Outdoor Activities Lalaillustrated - Fishing Mini-guide[Retail Edition]

The Following is a fishing mini-guide made by Pure Heart as an addition to the guide by ChiroCasull. We decided to create this as Chiro's guide was from Beta and has confused some I've linked it to. With this we hope to clear anything that was misinterpreted or confusing.

Pure Heart of Lindblum, a Heart family member, and my brother begins~

Taking the time to write this, I can reflect on the choice to level fishing like this thanks to the mini fishing guide, found on here as well, and thank its author to no end. The guide itself was amazing, detailing everything I could ever of wanted to know as a angler. So to its author, ChiroCasull, I offer a very extended thank you as a fellow angler.

Upon a whole 6 hours of endless fishing and getting well over 300 fish, alot of speculations have been answered. Several is that lunar phases, elemental day, and elemental hour all affect what fish will bite and when. From testing that long, I've determined that at least lunar phase and elemental day DO, in fact, affect fishing quite alot. Firesday and Fireshour seem to have a lower yield of fish from saltwater, and nearly zero HQ fish. Lightningsday and Lightningshour have the opposite effect, making freshwater fish bite less often, but much more 2-3 catches at a time in saltwater. All of these theorys were tested between Gridania (fresh water) and Limsa Lominsa Docks (salt water).

The first few fish you can find would be a simply listed ones for saltwater, where Lugworms are the easiest and cheapest, @ 297g a stack from Limsa Lominsa Fishing Guild right there, are Tiger Cod, Merlthor Goby, Ocean Cloud, Vongola Clam, and Malm Kelp. All of these can be used by 1-11 Culinarians right in the same area for 1 wind shard + 1 fish to get free skillups, by breaking them into Sea Sand. This makes it a very good combo to use together, plus you can make your own bait as you rank up both together! Win win all around!

Fishing is a simple procedure once you understand its physics. Its all about chance, which alot of it is bad usually. In the next lines, I will line out the basic controls of how to use its controls.

~~~~ The Cast ~~~~

The most important part of fishing is being able to actually cast, which is very easy. Approach a body of water that looks fishable, and have your fishing pole equipped. Depending on if its saltwater or freshwater, choose your bait to suit the location. For beginners, Lugworms in Limsa Lominsa docks are saltwater, and all you will use here. After selecting the bait, open your menu to bring up your "Fish" bubble. The gauge that will come up showing you a vertical bar, marked as "Depth", allowing you to choose its slider bar from top to bottom. The top of the bar, like other gathering, is easier to catch fish that are common, in the case of Limsa fishing, Tiger Cod and Kelp. The further down the slider you go, the more chance you have to catch nothing, or a rarer fish, again in Limsa example, the Ocean Cloud. This same slider rule applies to all other Disciple of Land classes as well.

~~~~ The Bite ~~~~

Now comes the real fun of the fishing! Once the line is in the water and you chose what depth you want it at, you can wait for a while for 1 of 2 messages: Either nothing will bite the hooker, and you will be brought back to the Depth meter, or something will Bite or Nibble your bait. The next menu to pop up after your lure has been struck, will be 3 options: Wait, Jig, and Cancel. Cancel speaks for itself, canelling the entire bite on your bait, and costing you a bait. Now onto the other two.

[Wait] - Wait commands you to leave your line in the water, leading to one of 3 possible outcomes: either you will lose your bait because the fish left, the nibble/bite will continue as it was, or a nibble could turn into a bite. The specifics of these are very different. The differences will be discussed in the follow section.

[Jig] - Welcome to the normal Disciple of Land minigame gathering! To all who have tried out the others, this will be the exact same, but for those who have not, please read on for instructions: Split the bar you see into 5 even slices mentally, labeling them 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 in a Left to Right order. Once you can mentally piece all 5 parts together, you can begin dropping the ball that moves left to right and back to repeat into where you think the fish may be. The difference between Nibbles and Bites takes place here, because a Nibble has a high chance of you simply losing the fish on a missed fish hit, whereas a Bite has a much higher chance of staying with the fish, letting you continue to fight it so long as you have some Remainder left. The following chart is words ripped off of the original miniguides post, to highlight again the specifics of what each "warning" will mean when you select a spot to try and Jig.

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~You've hooked something but cannot reel it in.~
I'm really not sure but I think this is the initial sign that your roughly on the right track and you'll need to go left or right of that position to begin reeling in the fish.

~The fish is taking line.~
You've gone a little bit in the wrong direction and the fish is getting some slack.

~You take in some line.~
Your getting close to the right spot.

~You take in a great deal of line.~ (I take zero credit for this section, it was the authors work.)
Your very close to the right spot.
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The only one not listed is shown by a chime and a blue flash on the tip of your rod, accomponied by the quote "The fish is tired, but you cannot yet reel it in.", which means you need to land the pointer in very nearly the same spot again, and will almost always land the fish then.

~~~~ The Starter Baits ~~~~

The two main points to start fishing, again, will be either Limsa Lominsa Docks with Lugworms (297g/99) for saltwater, or Gridania waterways using Moth Pupa (297g/99) for freshwater. Fish are vastly different in each area, and used in different grades of cooking even right off the bat.

~~~~ Spearfishing ~~~~

Like the previous guide mentions, Spearfishing is the Autoharvest off-hand item gathering for Fishing. Using a Bronze Gig, or higher if you so please, you simply walk up to blue glows in the water and throw your spear in, hopefully spearing at least small amphibians or insects.

~~~~Moon Effects~~~~

So far I've only seen differences in Full Moon and New Moon predominantly. Full Moon has more fish bites in saltwater, New moon more in Fresh Water, and the other phases, the larger the moon is, the better saltwater fishing is. The same is true for Freshwater fishing in larger growth of the New Moon.

I hope this guide added to the amazingly useful original,~~ chiroCasull's Miniguide to fishing~~, and cleared any confusion that anyone might have had after reading it, if any existed. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I pray to the twelve any who read the miniguide and this join the ranks of Anglers in FFXIV, because it is an amazingly fun and versitile Disciple of Land class.