Fishing is a very profitable skill at grandmaster level and still profitable at any level. It costs nothing to fish, and there are many treasures to be had out in the ocean!
Equip your fishing pole (have a carpenter make you one if you don't already have one), head out to the docks, double click your pole and target the water. KEEP FISHING! There is only one way to raise fishing and that is to fish! While fishing, it's a good idea to practice another skill. Hiding is a valuable skill for a fisher to have - you never know what you'll run into out on the open waters! Eventually you'll fish up everything in one area and will have to move to another a few spaces down.
As you fish, watch your weight! Once you reach your max weight, cut up all your fish! Double click your dagger and target the fish. You'll get fish steaks, 4 fish steaks for every one whole fish. You'll also notice you've lost weight! So, now you're back below your weight limit... so start fishing again. Repeat. Once you can't fill up anymore, head to the cobblers inside the Provisoner's shop. Sell any footwear you caught. Take all your gold and put it in the bank. Head over to your local tavern or maybe an inn. You need an oven!
You were tempted to double click the pile of fish steaks and target the oven weren't you? While that is the fastest way to cook the fish, you won't gain any cooking skill doing it! If you don't care about cooking skill, then you can think about cooking all the fish at once. However, if you are interested in gaining skill, read on. You must separate the fish steaks one by one. Now cook each fish steak separately, one at a time. Takes a LOT longer, but gains skill and stats. Now go back find some other players to sell your cooked fish steaks to, or sell them on a vendor. Then head out and do it all again!
Have you reached 80.0 skill points and are starting to bore a little? You've come a long way for sure. Hopefully you've saved up quite a bit of gold. Around 12,500? That's the price of a small ship! At this point you have two options. You can continue to fish up shoes and fish from the coast, and selling them in town. Or you can purchase a ship. If you do decide to buy a boat, (I suggest you do) then it is a MUST that you go read Ship Ownership & Commands.
Tip: Placing a few lanterns or torches all over your ship makes your ship glow at night and looks nice.
At 80 skill, you can start to catch magic fish! For an explanation of the magic fish, as well as all other items which can be fished up, scroll down. While most people consider these magic fish to be worthless, they can be kinda interesting to study at first... especially if you've been stuck on shore fishing and cooking for a week.
KEEP WORKING!!! FISH, FISH, FISH!!! YOUR RICHES WILL BE AVAILABLE SOON!Mastering the Skill:
So you've hit master?! Hopefully you haven't gone crazy yet... because if you have, you'll miss out on the 2nd most valuable fishing treasure... treasure maps! With 90 skill you have a chance of catching 1st level treasure maps. If you haven't bought a boat yet, I strongly suggest you go out and buy one now and learn to use it, for two reasons:
One, in order to catch the real goodies of fishing, you must be out on a boat in deep sea, 16 tiles away from land.
Second, I know once you get to Grandmaster, you're going to want to go catch some MiB's (Message in a Bottle) also known as SoS's. More on those later.
Got some maps? As usual, you've got two choices. You can either go out with your friends and look for buried treasure, (more on that in Treasure Hunting and Skills: Cartography) or sell your maps to other players.
Wow your skill isn't moving is it? I didn't think so. What do you do now? KEEP FISHING! If you're bored, go cook some fish, or try and sell some. The only way you will gain skill is if you keep fishing!
You made it to Grandmaster? Are you serious? Congratulations! It's been a long and tough road, but it was well worth it. Now it's time for you to make some real gold! If you haven't gotten a boat by now, go get one! There is nothing more on land for you except places to spend all your shiny gold you're about to get.
So you've got 100.00 fishing, a boat, some maps, a fishing pole and your sextant right? Good. Now here is what you do. Get on your boat. Sail out, away from land for a minute or so. And now here's the tricky part: FISH! As a GM Fisherman in the middle of the ocean, what can you expect to catch? Well fish, and then some more fish, then a pair of boots, some more fish, a magic fish, more fish, some more fish, then one treasure map. Now you will catch about 300 more fish... and *gasp* a MiB! (Note: MiB stands for "Message In a Bottle." These bottles are also known as "SoS's") Full instructions on completing can be found in Skills: Cartography.
So now you've got some MiB's? As usual, you have two choices:
Actually use the MiB, go out and fish up the treasure yourself, or with some friends. This is a lot of fun! A few things to note about doing this; NO traps, NO locked chests, and best of all, NO monsters spawn. Unlike land treasure maps, you get treasure and no trouble. Another note: You do not have to be GM Fisherman to actually fish up the treasure from a bottle, only to fish up a bottle. This leads us to your other choice.
You can sell the MiB to another player. MiB's are a great thing to sell to lots of people, people who don't feel like spending the time to work up to GM Fisherman. Almost everyone wants to buy a few, at least to try it out, and most of those people always come back for more!
Life as a Grandmaster: Well once you are a GM Fisherman, it is very hard to get bored. (at least if you actually go out and get those SoS's instead of selling them) Everyday is different. Who knows where the ocean will take you? One of the nice things about sailing, is that you see the world. Never been to Moonglow? Why not sail there and fish on your way? The world is your oyster now. Fish up SoS's, use the loot yourself, or open up a shop to sell all your wonderful goodies! Just remember, you have one of the few skills, that with nothing but your newbie items, you can make lots of gold. Don't get greedy, don't overcharge people. If a newbie needs help, help them! If someone can't afford fish or even that special weapon you just fished up, lower your price a bit, or better yet, give it to them! You're rich now so help the less fortunate people of the land.
| Images | Stuff a Fisher will fish up: | Skill Req'd: |
|---|---|---|
 |
Footwear: The beginning fisherman will find this item on his hook most of the times, but even the Grandmaster may pull up the occasional boot. | 0 |
 |
Normal fish you usually get when fishing. They yield 4 fish steaks each when cut with a knife. | 0 |
 |
Prize Fish: Adds a temporary +5 to your Intelligence when eaten (no cooking needed). | 0 |
 |
Wondrous Fish: Adds a temporary +5 to your Dexterity when eaten. | 0 |
 |
Truly Rare Fish: Adds a temporary +5 to your Strength when eaten. | 0 |
 |
Highly Peculiar Fish: Restores 10 points of stamina when eaten. | 0 |
 |
Special Fishing Net: Can be found as loot on sea serpents or in fished up treasure chests. When used, the net appears to throw out many fishing lines and a set of nasty monsters will spawn, consisting of water elementals, sea serpents, deep sea serpents and a kraken. | 80 |
 |
Big Fish: A rare fish that one can use a Taxidermy Kit on to make a nice looking trophy. Do not cut this fish up or stack it with other fish for it will lose its unique capacities. Can only be found in deep water*. | 80 |
 |
Treasure Map: A level 1 treasure map. Same as the treasure maps you get off monsters. Also see the remark about treasure maps and SOS bottles below. Can only be found in deep water*. | 90 |
 |
Message in a Bottle: When used it will turn into a waterstained SOS. Every time you successfully fish up a treasure map or SOS bottle a sea serpent will surface and attack. The treasure map or SOS bottle will be on the serpents corpse. Sea serpents that are pulled up through normal fishing that did not result in a treasure map or SOS bottle will not have these items on them. Can only be found in deep water*. |
100 |
 |
Using the waterstained SOS at the location mentioned on it will allow you to fish up a treasure chest recovered from a shipwreck. These chests are made of wood or metal and carry three different levels of treasure. | 65 |
* The minimum required skill level to catch *anything* in deep water is 65.
- The higher your skill the higher your chance of catching something more valuable than a normal fish. The skills mentioned above are minimum skills needed to fish up the corresponding item.
- Tests show that a Grandmaster Fisherman pulls up a special item (a net, a message in a bottle or a treasure map) about five times per hour. To reach that he/she has to fish non-stop, which means he/she has to cast about 280 times per hour.
- When fishing in "deep water" (which means you must be at least 14 tiles away from all land) there is a chance a sea-serpent pops up if you are fishing with 80+ skill and you fail.
- An SOS message gives you some coordinates at sea. Sail to there and start fishing to retrieve sunken treasure.
- When fishing up tresure chests, for each cast with the fishing rod there is a 25% chance to fish up bones or body parts, a 25% chance to fish up shells, barrel staves, globes etc., a 25% chance to fish up paintings, broken clocks etc. and a 25% chance to fish up the actual treasure chest.