Fishing

“I almost caught a fish this big! But it, um, got away.”

Vast oceans surround Britannia on all sides, and for centuries men and women have earned their keep fishing the coastal waters. In addition to an endless supply of fish, those skilled in fishing have been known to pull forth treasure, and danger, from the deep.

In order to fish, you must be un-mounted and holding a Fishing Pole in one hand.

Training

• 0 - 30: Buy from NPC Fisher
• 30 - 50: Fish in shallow water. Stand on the shore of islands such as Moonglow or Haven and walk around.
• 50 - 75: Fish off of a dock, a few tiles from the shore. The farther out, the higher the skill level. A Crystal Ball of Knowledge comes in very handy to help gauge the best distance from where to fish.
• 75 - 100: Fish in deep water (gains after 85.0 are only possible in in deep water). Deep water requires the use of a boat to reach. Get on one and sail around. Be prepared to fight Sea Serpents.

When a fishing spot has been "used up" you will get the message "The fish don't seem to be biting here". Then is is time to move to another location.

Crystal Ball of Knowledge

If you have a Crystal Ball of Knowledge, turn it on and try out different fishing locations until the ball reports "Optimal" difficulty. It will let you know exactly where the optimal spots are. The distance is about one til further away from land every 5 skill points. Once you reach 95.1, it will only ever say "Easy" even in deep water.

Expect to catch around 3,800 fish to go from 50 to 100 skill(as well as plenty of nets, treasure maps, white pearls, delicate scales and footwear) while using the crystal ball under optimal conditions. If you just go straight to deep water after 85 without using a crystal ball, you may unknowingly be fishing in slightly more challenging areas, slowing the rate of skillgain.

Items

The following items can be fished up instead of normal fish.

Fishing Skill: 0%
	Footwear The true horror of fishing, these hordes of footwear will fill your backpacks up quickly. It is suggested to simply drop them as they just don't make any real gold. Though they are useful if you are planning on starting up a cobblary.
	Normal Fish These come in four colors, their color does not make any difference. They each will give 4 raw fish steaks each when cut with a bladed weapon.
	Highly Peculiar Fish Restores your stamina by 10.
	Prized Fish Raises your intelligence by 1 for a matter of about 5 seconds.
	Truly Rare Fish Raises your strength by 1 for a matter of about 5 seconds.
	Wondrous Fish Raises your dexterity by 1 for a matter of about 5 seconds.
Fishing Skill: 75%
	Metal and Wood Chests Treasure chests are fished up by the use of a Waterstained SOS from a Message in a Bottle. They are the only treasure chest that can be taken and used for home storage. These chests will carry a treasure rating of 1 - 3.
	Ancient Chests This chest is fished up by use of an Ancient SOS. The chest is a level 4 treasure chest and always colored white. Inside these chests will also be a Fabled Fishing Net that will summon up a large group of sea monsters including the Leviathan.
Fishing Skill: 80%
	Special Fishing Net These 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 Krakens. There is a chance for it to spawn in one of the 14 special colors:
	White Pearls Used to make Pendant of the Magi, Arcanist's Wild Staff, Lightweight Shortbow, Spellblade of Defense, Luckblade, and the Adventurer's Machete. It is also an Imbuing ingredient needed to imbue the any of the regular Slayer properties onto weapons. These can be sold at a fairly decent cost.
	Big Fish A rare fish that one can use a Taxidermy Kit on to make a nice looking trophy. When caught, a big fish lands at your feet, not in your backpack. Their weight is random, the heavier it is, the more rare. Both weight and the fisherman's name will be displayed on the trophy, but only if the fish weighed more than 20 stones. Lightest Big Fish: 1 Stone by Tolo Da'Pesca Heaviest Big Fish: 225 Stones by Rowan of the Origin Shard.
	Delicate Scales Used with Imbuing skill to add Use Best Weapon Skill (UBWS) property onto weapons.
Fishing Skill: 90%
	Treasure Map You can fish up a level 1 or level 2 treasure map that is for a land adventure of very easy standards. Most new players can handle the spawns from a level 1 treasure map.
Fishing Skill: 100%
	Message in a Bottle aka: MiB When used it will turn into a Waterstained SOS . Or if you're lucky it will turn into an Ancient SOS , which about 1 in 25 does. Each MiB you fish up will also spawn a sea serpent. The serpent will have the bottle on its corpse and you must kill it to retrieve the bottle.

4x4 Fishing

While fishing on a boat or on a pier you can do what is called 4x4 fishing. This is where you target 4 spaces to the NE, SE, SW, and NW of your character while fishing. You can farm each of these locations for quite a while before having to move on again. Remember, you will need to move 12 spaces instead of just 8 to begin fishing again.

See Also

• Boat
• Fishing page on UO.com