Fishing ~ Game Guide.

Fishing
Fishers are harvesters of the realm's marine and freshwater animal resources. The goods they obtain from their catch place them in direct dealings with both Culinarians and Alchemists.
Be it from the shore of a sea, the bank of a river, or the deck of a boat, Eorzea's anglers must constantly account for a wide range of factors to optimize their success, including season, time, place, tools, and bait. In addition, the sometimes perilous nature of desirable fishing holes, be they on or offshore, above or below ground, prompts many fishers to employ the protection of more combat-oriented professions. The primary tool of the fisher is the fishing rod.

Abilities

Clever Arc ~ Slows the rate at which a gathering location's remainder decreases.
Master of Fish ~ Increases your chance to obtain high-quality items while gathering.
Truth of Seas ~ Ensures one or more crystals whenever an item is obtained by gathering.
Llymlaen's Ward ~ Temporarily increases your chance to obtain wind crystals.
Thaliak's Ward ~ Temporarily increases your chance to obtain water crystals.
Deft Grasp ~ Temporarily increases your dexterity.
Tidal Faith ~ Temporarily increases your piety.
Gulleye ~ Survey the landscape to locate grade 1 schools of fish.
Dowse ~ Survey the landscape to discern the number and direction of grade 1 schools of fish in the area. Increases movement speed when far.
Nature's Bounty ~ Increases your chance to locate rare items while gathering.
Gulleye II ~ Survey the landscape to locate grade 2 schools of fish.
Veteran Trade ~ Increases your chance to hit items aimed for while gathering.
Dowse II ~ Survey the landscape to discern the number and direction of schools of fish grade 2 and below in the area. Increases movement speed when far.
Way of Plenty ~ Increases the remainder of a gathering location.
Gulleye III ~ Survey the landscape to locate grade 3 schools of fish.
Dowse III ~ Survey the landscape to discern the number and direction of schools of fish grade 3 and below in the area. Increases movement speed when far.
Gulleye IV ~ Survey the landscape to locate grade 4 schools of fish.
Dowse IV ~ Survey the landscape to discern the number and direction of schools of fish grade 4 and below in the area. Increases movement speed when far.
Wavekin Eluder ~ Temporarily avoid enemy encounters. Effective only against wavekin.
Gulleye V ~ Survey the landscape to locate grade 5 schools of fish.
Dowse V ~ Survey the landscape to discern the number and direction of schools of fish grade 5 and below in the area. Increases movement speed when far.
Gulleye VI ~ Survey the landscape to locate grade 6 schools of fish.
Dowse VI ~ Survey the landscape to discern the number and direction of schools of fish grade 6 and below in the area. Increases movement speed when far.

Important Attributes

Dexterity (DEX) Main hand tool.
Piety (PIE) 2nd hand tool.

Tools of Trade

Fishing Rod

Gig

Bait

Lure

Bait & Lure

A wide variety of bait is available with each being either consumable (worms, etc) and reusable (lures and jigs).
Bait is relatively cheap, and you only lose your consumable bait if you hook the fish, so feel free to experiment. To equip bait, simply selected it from the Attributes & Gear menu, and hit enter to add it to your Pack. Or, if you wish to macro it, you can type /equip pack "BaitNameHere".

Fishing

I think where most people have trouble is the actual hooking of the fish. You may or may not get a bite every cast, and the trick is figuring out how to hook the fish you have nibbling at your bait. I have some ideas on how this works and I will explain what my theory is, but I would like to point out that this is pure speculation on my part. I started to keep a log of my hook rate, but I don't have enough data to conclusively prove anything yet. That being said, I think it is a good theory, and hopefully if other people try it and report their results, we can come up with a conclusive method that works for most.

There are effectively two actions you can perform once you start fishing: Wait or Jig.

Waiting after you get an initial bite will cause you to wait for another bite. I never do this, as I think I only ever got one hooked when waiting after the first bite. Your results may vary.
Jig causes your character to move their rod in such a way as to try to either hook the fish (if you don't have one on the line) or to try to weaken the fish in order to reel it in.
My normal pattern of fishing is: Set Depth >> Wait for bite >> Jig to Hook >> Jig to Weaken Until Caught.

There are various messages you get while jigging once you have the fish hooked that I will go into detail about later on.

Jigging to Hook: A Theory

My observations while fishing have lead me to believe that there are two sweet spots that you should jig on in order to maximize your chances. In order to explain the sweet spots, I need to first explain how jigging works. When you select Jig, a meter is displayed with a colored dot that moves back and forth.

It is your job to stop the dot in order to determine if you hook the fish (or weaken it if you have one hooked). I believe there are Zones to the meter, probably 5 but possibly 3.

The goal of jigging changes when you are trying to hook a fish versus when you are trying to weaken it. I will explain both next.

Hooked versus Weakening

Hooking the fish involves stopping the meter in what I think of as the "Sweet Spot".

Here is where we delve into speculation. I believe that in order to hook a fish, you need to stop the dot near to some predetermined point on the meter. Think of a cone that is where you need to stop the dot (what I refer to as the "Hook Point" below). If you do it correctly, the fish is hooked. Otherwise, you miss the fish. Furthermore, if you try on one of the sweet spots and it doesn't hook a fish, immediately try the sweet spot on the other side. A great majority of the time you will hook the fish on the second time around.

It is my theory that the cone where you should set your hook point for the fish is actually quite wide, say maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the meter. So the two sweet spots are really the best way of ensuring you get the fish on either the first or second nibble. Of all of the casts where I missed my first attempt at hooking the fish, if I were to try the sweet spot on the other side it seems that almost always I would then hook the fish. Again, without hard data it's just a gut feeling, but I still think this is a good theory.

Reeling It In

Now that you have it hooked, what do you do? Well now the game starts the hot and cold part. Your job now is to pick a point on one side or the other of the point where you selected to hook the fish and see if you weaken it or if it runs with your line. The messages you get as you battle your fish are a clue as to how you're doing. I'll run down them and try to add my thoughts to each. One thing to note: you don't have an unlimited amount of time to reel the fish in. There is a gauge that appears under the meter that represents the amount of stamina you have left to reel the fish in. Each jig will cost you some stamina. You need to land the fish before you run out of stamina.

Nothing bites

You get this when there are no bites. This really has nothing to do with what you've done, although there is speculation that changing depth can help if you see it several times in a row.

You've hooked something but cannot reel it in.

This is the default message, and is what you will most often see once you hook a fish. There really isn't a lot you can do with this, other than to try one way or the other.

The fish is taking line.

This you will get after the initial hooking, when you are trying to figure out which way to go from your hook point to get the fish. This message means you picked the wrong way.

The fish is taking a great deal of line.

You guessed really, really wrong [1] This might happen if your initial guess is on the edge of the cone that you had to hit to hook the fish (I think anyway). At any rate, you need to move back to the other side of your hook point.

You take in some line.

You're getting warmer. You picked the right direction, now try to go further. I try to increment by the width of the dot each time unless I pick the wrong way to begin with. It usually isn't terribly far from the hook point, but that isn't always the case. You need to judge how much based upon how much stamina you have left on the guage.

You take in a great deal of line.

You're getting closer. Much better, but still a ways off, and I would recommend decreasing the distance between the next jig if you have the stamina for it.

The fish has tired, but you still cannot reel it in.

You're there. For some reason, you need one more jig to get the fish in. Hit the exact same spot you did the last time, otherwise you'll give up line to the fish and will probably lose it if you are out of stamina.

You lost what felt like a Tiger Cod.

You got really close but ran out of stamina at the end. Since you got this close, they let you know what you almost caught. This message makes me think certain fish have a pattern to catch them, or at least there is something in how you catch them that can give away what the fish is.

The fish got away.

This is when you don't get close enough to tell what kind of fish it is, and you lose your catch. You still get experience points for it though.

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