Starting Fishing

[Sarial]

I'm planning to start fishing. I'm level 8, since I used to farm Bubbly Bernie (yeah, way back. That far back.) and sell sardines. I'm want to level cooking as fast as possible--don't care about on what, just leveling fast. I was wondering if people could either recommend a way or point me to a guide, and when I should be or can try for stuff like the skill up+ and speed of catch+ rings?

Edit: Also, can the guy in Rabao fix any rods, not just Lu Shang's?

[Dowzer]

Dunno about buddy in Rabao. Broke my Lu Shang's for the first time today though!

I've said it before and I've pasted the guide 10 times by now, I think you'd make much better progress picking up a Halcyon rod
0-11 moats
11-27 nebs
27-53 eastern shalls in nash
At this point you should have near enough to buy a Lu, if you need to fish more nebs go ahead, but atleast you've achieved 40+ more levels instead of being stuck at 11.

11-27 nebs: Halcyon/Crayfish Ball on the Selbina/Mhaura ferry or SSG.
27-53 istiridye: Halcyon/Robber Rig in Nashmau. (Dunno about this personally, my friend lost a Rig without Lu Shang's Rod. I never lost one with Lu's.)
53+ merc/aht/dil: Lu Shang's/Shrimp Lure in Talacca. (I started early at 40, some people at level 30~35?)

I might be biased towards this because I bought Lu Shang's very early. (Definitely worth it if you fish a lot.)

Instead of fishing nebs on the boat, I use Halcyon/Shrimp Lure in SSG. Bastore Breams and Ahtapots would also hook onto Shrimp Lures..This was good and bad. Breams would snatch my shrimp lures nearly every time, they're somewhat expensive at 2~5k per lure. I was ultimately fed up when I broke my Halcyon rod in SSG, I assume it was a Coral Fragment.

I tried the boat trip in Selbina/Mhaura with Halcyon/Crayfish balls and it was great. No breaks or lost lures. I just never liked the constant delays. (15min of fishing each way?)

I bought a Lu Shang's rod and went back to SSG with a Shrimp Lure. Pulled up the entire pond, I could reel in any fish in that pond without worrying about losing a lure or breaking my rod. Ultimately I skilled up a lot faster.

If you're willing to catch more than 150 fish per day, you'll level up fairly quickly. It takes me about 4~6 hours to fatigue. (around 200 catches) If you keep up this pace for a week, you'll be fishing in Talacca very soon.

I started on Aug. 18th at level 14. I'm now level 55 and it's Sept. 10th.

[Sarial]

What about advice as far as when to start going for the skill up+ ring etc? When can I and when is it feasable?

[Dowzer]

Start whenever you like. Unfortunately you just missed the last contest's dead line.

There is a two week period of submitting entries. Then a two week period of declaring results.

Anybody can participate as long as they possess the fish specified by Chenon. There are also no rules regarding the method of acquiring the fish. You can catch it yourself, buy it at the Auction House, or search other players’ bazaars.

Fish Ranking - FFXIclopedia, the Final Fantasy XI wiki - Characters, items, jobs, and more

I would also lean more towards being able to catch the fish yourself. There is a (big) chance you'll only find losers on the AH. You can still use it after the contest, it'll be marked so it can't be used in future contests. The mark is (Ranking: x) tagged near the length/weight.

[Sarial]

A good level for trying to catch them?

[Dowzer]

A good level for trying to catch them?

Varies greatly. The last contest was for Gigant Squid which are level 91, I was catching them with np in the 30s.

[urat]

Sometimes they'll ask for liks or gugras, which you need high end fishing skill, lus/ebisu, alba/penguin ring AND serpent rumours to have a chance at landing, sometimes it'll be a gugra tuna, a fish any lv 1 newbie fisher can land with a mithran fishing rod.

As for skilling, don't. Never fish for skill ups, always fish for profit and let the skill ups come as nice little whee moments while making money. Kind of like nice parry skillups when your farming you know?

Most fishers use halc rod on boat or in SSG and by 27 they've sold enough nebs to buy lus and continue. Fishing is all about making piles of cash, only thing I'd recomend is skilling on trumpet shells instea dof istiridyes, as trumpet shells sell almost instantly for 20K a stack vs istires common 8-10K slowly.

Even at my level I often find the best profit fish is trumpet shell unless I have someone buying liks/gugs straight off of me by order. Sadly my latest customer went 1/1 and 1/<40 on there items so I'm waiting on a new one to pop up.

Til then, top spots money wise I'd say are:

#1 liks/gugras, 20K each, cha ching, but only worth it if you have a demand.

#2 Trumpet shells: the demand for these guys is ridiculous high, and the price the same as liks and gugas a stack. Seriously hot money.

#3 Nashmau, simply reel it all in and NPC em in town, good solid never out of demand, and if in demand on your server theres connection to AH right there too, my server has low dmeand for the ahtapots dils and mercs though so I normally just npc

Those my top spots there. Big cha ching later on =P

[Dowzer]

my server has low dmeand for the ahtapots dils and mercs though so I normally just npc

I have yet to see a stack returned from the AH, they always sell, usually within the day. Mercs and Ahts I just NPC, but I would consider making Bream Sushi if I had cooking. Fishing is definitely about the money!

[Sarial]

Planning for cha-ching via Cooking, tbh. 85 atm

[cdgreg]

If you have anymore fishing questions whether basic or specific use the 104 page fishing thread DIRECTLY below this topic.

[Theraven]

If you have anymore fishing questions whether basic or specific use the 104 page fishing thread DIRECTLY below this topic.

It's worth reading the whole thread too, there is some really good info in there. I just broke it up over a few days when I was bored instead of trying to marathon read the whole thing.