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Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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VolstedGridban
Jedi
Posts: 879
Registered: 09-05-2003



PA: Intergalactic Planetary - Planetary Intergalactic
Server: Tempest

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As seen in my sig, I have a Bait and Tackle shop. It is positioned a mere 15m away from a prime fishing spot (Fish Density: 5, Vegetation: 0) near Tyrena, Corellia. I sell (among other things) fishing poles and bait.

Last night, a customer sends me a /tell, asking if I had a minute for some questions from a Novice Fisherman. I said "You betcha."

To make a long story short, this Novice Fisherman had purchased three 5-count jars of bait from me...and had caught ONE fish. He'd lost the other 14 pieces of bait. He said he'd read a fishing guide on the Ranger forum, but when I did a search for "fishing guide," I didn't find one. According to him, the guide he read talked about picking your pole, and how to apply the bait, and to "Tug" on Nibble, "Tug" on Bite, and "Small Reel-in" on Catch. And that was it.

No wonder he lost all that bait.

So here's my fishing guide. A couple weeks ago, I spent a weekend mostly fishing on Dathomir. I caught over 1500 fish, and averaged between 95-125 units of fish meat per hour. Coulda probably gotten more, except that I'm easily distracted. So I know whereof I speak.

Some of this may be common knowledge. Hell, ALL of it may be common knowledge. But I didn't see any fishing guides when I did my search, and some folks here were surprised the last time I mentioned that I could catch 95-125 fish per hour. So maybe it's not as common as all that.

So without further ado...


Pole Selection

There is much speculation as to what effect, if any, the pole quality has.

In my experience, I catch as much fish with my current 93% pole as I did with my old 76% pole. My first day of the Weekend Dathomir Fishing Trip was with the 76% pole. The 2nd day was with the 93% pole. I didn't notice a difference in nibble rate, bite rate, catch rate, or bait loss rate.

Anecdotally, I suspect that poles of extremely low quality are more likely to catch broken vidscreens, broken binoculars, and the like. When one of my friends first tried his hand at fishing, he made a 26% pole. And he caught a bunch of garbage like broken vidscreens, etc. He'd caught like five different pieces of junk before he ever caught a fish. He upgraded to one of my 76% poles and went back to the same location and didn't catch any junk at all. Similarly, I have never caught anything but fish, and I have never used a pole with less than 76% quality.

So it's possible that pole quality will affect whether or not you catch boots and old tires instead of fish, but once you get past a certain breakpoint (where you're not catching any boots or old tires), it doesn't seem to affect the amount (or the size) of the fish you catch.

Still, I could be wrong. And even if I'm right, there's always a chance that SOE will fix it. So getting the best pole you can certainly can't hurt.



Bait Selection

Doesn't seem to be much difference in bait types. Use whatever's most convenient. If you're on the Tempest server, drop by my shop.



Baiting the Hook

This is here for the n00bs. Baiting the hook is as simple as dragging a jar of bait onto your fishing pole.



Location

Another n00b section. Each location has two ratings: Fish Density and Vegetation. Both can be from 0 to 5. Higher Fish Density ratings means less time between nibbles. A low Fish Density rating will give you a lot of "Waiting..." events

High Vegetation ratings means it's more likely for your line to get snagged. This will cause you to lose your fish if you have one. So seek low Vegetation ratings. The ideal fishing spots are Fish Density 5, Vegetation 0.

You can fish in almost any sized body of water. I have fished in puddles on Rori that weren't any bigger than a small torton. I have fished in the man-made pond in the park at the back end of Coronet City. I have fished on every planet in the game, including Tatooine.



Skinny Bug

The skinny bug affects Fishing as well, sorta. Whenever fish meat shifts for a given planet, Fish Density drops to 0 all over the planet. You can still catch fish, but it takes a while. However, if you can catch one, it's possible to get more than one unit of fish meat from fileting it.



Casting your line

Casting your line involves typing out the command: /fish

Make a macro for this and hotkey it. You'll thank yourself later.



Bait Texture

Bait has three textures: Fresh, Soggy, and Mush. The wetter the bait is, the more likely it is that you will lose it. You can still catch plenty of fish on Mushy bait, and you can still lose Fresh bait. But, generally, Mush bait will get stolen much more often than Soggy or Fresh bait.

Bait texture refreshes when you stop fishing, and may actually improve. If you have Mush bait, you might be able to freshen it up by selecting the "Stop Fishing" option and re-casting. I've had bait go from Mush to Fresh this way. However, IMHO, it's better to keep using the Mush bait, combined with the techniques I will be relating here in a minute. I've caught tons of fish with Mush bait, and reeling it in and starting over in hopes of freshening it up is just a waste of time.



Mechanics of the Fishing Window

When you cast your line (with the /fish command or the convenient /fish Hotkey macro that you've set up for yourself -- you HAVE set up a /fish macro and hotkeyed it, right?), a window will pop up with five selections: Tug Up, Tug Right, Tug Left, Small Reel-in, Stop Fishing. There is also an OK button.

As soon as you cast your line, hit the ALT key and go into "Mouse Cursor" mode (instead of "Movement" mode). This will spare you the minor aggravation of having your mouse cursor re-center every time the Fishing window refreshes.

What happens is that, as long as your bobber is in the water, every five seconds or so the game will check to see if anything happens in a fish-related capacity. When it does this, the window will re-draw itself (and re-center your cursor if you haven't hit ALT first) with the new status (which may be unchanged from the previous status). If there is a status change (i.e. you get a Nibble), you will want to select one of the options (more on this in a moment) and click "OK". Alternately (and this is easier and faster), you can select one of the options and hit "ENTER" on your keyboard.



The Basic Fishing Process

When you fish, your goal is to get the "CAUGHT SOMETHING?!" message. Once that happens and you start to reel in your fish, the fishing engine will begin randomly generating fishing events to determine if your catch gets closer to you or gets farther away from you (or if you lose your bait, which can also happen). If the fish gets farther than 10m away, you lose it. If the fish gets within 2m of you, you catch it.



Volsted's Power Fishing

Here's the big secret of Power Fishing. Find a nice spot with a shallow beach, shoreline, or riverbank. Do NOT face straight out into the water. Instead face along the shoreline or the riverbank. Step into the water just enough that you can face straight along the shoreline and cast your line and have it hit water. The reason for this facing will be explained momentarily.

When you have cast your line and you get a Nibble, pick a Tug option. Doesn't matter which one. If that leads to a Bite, pick a Tug option again. It could be the same option as before. It could be a different one. As near as I can tell, there is no fundamental difference.

I am not certain how the fishing engine determines which combination of tug options will get you a Catch. I am, however, 100% certain that it's not a flat 33% chance per option for Nibble, and another 33% chance per option for Bite. That would give you a chance of 1-in-9 of actually getting to the "CAUGHT SOMETHING?!" message, and my experience indicates that the chance of getting the "Caught Something?!" message is much, much higher.

I strongly recommend that you do NOT change your combination around from cast to cast. Pick a Nibble-Bite combo of Tug options and use it every time. If you always use the same combination, eventually the fishing engine will swing back around to YOU, rather than you trying to chase it around. In my experience, picking a combo and sticking with it will get you more fish in the long run than changing combos every time and trying to guess what the fishing engine wants. I always use Tug Up for Nibbles and Tug Left for Bites, but again, I don't think it matters. The important bit here is not the specific combo I use, but the fact that I never, ever use any other combo. Using Tug Up/Tug Up, or Tug Left/Tug Right, or whatever, should work just as well, as long as you never change it.

Eventually (and hopefully sooner rather than later), you will get the "CAUGHT SOMETHING?!" message. (Or you could lose your bait. But we won't talk about that.) A lot of people will tell you you need to select "Small Reel-in" at this point. You don't. If you get the "CAUGHT SOMETHING?!" message, just wait a few seconds and you will get a message saying "You start to reel in your catch." A few seconds after that will be the first "reel-in event" where the fish will either get closer to you, farther away from you, or will take your bait.

And now you find out why you're facing sideways down the river or the shore.

Once you get the first "reel-in event" (for example "Your catch charges your location!" or "Your catch takes a bit more slack from your line"), RUN to where the bobber is. You should be able to see it floating in the water. Remember: If you start reeling in your catch, the sole criteria for "Do I catch this fish?" is "Is it 2m or less away?" There's nothing that says you can't run out to the fish and grab it.

Just think of it as running out with your hip-waders and a net.

A lot of folks know this already, but still fish facing out into the ocean, river, puddle, swamp, or whatever. They wait until the fish gets close enough so that they can run out to grab it without entering Swim mode (if you enter Swim mode while fishing, you immediately stop fishing and lose any fish you mave have dangling on the end of your line). When you face along the shoreline or the riverbank, you don't have that problem. You never leave shallow water, and you never go into swim mode. So you can just run up to the bobber and grab the fish without worry.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Don't let the line get closer than 2m to you before you get your first "reel-in event" message. If you run up to the bobber after getting the "You start to reel in your catch," but before you get the first closer/farther away/lost bait message, you will simply stop fishing and lose the fish. This is also true during the fishing process, before you actually catch something If you go through a couple of Nibble/Bite cycles without getting a catch, you might end up with your line closer than 2m away. If it looks like you're going to get the line closer than 2m to you before you catch something, either stop fishing and recast, or move a bit away.

OTHER IMPORTANT NOTE: Be careful when you try to move while fishing. I've gotten stuck in run mode while trying to use the cursor keys to back up while fishing, and the only way to clear it was to log out. There are few things that will focus your attention quite like running backwards through a bunch of Rancors and not being able to stop. Don't use the cursor keys to move while you're in fish mode.

POWER FISHING TIP: If you're going to do some SERIOUS fishing, empty out your inventory as much as you can. An unfileted fish takes up three inventory slots since it's essentially a container with a random amount of Meat and Bait in it. It takes less time to catch 10 fish and then filet them all at once than to catch a fish and immediately filet it 10 times in a row. When I went on my Weekend Fishing Trip to Dathomir, I had enough space in my inventory to catch 17 fish before fileting them all. I would fish until I had 17 fishies. If I ran out of bait before I got 17, I'd re-bait and keep going.

POWER FISHING TIP: Wear an empty backpack to keep the collected fish meat and bait. You may want to save all of your bait at first, but eventually you should get to a point where you can safely destroy anything but the 5-count jars.

And there you have it. The technique that let me collect 1500+ units of Dathomirian Fish Meat a couple weeks ago, which I sold to a Bio-Engineer for 20 cpu. Hope some non-trivial portion of the playerbase finds this info useful.

Volsted Gridban
4/4/4/0 Ranger, Master Rifleman,
Surveyor of planetary resources. Purveyor of animal resources.
Author of Volsted's Weapon Analysis Guide, Volsted's Power Fishing Guide,
and Volsted's Animal Resource Guide

Draining MMORPG combat mechanics through the Mighty Sieve of Mathematics since 1999
11-02-2003 06:38 AM  

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Re: Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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Kryl13
SWG Second Lieutenant
Posts: 317
Registered: 08-23-2003


Kryl13

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Great post! A more ineractive way for survival XP!

hopefully someone will sticky this...

Osskarz,
Dark Legion,
Imperial Swordsman
11-02-2003 07:19 AM  

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Re: Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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MagnaVVV
Wing Commander
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MagnaVVV
PA: Veni Vidi Vici
Server: Wanderhome

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Very nice post!!! I haven't had a chance to fish much since the last big patch but I really enjoy fishing in game. I already use some of the techniques you mentioned in your guide but I learned a few new things by reading this. Very nice job!! Btw, other than the colors of the striped fish, have you noticed that fish from different planets look different? We were told there would be differences in fish with the last big patch but I haven't noticed it except in the striped fish, some have green stripes & some have red ones.

Magna
Warmaster
Leader of Veni Vidi Vici
Mayor of Vicimus, Naboo
Magsie
Master Chef, Master Merchant
Wanderhome Server
11-02-2003 11:23 AM  

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Re: Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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melissap968
SWG Second Lieutenant
Posts: 48
Registered: 09-13-2003


melissap968

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This rocks!  Thanks. I cant wait to log in and try it out and teach all my friends
11-02-2003 11:25 AM  

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Re: Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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dhcpSilicon
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dhcpSilicon
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Server: Radiant

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Oh no! So much for my vaunted master bai...er, you know =)
11-02-2003 11:39 AM  

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Re: Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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VolstedGridban
Jedi
Posts: 879
Registered: 09-05-2003



PA: Intergalactic Planetary - Planetary Intergalactic
Server: Tempest

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MagnaVVV wrote:
Very nice post!!! I haven't had a chance to fish much since the last big patch but I really enjoy fishing in game. I already use some of the techniques you mentioned in your guide but I learned a few new things by reading this. Very nice job!! Btw, other than the colors of the striped fish, have you noticed that fish from different planets look different? We were told there would be differences in fish with the last big patch but I haven't noticed it except in the striped fish, some have green stripes & some have red ones.




I, personally, haven't noticed any changes aside from the Striped Fish. But I also haven't really been looking. I've been informed by others that the other fish have changed, just in more subtle ways.

Volsted Gridban
4/4/4/0 Ranger, Master Rifleman,
Surveyor of planetary resources. Purveyor of animal resources.
Author of Volsted's Weapon Analysis Guide, Volsted's Power Fishing Guide,
and Volsted's Animal Resource Guide

Draining MMORPG combat mechanics through the Mighty Sieve of Mathematics since 1999
11-02-2003 12:30 PM  

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Re: Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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ScoerFusou
Jedi
Posts: 667
Registered: 06-26-2003


ScoerFusou
PA: Fidelis Unum
Server: Lowca

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Very nice post. On a side note, after you fillet your fish is the actual fish worth anything? I've just been keeping 1 of every type i catch but I don't know if they are actually worth anything or what they would be used for.

Shubacca
Master Ranger

Scoer Fusou
Master Chef
Mayor of Ouxan Bay, Talus
Fusou Foods (764, -5596) Ouxan Bay, Talus

11-02-2003 01:03 PM  

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how do u get the fish containers?
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BlakkStar
SWG Ensign
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Registered: 09-09-2003



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Starsider: Blakk Star (Lost Child of the Ras'ka)- Master Ranger/TKM
Ahazi: Kojo Anonkye (Master of Ras'kan Martial Arts)- TKM/Stickfighter(Master Fencer)
Kettemoor: Underdog (Badass Bothan B-Boy)- Master Musician
11-02-2003 04:23 PM  

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Re: how do u get the fish containers?
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BlakkStar
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Registered: 09-09-2003



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Arrgghh...

 

When i use to fish i remember getting the actual fish in my inventory and then the filet option put them in a jar.

My question is where do the fish CONTAINERS come from?  The containers that look the same as egg containers but are labeled "fish."  I remember having some long ago in my noob days but i threw them away as i didnt really know their worth.

Peace

Starsider: Blakk Star (Lost Child of the Ras'ka)- Master Ranger/TKM
Ahazi: Kojo Anonkye (Master of Ras'kan Martial Arts)- TKM/Stickfighter(Master Fencer)
Kettemoor: Underdog (Badass Bothan B-Boy)- Master Musician
11-02-2003 04:26 PM  

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Re: Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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DarkFloyd
Jedi
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DarkFloyd
PA: Imperial Galactic Reserves
Server: Tempest

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Oooh.. this sounds like it could work very nicely.. definately going fishing next time I'm on.

Thanks for the guide.

Kyyran Evagg'orr
Bothan Master Scout/ Ranger/ Rifleman/ A bunch of other stuff
Chilastra

PNokkata- Evil Wookiee Padawan/ TKM/ Fencer
Chameleo- Master Doctor/ Swordsman
IGR (Imperial Galactic Reserves)- Sin City Too, Dantooine
Can I be Fingernail?
11-02-2003 09:19 PM  

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Re: Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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admiralcosmo
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admiralcosmo
PA: The Galactic irregulars
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All you really need to do if find a flat shoreline (steep river banks don't work well, flat beaches are much better) and walk as close as you possibly can to the waters edge, and deploy a camp, giving you a "flooded" campsite.  This will give you a large area of very shallow, but still FISHABLE water, in which you can do the trick of running up to your bobber when you get the caught something message.  Plus, this is an excellent combo for survival grinding, since you are in a camp and getting xp from the fishing at the same time.

 

And if I had large amounts of fish meat, I would have sold it for alot more than 20 cpu.  Thats the price I sell high qual herbivore and avian meat, which is much easier to obtain at much faster rates.

Coss Apophus Mastered: Scout, Ranger, Pistoleer, Marksman, Commando (1st Holo) IN PROGRESS: Creature Handler, Armorsmith (2nd Holo)
11-03-2003 05:53 AM  

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Re: Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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Alfgand
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Registered: 07-04-2003



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___________________________________________________________________________________________

Very nice post. On a side note, after you fillet your fish is the actual fish worth anything? I've just been keeping 1 of every type i catch but I don't know if they are actually worth anything or what they would be used for.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Well yes but you are not going to get rich.

 

People are using them to decorate their houses with fish.

Some are sticking them on walls using the "Drop on steps and move to wall" method.

Others are building very nice Aquariums. Of course the fish are dead and don't move but the Aquarium I saw on Naritus (Spelling?) looked VERY nice.

So I would stick them on the bazaar for 100cr (?).  Maybe more on Tatoonie since their is very little fishing going on there but alot of people have houses.

I wish they would name the fish by planet. example: A Tantooine Oasis Spine fish.

11-03-2003 10:27 AM  

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Re: Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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ScoerFusou
Jedi
Posts: 667
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ScoerFusou
PA: Fidelis Unum
Server: Lowca

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How do you build an aquarium? That would be pretty cool.

Shubacca
Master Ranger

Scoer Fusou
Master Chef
Mayor of Ouxan Bay, Talus
Fusou Foods (764, -5596) Ouxan Bay, Talus

11-03-2003 12:34 PM  

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Re: Volsted's Power Fishing Guide (aka /burstfish)
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Nhzuk
SWG Second Lieutenant
Posts: 52
Registered: 09-30-2003


Nhzuk

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I guess this is on topic.. but not quite sure.  Has anyone figured out how the Wilderness Survival XP is calculated while fishing?  It seemed for a while  you got more the longer it took to reel in the fish.  However, over the past few days I've tested a bit more and it appears rather random.  My methods are far less than scientific however.  Any thoughts from the experts.. it is definitely a more fun methods of getting XP than sitting in camps eternally or making them!

Thanks for the awesome post Volstad.. and for your posts on the Rifleman forum.  You have helped me on my Ranger/Rifleman path more than I can say.

Nhzuk - Antarian Ranger - Gorath

11-04-2003 04:14 AM  

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Re: how do u get the fish containers?
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VolstedGridban
Jedi
Posts: 879
Registered: 09-05-2003



PA: Intergalactic Planetary - Planetary Intergalactic
Server: Tempest

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BlakkStar wrote:
When i use to fish i remember getting the actual fish in my inventory and then the filet option put them in a jar.

My question is where do the fish CONTAINERS come from?  The containers that look the same as egg containers but are labeled "fish."  I remember having some long ago in my noob days but i threw them away as i didnt really know their worth.




They come from the same place: fileting the fish.

An unfileted fish is essentially a container. It has two items in it: a random amount of Fish Meat, and a random amount of Chum Bait. Fileting the fish simply empties the contents of the Fish into your main inventory.

Volsted Gridban
4/4/4/0 Ranger, Master Rifleman,
Surveyor of planetary resources. Purveyor of animal resources.
Author of Volsted's Weapon Analysis Guide, Volsted's Power Fishing Guide,
and Volsted's Animal Resource Guide

Draining MMORPG combat mechanics through the Mighty Sieve of Mathematics since 1999
11-04-2003 07:32 AM  

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