	What it means
You need to be closer to the water to fish!	The water is more than 4 tiles away.
The fish don't seem to be biting here.	This patch is fished out. Move or wait 10 to 20 minutes.
You fish a while, but fail to catch anything.	A failed cast.
You do not have room in your backpack for a fish.	Your backpack is full.
You broke your fishing pole.	Your pole has worn out.
You can't fish while riding or flying!	Dismount first.
Uh oh! That doesn't look like a fish!	A sea serpent is carrying your catch.

Tips

• New characters start with a fishing pole and a floppy hat if they choose Fishing.
• Carry a weapon at sea. Every map, net or bottle comes with a serpent attached.
• Sell your fish to fishermen, or cut them into steaks for cooking.

See also

• Cooking · Cartography · Carpentry · Sea Serpent · Deep Sea Serpent