Fishing

Fishing pays better than it looks. Four rare fish, one at each of the outer spots, permanently unlock a cooked dish the moment you land them, and three of those dishes hand back fifty spheres a serving.

Getting there needs three things the game never puts in one place: a rod you are given rather than built, enough green mastery for a fish to take an interest, and the right bait sitting in the slot. Miss any one of the three and the water stays empty.

Twenty-two fish live across six spots, and the sewers hold exactly one of them.

Getting your first rod

The first rod arrives through a quest rather than a workbench. Herm at his store starts The Quiet Art and sends you south: get a fishing rod from the Twin Brothers, over the bridge in Twins’ Land. They hand one over for the asking.

With the rod in hand the quest names two spots to try, one to the left of the house at the Inquisition Base and another along the road to the Village. Bring Herm a single Roach and a single Gudgeon and he pays two Town Gratitude, a Story, and the entire river fish cooking line.

Honestly, they look pretty unappetizing to me. / Nonsense… you just need to know how to cook them! / Here… try these recipes.

Herm, on being handed two of the cheapest fish in the game

You can also build one. Fishing I costs fifteen green and sits behind Garden Bed in the farming branch, and it unlocks the Basic Rod at the Woodworking Workbench: three Stick, two Bronze Detail and two Flax Thread, four seconds, and it pays four red back.

Mastery decides what will bite

Every fish is ranked against your green mastery, the farming track, which runs thirty levels. The Roach sits at rank one and the Elder Catfish at eighteen, and when you are short the game tells you plainly: I don’t have enough mastery.

Your rod is what closes that gap. The Basic Rod adds one, the Amateur Rod two, the Advanced Rod four and the Pro Rod six, the same ladder every axe, hammer and shovel in the game climbs. Buying a better rod raises what will bite for you as surely as another mastery level does.

Landing a fish is a separate problem from hooking one. Each fish also carries a fight value running from two on the Roach to twenty on the Elder Catfish, and the Goldfish is the trap: rank six to hook, fourteen to hold.

During the minigame, hold to reel the fish in. Avoid pulling when the fish is fighting back, or the line will snap.

The fishing tutorial

Fisherman is the talent that answers the fight, one point in the farming track behind Farming mastery +1, and it takes between one and six off every fish in the game. The game puts it as knowing how to handle your rod, so that it is stronger than ever.

Bait decides what is in the water

Each fish takes one kind of bait and ignores the rest, which is why a spot you have fished for an hour can still be hiding half its roster. The refusal message is the giveaway: I don’t have the right bait for this kind of fish.

An empty slot still catches four fish, the Roach, Gudgeon, Crucian and Frog. Breadcrumb Bait comes from one Bread at the Kitchen Table and makes four, and it brings in the Herring, Bream, Carp, Pike, Catfish, Silverfin, Anchovy and Mackerel.

Insect Bait takes four Firefly for four baits and covers the Goldfish, Tuna, Salmon, Trout, Eel and Swamp Ghost. Live Bait is one Lacquer and one Flesh for four, and it is the only bait any trophy fish will look at.

Attracts: Mythic Carp, Celestial Salmon, Elder Catfish, Kraken Jr

Live Bait, the one bait description you can take at face value

The Twin Brothers teach the later bait recipes in Plenty of Fish in the Sea, their second quest, after a long story about a catfish that got away. Three Flax Thread is the whole price.

Every fishing spot and what lives in it

There are six spots and twenty-nine catches between them, because seven fish turn up at two places each. The number after each fish below is the mastery rank it wants.

Home holds four: Roach at one, Gudgeon at two, Crucian at three and Pike at eight. It is the only spot with nothing rare in it, and the Pike is the one that needs Breadcrumb Bait.

The Village pond adds the Herring at four and the Bream at five to the same starting three, and hides the Mythic Carp at sixteen. Six fish, which is why the fishing window there shows six slots.

The Port is the sea roster: Anchovy at four, Goldfish at six, Mackerel and Tuna at seven, Salmon at nine and Kraken Jr at fifteen. Three of those want Insect Bait, so it is a poor spot to arrive at empty-handed.

The Forest runs Carp and Goldfish at six, Pike at eight, Salmon at nine, Trout at ten and the Celestial Salmon at seventeen. It is the best mid-game water in the game because the Goldfish and the Salmon both show up here as well as at the Port.

The Swamp is the deep end: Frog, Catfish and Silverfin at eight, Swamp Ghost at eleven, Eel at twelve and the Elder Catfish at eighteen. The Frog is the only fish that will take any of three baits, and it comes up five at a time.

The Sewers hold one fish, the Eel, and it comes two to a catch instead of one. If you need Eels rather than variety, that is the place to stand.

Time of day tilts the odds rather than closing the door. The Gudgeon, Pike, Bream, Anchovy, Tuna and Eel are twice as likely by day, while the Crucian, Mackerel, Salmon, Carp and Swamp Ghost come out after dark.

The four trophy fish

One trophy sits at each of the four outer spots, all four need Live Bait, and catching one teaches you its dish for good. They also come back far more slowly than anything else, on a thirty day cycle against the three or six an ordinary fish runs on.

The Kraken Jr waits at the Port, rank fifteen and a fight of eighteen, and unlocks Kraken steak: one Kraken Jr, one Salt and twenty-five Fuel in the oven for five seconds. Eating one gives fifty blue and thirty energy.

The Mythic Carp is the Village one, rank sixteen, and it becomes Fried golden carp with one Flour and twenty-five Fuel. That plate is fifty green, which is the currency the whole farming branch and every fishing technology is bought with.

The Celestial Salmon hides in the Forest at rank seventeen and cooks into Heavenly salmon with one Seed oil. Fifty red a serving is the one to care about, because the technology tree asks for 11,157 red and every study in the game between them supplies 5,105.

The Elder Catfish is the hardest fish in the game, rank eighteen and a fight of twenty in the Swamp. One Chicken Egg turns it into Elder’s meal, which pays thirty of all three spheres rather than fifty of one.

Fillets and what to cook with them

Every ordinary fish goes through the Kitchen Table first, and the fish you pick decides how many fillets come out. A Roach or Gudgeon gives one River fish fillet, a Crucian or Herring two, a Bream or Carp three, and a Pike or Catfish four.

The sea line works the same way into Sea fish fillet: one from an Anchovy or Mackerel, two from a Tuna or Salmon, three from an Eel or Trout. The odd three out, Goldfish, Silverfin and Swamp Ghost, give one, two and three Mysterious fish fillet. Fish Filleter doubles all of it.

Those fillets go to the Kitchen Oven. Fish nuggets take one river fillet and one Seed oil for three plates at twenty-five energy each, Baked fish takes two river fillets and nothing else, and Fish soup is two sea fillets and two Carrot for five plates at thirty energy.

Fisherman’s pie is the one worth planning around. Two Mysterious fish fillet and two Frog make a single pie that pays ten of every sphere on top of twenty energy. Outside of studying one, nothing else in the game wants a Frog.

Fish for the Fisher, and where the Pro Rod comes from

A fisherman appears at the Ruined Temple and picks a fight about whose water is better. He is the best questline of the three and the reason to bother with fillets at all, because he pays in cooking lines and finishes by handing over a Pro Rod worth ten thousand coins.

So you’re saying you’re a better fisherman? / Fine then, I challenge you! / Bring me a decent fish from one of your spots, and I’ll admit you’re worth something.

The Fisherman at the Ruined Temple

Five River fish fillet answer the first challenge and teach you the sea dishes. Five Sea fish fillet answer the second and teach the mysterious line, which is the only way to get at Fisherman’s pie.

Five Mysterious fish fillet finish it, which means a Goldfish, a Silverfin and a Swamp Ghost between them at minimum. Three more Town Gratitude come with the rod.

You can build the upper rods instead of winning one. The Amateur Rod is two Wooden Plank, two Polished Bronze and four Flax Thread, the Advanced Rod one Oiled Beam, two Advanced Detail and eight Flax Thread, and the Pro Rod two Special Wood, two Engineering Details and sixteen Flax Thread.

There is a fifth rod, the Master Rod, which adds eight mastery and beats everything above it. Nothing in the game hands it over and no recipe makes it, so for now it is a rod that exists rather than one you can hold.

Selling, studying and zombie fishermen

The fisherman’s shop in town is where fish turn into money, and it is the only shop that buys them. It stocks ten Breadcrumb Bait and the Amateur Rod from the day it opens, adds Insect Bait and the Advanced Rod at its second tier, and only carries Live Bait and the Pro Rod once it reaches the third.

Forty-one things off the back of fishing can be studied at the Study Table, and twenty-two of those are the fish themselves. One of each costs 103 Science and returns 180 red, 915 green and 220 blue, which is most of a farming branch paid for with a rod.

The Goldfish is the one to save. Three Science turns it into fifty of every sphere, the best rate of any fish or recipe in the set, and it is also the only fish the alchemy lab will accept, carrying two green runes and one blue.

A trophy dish can be eaten or studied, never both. Fried golden carp studied is fifty green and thirty blue for twenty Science, against fifty green and thirty energy for eating it, so the study wins whenever you have the Science spare.

The zombie learned that bobbers float and sinkers sink: higher chance to catch common fish. / The zombie learned to set the hook in time: higher chance to catch rare fish.

Novice and Veteran Fisherman