Fishing

Fishing on GHOST//NET is a full career, not a slot machine. You start on a quiet lake with a cheap rod and work your way out to the deep ocean for trophy fish worth real money. Your skill decides what you can reach, the weather and seasons decide what is biting, and a reel fight on every hook decides whether you actually land it.

The progression

Everything is gated by your Fishing skill (0 to 100). You earn it by fishing, a tenth of a point at a time, fast while you are green and slow as you near master.

You always keep the lower tiers. A master angler can still drop a line in a pond. The point is that the good money is up high and it takes real time to get there.

Gear

Buy everything at a Bait & Tackle shop. There is one up at the old White Water Activity Center in Tongva Valley.

The rod decides the water type: a freshwater rod only works in lakes, a saltwater rod only in the ocean. Use the wrong one and the line tells you so.

A better rod adds to your effective skill, so it counts both for what you can reach and for landing fish. That carbon rod can be the four points that pushes you over a tier line.

How to fish

1. Buy the right rod for where you are, plus bait.
2. Face the water and use the rod from your inventory, or type /fish.
3. Your line goes out. If something bites, the reel fight starts.
4. Hold the reel key (W) to raise the marker, let go to give line. Keep the marker inside the green zone.
5. Stay in the zone for over half the fight and you land the fish. Drop out too long and it gets away.

Rarer, harder fish have a smaller green zone, so a trophy is a real fight while a bluegill almost reels itself.

Fish schools

Out in the ocean, fish run in schools that drift around and thin out as they are worked. Drop your line in a school and you bite faster and pull better fish than you would in empty water. Schools move, so a hot spot today may be quiet tomorrow.

Seasons

Every fish has a season. Cold-water species run in winter and spring, the warm-water money fish in summer and autumn. You can still catch and sell out-of-season fish, but Phoenix Corp pays a reduced price for them. Check the Maritime Weather guide for the current season.

Boats and nets

• At Fishing 51 you can fish from a boat. That is how you reach the offshore and deep water where the albacore, mahi, and the big tuna live.
• At Fishing 76 you can run an Industrial Net. Take a boat out, use the net, and haul up a pile of common and mid fish at once. Nets are about volume, not quality: they never pull trophies, and each net is used up per haul.

Selling your catch

Take your fish to a Phoenix Corp Fish Market at the docks. Prices are a live market: the more of a species the city is sitting on, the less it pays, and prices recover over time. Flood the market with sardines and the price drops; bring in something rare and in season and it pays out.

The trophy fish

Bluefin tuna, swordfish, marlin, and yellowfin are the paydays, and in practice they are master only. Below 100 they barely bite and are brutal to land. Grind your skill, get a boat, fish them in season, and they are worth the climb.

The legendary rod

Every fish you land has a tiny chance, about one in ten thousand, to also snag the Angler's Legend, a rod that adds +10 to your fishing skill. It binds to whoever reels it up: the bonus only works for you, and you cannot give it, drop it, or stash it to anyone else. Find one and it is yours alone.

Tips

• Start in freshwater. It is the only way to build skill from zero, and the gear is cheap.
• Watch the weather. Storms and high wind block casting, and a hurricane shuts fishing down. Calm overcast and rain fish best.
• Fish in season for the best prices, and do not dump a whole haul on one buyer when the price is already low.
• A better rod pays for itself if it pushes you over a tier line early.

You gain Fishing skill every time you fish, whether you land the fish or not. The bait is the cost of trying; the reel fight is the cost of winning.