Fishing

fish
professions fishing     (the Professions window, on Fishing)

Fishing needs a fishing rod in your inventory. The fishmonger in Daleville sells a plain rod for 100 gold: his shop is just north of the North Ride, by the bank. Smiths forge two better rods (see SMITHING): a silversteel fishing rod (tier 3) lands two fish at once half the time, a starmetal fishing rod (tier 6) four times in five. The second fish is a bonus: it doesn't count against the spot. With several rods you fish with the best. Bait may come later.

Fish bite at fishing spots: some of the rooms on rivers, lakes and the sea, and on the shores beside them. "Fish are rising in the water here" marks one, and the zone map shows them as small blue fish (turn Fishing off on the map to hide them). Each spot gives 20 fish, then rests until its zone resets. Fishing spots are never herb or ore spots.

Type "fish" at a spot. A cast takes a moment; moving, a fight or another command stops it. A cast can always miss, though less often as your skill grows: two casts in five land a fish at a tier's first skill, and at best nine in ten. You learn only from a fish landed, as with every profession (see PROFESSIONS).

Like the herbs, harder fish swim in harder zones, by the level of the monsters there. You catch the fish of the water's tier, or of your own tier if it is lower ("something bigger" may get away).

Cave water has the glowing fish of its tier besides the fresh-water ones. Outdoors, the hour (dawn, day, dusk, night) and the weather (clear, cloudy, rain, storm) make each fish bite a little better or a little worse: no fish needs a particular hour or sky. The Professions window shows each fish's leanings. Caves know neither.

Fish stack and weigh nothing. They are worth little raw: cooking will make them worth more. The fishmonger buys any fish at four fifths of its worth, a whole stack at once ("sell perch"), whatever his purse; no other shop buys them.