Fishing

Getting started

A Simple Fishing Pole costs 20 copper from Fisherman Brandt in Eastbrook (look for the Old Salt at the town's east edge, by the road to Mirror Lake); Tinker Gizzel, Provisioner Hale in Fenbridge, and Quartermaster Bree in Highwatch stock poles too. Use the pole while facing water deep enough to hold fish, up to about 24 yards ahead of you, and your bobber sails out.

You cannot cast while in combat, while swimming, or while dead: casting from shore is the intended posture. Water gets harder as the land does, though: the marsh wants at least the tier 2 Ironreel and the peaks the tier 3 Silverstream, and a line cast without the rod that water takes never leaves your hand. Three rods sit above those, the Stormreel, the Tidewrought and the Clockreel: engineers craft all three at the toolworks out of what a line pulls up, and the Drowned Litany's delve counter sells the first two for Delve Marks behind its clears gates, though never for coin. No water asks for any of them, but they are not comfort alone: each one opens a catch band that skill by itself cannot reach, so once your counter is capped the rod is the only thing left that decides how deep your table goes. They shorten the wait and widen the reel window besides, which at the top rung means a bite in a flat three seconds.

Bite and reel

After the cast, a bite comes at a hidden moment between 3 and 8 seconds; the delay is decided when the line lands, so no two casts feel quite alike. When the bobber bites you have a 2.5 second window to press the pole again and reel in: reel inside it and the catch lands, hesitate past it and the fish gets away with nothing to show. A whole session caps at 16 seconds, so even a quiet cast resolves quickly.

Better rods sharpen both ends of the minigame: each rod tier above the first trims 1.5 seconds off the longest possible wait, never below the three-second floor the top rod already grazes, and adds 0.75 seconds to the reel window, so the Ironreel pulls the worst wait down to 6.5 seconds with a 3.25 second window, and the Silverstream to 5 with a window past 4, its rarity widening the reel a little beyond what the tier alone pays. The quickest bites never change whatever you hold, and a rod only needs to be in your bags to count.

One caution for eager thumbs: press the pole again before anything bites and you reel in an empty line, ending the cast. The first second after the line lands is forgiven, so an accidental double-press costs you nothing; past that, an early press is a wasted cast. Patience is the whole game: wait for the bite, then strike.

Proficiency gain

Fishing gain follows a fixed schedule with no dice: 0.08 of a point per catch below 50 proficiency, 0.05 below 100, 0.04 below 150, and 0.03 from 150 to 200. The curve is deliberately shallow rather than back-loaded: the whole climb to 200 is about eleven hours of active fishing, and no quarter of it costs more than a third of the total, so the last fifty points are a long stretch rather than the whole journey.

Junk stops teaching entirely at 100: from there on, weeds and boots are just weeds and boots. The water itself caps the lesson too: the Vale's tier 1 waters (and every young shore beyond the heartland) teach nothing past 100, the marsh's stop at 150, and only Thornpeak's school an angler the whole way to 200. Every landed catch otherwise gains at the scheduled rate, so when the counter stalls, the schedule is telling you to seek deeper water.

Catch tables

Your proficiency selects one of six catch bands: band 0 from the start, band 1 at 100, band 2 at 150, and the top three all at 200, each shifting weight out of junk and empty hooks into real fish, zone by zone. Each band above the first also demands a rod, one tier higher every time: band 1 wants the tier 2 Ironreel, band 2 the tier 3 Silverstream, band 3 the tier 4 Stormreel, band 4 the tier 5 Tidewrought, and band 5 the tier 6 Clockreel. Band 2 opens at 150 and the last three all wait for the 200 cap, so the skill gate moves once more and then stops: from the cap on, the rod is the only thing that lifts your table, which is what the crafted rods are for and where the three deep-water catches live. Your effective band is the lower of what your skill has earned and what your rod supports, and the cap is silent: with a lesser rod you still catch, just off the lower band's table, so if your catches feel stuck while your skill climbs, check your rod first.

Each zone's waters hold their own pair of cooking catches, higher-tier fish the deeper the zone, all of them kitchen reagents that must be cooked before they restore anything; from band 3 up, three more join every zone's table at the same weight, so a recipe naming one of those asks the same of an angler wherever they fish. The rest of the table is the angler's tax: weed, the occasional boot, and the empty hook, which never fully disappears. How much you pay depends on the water your bobber lands in, not where you stand: a cast reaches up to 24 yards, and the rod the water demands, the table it draws from, the deed it credits, and how far it teaches all answer to the zone that water belongs to, decided the moment the line lands. Each zone's water is written for a band of its own, the Vale for band 0, the marsh for band 1, the peaks for band 2, and fishing one band under that turns roughly a third of your casts into empty hooks, two bands under it more than half. The rod gets you to the water; the skill is what makes it pay, and the climb is what pulls an angler deeper, because better bands are not just better pay: past the Vale they are the only waters that keep teaching. The Sunglint Koi is the one row that answers to your catch band and nothing else: the same odds in every zone, and six times likelier at band 2 than at band 0, so the rarest thing on the dock is the one a Master Angler really is better at.

Band 0: proficiency 0 and up, rod tier 1

Eastbrook Vale

Mirefen Marsh

Thornpeak Heights

Band 1: proficiency 100 and up, rod tier 2

Eastbrook Vale

Mirefen Marsh

Thornpeak Heights

Band 2: proficiency 150 and up, rod tier 3

Eastbrook Vale

Mirefen Marsh

Thornpeak Heights

Band 3: proficiency 200 and up, rod tier 4

Eastbrook Vale

Mirefen Marsh

Thornpeak Heights

Band 4: proficiency 200 and up, rod tier 5

Eastbrook Vale

Mirefen Marsh

Thornpeak Heights

Band 5: proficiency 200 and up, rod tier 6

Eastbrook Vale

Mirefen Marsh

Thornpeak Heights

The Sunglint Koi

Every body of water in the game hides the same prize: the Sunglint Koi, an uncommon gleam on the line worth 75 copper to a vendor and rather more to your pride. Its odds answer to your catch band and to nothing else, the same in every zone: a 1 percent row of the catch table at band 0, 3 at band 1, and 6 from band 2 upward, drawn on every reeled-in cast, so the koi comes to the angler who earned the deep tables. Landing one records Glimmer of Hope in your Book of Deeds, a zero-Renown collector's mark. When it happens, the log makes sure you know.

Tools

Every node needs its trade's tool in your bags, tier 1 included: no pick, no ore, and no pole, no fish. The vendor ladder covers tiers 1 to 3 across the three heartland hubs: the tier-1 tool is sold at all three, the rungs above it where the ground that uses them begins (Fenbridge adds tier 2, Highwatch tier 3), and the younger settlements beyond them stock no tools at all, so kit up before you travel. Farming buys elsewhere: its tier-1 hoe is stocked by the farmer who keeps the first allotment (she stands at the Eastbrook allotments, not at any tool counter), and no hoe rung above it is sold for coin anywhere. Every counter sells every rung it stocks freely, and any tool passes by direct trade; every rung also lists on the Market and travels by mail except the four 20-copper land starters (the Copper Mining Pick, the Handaxe, the Gathering Sickle and the Garden Hoe): those are bought at a counter or passed hand to hand, and never sold back, mailed, or listed. What is gated is the wielding. A land tool above tier 1 works only once your proficiency in its own trade has earned it, 40 for tier 2, 70 for tier 3, and 85 for tier 4 and 100 for tier 5, and the vendor row, the tooltip, and the table below all name the requirement up front. Until then a tool bought ahead simply waits in your bags, opening no ground, buying no speed, and minting no fine grades, then wields the moment your counter touches its number. Fishing rods are the one exception: no rod carries a wield requirement, and Trader Wilkes in Eastbrook deliberately stocks the tier 2 and tier 3 rods for anglers buying ahead. A tool never occupies an equip slot and never wears out, so each is a one-time purchase, and only the tier matters to the gate: a rarer tool of the same tier opens nothing extra. Rarity is not only colour, though. It makes a slotted tool effect last longer, and on a rod it widens the reel window.

A better tool buys three things, not two. It opens higher-tier ground, it shortens the cast, and it improves what comes out: work a vein with a tool ranked ABOVE the zone's own material and the harvest yields the fine grade of it instead of the plain one. The vein has to be one of the zone's full-grade ones, so the easier veins a zone keeps for travellers still yield the ordinary material. Fine materials are what the crafted tool recipes consume, and a fine grade counts as its ordinary version anywhere a recipe or a work order asks for one, so upgrading never strands you: it just means your copper ore arrives as Fine Copper Ore.

Above the vendor ladder the three node trades each have two crafted tools, tier 4 and tier 5, made at the toolworks (every character knows those two recipes; the skill that climbs for the work is Engineering's), or bought with Delve Marks at the Drowned Litany counter once its clears gates are met: the table below carries the Marks price and the clears each rung asks. No merchant ever sells them for coin. Farming's ladder is the long one: every hoe above the 20-copper starter is crafted, tiers 2 through 5, all four taught by the toolmaker rather than known from the start, and the top two rungs are also stocked at that same Marks counter. Fishing has three of its own, and they are learned rather than known from the start too: the toolmaker teaches the tier 4 Stormreel and the tier 5 Tidewrought, and the tier 6 Clockreel is built from a schematic instead; the Stormreel and the Tidewrought are also stocked at that same Marks counter, behind the same clears gates as the node tools of their tier, and the fishing page's tool table carries their Marks prices. Rods are the one ladder whose top rungs buy ACCESS on the water: every one of the three opens a catch band that skill alone can never reach, so a better rod is not comfort. For the three node trades no node today needs more than tier 3, so their tier 4 and tier 5 tools still buy speed and grade rather than access, and they will be the entry ticket when higher-tier ground arrives. Farming sits between the two: planting is what needs the hoe, so a bed of tier N asks a hoe of tier N right up to the fourth and last crop tier, and only the fifth rung opens no new ground.

Proficiency bands

Proficiency bands are the shared 0/100/200 ladder over a land trade's counter: the band crossed at 100 shaves the gather cast, and the land cap makes band 1 the ceiling. Fishing keeps a ladder of its own, six rungs at 0, 100, 150 and then three more at 200. Its bands shave nothing; they select the catch tables, each with a rod to match. After that third rung the gate moves once more, to the 200 cap, and then stops: from the cap on, the rod alone decides how far the table goes. The climb is what pulls an angler to deeper water, where the better tables and the further lessons both live.

• Band 0: from 0 proficiency
• Band 1: from 100 proficiency
• Band 2: from 150 proficiency
• Band 3: from 200 proficiency
• Band 4: from 200 proficiency
• Band 5: from 200 proficiency

Deeds along the way

The 100 milestone inscribes Old Salt and 200 inscribes Master Angler with its title, the very top of the angler's art; Fishing also counts toward Master Gatherer, earned at 100 in any three gathering trades. A first fish from each of twelve zones' waters fills its own page, the three heartland zones and the Willowfen, the Galecrest, the Farshore, the Frostveil, the Amberfall, the Nightbloom, the Wraithwood, the Palmreach, and the Evergarden beyond them, and the Sunglint Koi records Glimmer of Hope, so travelers with a pole in their pack fill their book faster than they expect.