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What a bad night fishing |
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I polished off the rest of my willow rods last night. Boy, I think I made
some iron rods or something because half of my hooks survived. The data from the trip is below. I got 1 mini-ding on my 3rd
cast. 90 minutes later I had nothing much to show for my time. I then decided to head to W. Saru for some less intense
fishing. Good god was the fishing bad. about 10-15% hook rate. I didn't bother counting my misses because there were
so many. That was over a 5-hour period of time. On the few hooks I got, I landed
80% of them (33/41). So again, Lu Shang's is coming though. I thought I'd mention this since I haven't before. When I
throw up these percentages and numbers, I'm including kelp and rusty items. Now, I barely catch rusties. Maybe 1 every 3
hours or so. I do catch more kelp though. Probably out of the 33 above, I probably caught 4 kelp. The reason I
include these non-fish items is because I really don't know if it's possible to lose one. So thus, I have to assume that
I can and that there is a possibility that a catch I lost could have been a non-fish item. Just understand that about
10% of my totals include kelp. I do know that I catch much less that when I was using a composite rod. So remember that in your comparisons.
Fishing Time: 5 trips @ 15 minutes per trip
Hooks: 27
Breaks: 14
Lost Catches: 13
Mini-dings: 0.2 ~~ 0.2
Moon: 12%+ - 17%+
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4-20-2004 |
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Still Working on the Ferry |
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Spent a good 11 trips on the boat today. Didn't get as many skillups as I wanted. Did hit 63 though, so I'm okay with that. Only one neat thing to share today. I discovered that repairing my LuShang's rod the other night granted me a new title: The Immortal Fisher, Lu Shang. Cool, huh? Anyways, here are the ferry stats. I didn't fish the whole time straight, but it was between 48%- and 31%- moon.
Fishing Time: 11 trips @ 15 minutes per trip
Hooks: 69
Breaks: 53
Lost Catches: 16
Mini-dings: 0.7 ~~ 0.1/0.2/0.2/0.2
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4-18-2004 |
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The Bamboo Trick |
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Okay, okay, it's the same trick as the willow trick. My woodworking has moved on. I just stopped
by here to post some more information on ferry fishing. I had started the night going for shall shells in the dunes, but the area was lag-filled and I
caught more mobs than shells. Did catch my first fish, though, which was a quus. Anyways, to make this quick, looks like bamboo rods are worse than willows! Well, as far as not breaking as much. You can scroll down a couple days to see how this trip compared to the willow rods. The following numbers are off meatballs during 90- to 88- moon.
Fishing Time: 6 trips @ 15 minutes per trip
Hooks: 33
Breaks: 29
Lost Catches: 4
Mini-dings: 0.5 ~~ 0.1/0.1/0.1/0.2 <-- yea! level 62
A couple of interesting notes was that during the time the pirate ship was attacking, I go no hooks. As soon as it left, I got 3 before the trip was done. Also, when the sea horror spawned, I didn't catch anything either. Good thing there were 5 morons on the boat to act as fodder to keep it busy while I tested. And thanks to the dipshit who was fishing next to me who decided to run down there, slap the horror on the ass, and then drag it through me. Yeah, that was fun! And yeah, I ran like a little girl. :P
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4-18-2004 |
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I Broke My Rod!! |
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Well, I started the night in West Sarutabaruta and the fishing was horrible. About 10% bite
rate. Headed back to the boat for some willow rod fishing. The bite rate was excellent there and I burned through about 10 rods in 5 minutes. Didn't get
a skillup though. Then, I decided to pull out LuShang's for a couple tries. First one was okay. Landed a shark. 2nd pull I THOUGHT the animation was
medium. Nope. POP. Man, was I scared because I haven't found ancient lumber for sale in windy or sandy in quite some time. Got lucky when a guildmate
found 2 in jueno. So I got another guildmate to ferry my ass to Rabao. The quest to fix the rod is prompted by having the broken rod in your inventory. The NPC is standing between the two ponds and offers to fix it. He just needs 1 ancient lumber and 2 light crystals. Lucky for me, the whole venture cost me only $10k. So, yeah. Um. Scary. Well, since I can't end any evening without some more testing, I bought a rogue rig for some Rabao rusty cap fishing. Oh, by the way, my catch rate continues to be around 80% in Sarutabaruta. Okay, back to rogue rig. Threw that down in the water and had the following results (misses means I didn't catch anything):
Misses: 23
Rusty Buckets: 8
$1: 1
Rusty Caps: 5
Lost catches: 3
Copper rings: 4
So, as you can see, the rogue rig definitely catches a ton of rusties. This is all in about 20 minutes. Too bad there were 87 rusty caps for sale on Sandy's AH or I could have made a pretty penny. Well, at least I got my rogue rig so I can see what kind of damage I can do against shall shells.
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4-17-2004 |
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The Willow Trick |
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I went back to the willow trick on the Ferry for the simple reason that I'm working on woodworking and those rods are good for a few levels. That, and fishing has been incredibly slow. You only need about level 9 to start making the rods. So just grab a bunch of willow lumber (about $1200/stack on my server) and some grass thread. Get the grass thread from Selbina for about $45 each. Then some wind crystals and put 1 of each together. Oh, you'll need some killer bait like meatballs. You can use whatever live bait is appropriate to your level though. This trick is great for people who just finished with gold carps. Basically, you are fishing to break rods. Why do this? Well, with meatballs or sliced bluetails, you can break all rods in the game. And my eyes get really hurt staring at the screen so much waiting for the sweat animation. So I thought, why not get some cheap ass rods and just break them. You can buy willows in Windy for about $44 each. Yeah, I lose like $250 when I make them, but I'm not
worried since I'm buying my woodworking. So fish and let them break. Oh, and you won't catch any fish at all on the boat.
Okay, time for some raw data from last night. Quick and dirty:
Hooks: 39
Breaks: 29
Lost Catches: 10
Mini-dings: 0.7 ~~ 0.3/0.1/0.2/0.1
Fishing Time: 5 trips @ 15 minutes per trip
I fished for just over an hour since I had to take a break to water the dog and help someone kill the Horror. But as you can see, that is awesome
fishing. The bad part was the lack of hooking. I could have done twice the fishing if bites were more than 1 hook every 4-5 casts. Sliced bluetails
didn't seem to be any better of a bait, so I stuck with meatballs. Oh, and I got no skillups when the pirate ship came and 2 trips of the 5 I got no skillups.
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4-16-2004 |
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Do I Catch More with LuShang's Part 2? |
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Not much to report about today. Last night sucked. I got like 0.1
skillups. I tried a bunch of different combinations. To me, fishing in West Sarutabaruta is consistant all the time.
There is no good fishing or bad fishing in terms of hooking fish. Again, though, I'm catching 75%+ of the fish I hook, be
it bladefish, or breams, or ogre eels.
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4-15-2004 |
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Do I Catch More with LuShang's? |
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Well, this is the big question I guess. One I wanted to answer
after spending 20-30 hours with LuShang's. aSyLLyM sent me a PM this morning and asked me this very thing. Lucky
for him, I was prepared for an answer because, as you might guess, my answer is YES. It does seem like I
catch much better with that rod. My catch percentage is up there, and I'm not talking on lower level fish.
I'm talking higher fish like Crescents (69) and Bastore Breams (70) and Bladefish (71). I see this especially
with Crescents. I hardly miss them at all. I'd say I land 80-90% of the crescents and bladefish I hook. It's
easy for me to know this because I use a rod/lure combination that only targest them. Breames are harder though
due to them sharing lures, but I
will try crayfish balls tonight because that is supposed to single them out.
Yes, this is a pretty powerful statement and one that will have to be
corroborated by
others with LuShang's. BUT, like I said earlier, the laws of fishing are
inconsistent. A good test for me
would be to fish for moats again in the Knightwell since I have weeks of data on that. Always about 60%
catch rate. That was when I was level 58 with +4 to gear. Or, maybe
that would be a bad test since that fish is an enigma. Can anyone
think of any fish besides moats they can hook 100% of their casts?
And the other thing to think about is that moats are smaller fish, while
the 3 above are bigger. And I think LuShang's is definitely a big
game rod. |
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4-14-2004 |
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More Observations |
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The more I fish, the more I tend to believe the laws
of fishing just don't apply equally everywhere. This isn't quantum physics here, so there has to
be some pattern. Here is what I mean. Let's take for example, moat carps. Everybody's favorite.
You know that if you zone in and whip out your pole and some insect paste that if the fishing is bad,
the fishing is bad, and no matter what lure you use, I just won't work... like if you switched to
a little worm. Bascially, switching bait just doesn't work. Or does it?
It has never in the past for me.
So I'm sitting in West Sarutabaruta last
night again wondering what to test out. Of course, I always just throw out some bait or lure to see how the fishing is.
First thing I hear from somebody is something about how crappy the fishing was tonight. So I stick a
minnow on my line and cast on the cliffs. Not much biting at all. It was 60%+ moon anyways. So I'm
fishing, and missing, and missing. I do hook a couple fish though. Snag some breames again. No
bluetails. (okay, yes this is going somewhere, hold on). I decided to grab a sinking minnow from my pack because it hooks breames (and
lobsters and ogre eels). I toss that lure in and get a fast hit. Then another. Over the next 60 casts,
I hook 36 and land 30. 10 lobsters, 10 eels, and 7 breames. Oh, and 3 kelps (more on this later). Not
bad at all. Zone and try it again. Not quite as good this next time. Like maybe 8-9 of each
kind of fish.
So, I guess my point is, while the minnow is doing crap, even on breames, switching to a sinking lure was
working good. Okay, back to kelp. I believe kelp is one of those things thrown into the game to hinder
us. Which is okay as long as it doesn't break rods. Prior to LuShangs, I get maybe a stack of these or
more an hour. Just insane amounts. Well, now that I got LuShangs, I don't catch this stuff much anymore.
I mean, I catch it, just not the quantities as before. This is the case over this past week, I just didn't
notice it until last night. I think after last night fishing for 6
hours, I had 2.5 stacks of kelp, when normally it would be around 6.
Interesting, no? |
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4-14-2004 |
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Okay, so Crescents Aren't That Bad |
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A new moon hit, so I stuck with the crescent fish I had been working
the past couple days. I hooked very poorly, but managed 0.8 skillups and 13 fish in a 3 hour period. Not too good,
but not too bad. Someone had asked me to start working on the bigger fish and see how they do. So while doing some
heavy egg muling for a guildmate, I did some minnow fishing. Session 1 included 22 casts and resulted in 5 hooks and
me landing all 5 as bastore breames. My second session was 27 casts, 7 breames, 5 kelp, 2 bluetails, and 9 misses.
One of those misses was a 0.1 skillup. My third session was 20 casts for 3 kelp and 6 bluetails. Had advanced imagery
on this time, but all the rest of today and yesterday I did not. My forth session was trying sliced bluetails for
bladefish, per the recommendation of the fishing taru. Didn't get a single hook during a half hour venture. My last
session involved 50 casts, but I after 20 casts, I got no hooks. During the first 20 casts, I got 2 bluetails,
2 breames and 1 kelp. The grand total during about 3 hours of fishing was 14 breames and 10 bluetails. Interesting,
no? Prior to getting LuShang's, I would usually get more bluetails than breams to a ratio of 2 to 1. Oh, and the
street value of tonight's fish is about $25,000 (in 3 hours). Also, I didn't lose a single lure, nor did I get a
"fish too small."
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4-12-2004 |
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Crescent fish are teh suck |
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Nothing too exciting here from last night. I decided to go
crescent fishing since people seemed to slam it pretty good. You know, I
gotta try everything. I also wanted to test out Frog Lures catching
them since I had read that on Trent's guide as a possibility. All I caught was Pipira. So those who are level
20ish looking to level, this place seems to be great for fishing. It was 52%- moon last night and I was hooking 75%
pipiras and landing 90% of them. Didn't get any evidence that I hooked a crescent
though.
I switched to a Fly Lure and was struggling. The bite rate didn't seem to be any better
than Bladefish. I did get about 0.5 skillups during 3 hours of fishing. Sorry I don't have the exact skillups
since I fished over half the day and the Easter turkey I ate put me in a
coma and I forgot my numbers. Got 13 crescents.
My next goal tonight is to try it again
tonight during the New Moon. Then I'm going to switch to a minnow
and work the coast there in Saru. I usually fish in W. Saru, but I
might try the East tonight. This is also another place where I
lose a minnow every hour or two. If this all doesn't go well, then
it's back to the boat for a quick willow + bait trip. Then I'm
going to try the Rogue Rig in the Dunes. I did okay with that when
I was level 52, but snapped my line after a couple hours. I'm
hoping that with LuShang's, I should keep my $15k lure longer this time.
Oh, and still no info on Lizard Lures. |
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4-11-2004 |
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Maiden Spring |
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You may be wondering why the heck I'm not out fishing
for the big stuff. Well, the quick answer is that I'm sticking around fishing spots close to Outposts so I
can warp back to town quickly...helping guildmates work on the Egg Quests. On a side note, if you equip the egg,
you are forced to unequip your rod. Darn. No more LuShang trophy. Oh, and that reminds me, LuShang sells for $4,500
to the fishing guild in Selbina. Lol. Thought that was pretty funny.
Okay, back to the topic here. Spent some time at Maiden's Spring for the first time. In case you need a brush-up on
your geography, this lake is located SW of Jugnar Forest's Lake Mechiume. I've been there once before, waaaay back, but
was only able to catch crayfish. Okay, quick to the point. I tossed in my frog lure and caught red terrapins, but no catfish
or dark bass. I proceeded to make about 50 casts there with the frog lure and only caught terrapins. I switched to a
minnow and made about 10 casts and didn't catch anything. That lure should have caught giant catfish or dark bass
if there were any. I then switched to peeled crayfish, and got no hooks. That bait targets dark bass and emporer fish.
I screwed up and didn't bring any insect paste. But the good news here is that if you are wanting to target terrapins only
then this might be the place to be. I'll head back with the paste and see what I can get. The last 2 bits of information
to know is that I caught no mobs, but there is a static bogy there. :(
I spent 3 hours at Lake Mechiume last night and tested breaking lures again. Didn't break my lure. That's about 8-9 hours
there with the same lure. Happened upon a fellow fisherman using the same lure and he says he goes through about 1 an hour,
same as I used to. Anyways, I caught 25 terrapins and 48 dark bass. I took the bass to Zaldon and he sliced them open and
I was rewarded with 5 green rocks. These rocks go for $3500 on my server. So during that 3 hours, I scored $40,615 in fish
and loot. If I were to have spent that time working moats, I would have ..../em crunches numbers.... $31,500. That number is based
off catching 3 stacks of moats per hour for 3 hours, selling for $4k/stack and less the cost of bait. Interesting, no?
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4-11-2004 |
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Jugnar Fishing Part 3 |
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Okay, logged back in
last night after being logged out for about 10 hours. Immediately started catching
rusties and arrowwood logs. So this proves you really need to zone. I couldn't do more testing for lure breaking in
my spot because someone was camping my spot. On another note
I started powerleveling woodworking. I didn't spend too much time and I got all the way to level 7.
If only fishing was this easy. Right now is a good time to pick up woodworking because....for some reason
you can chop lumber and get eggs for the even. Maybe they figure you knock it out of a bird's
nest. |
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4-10-2004 |
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lizard lure? |
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I think I've asked for
information on this a million times. Does anyone have ANY
information on this lure? I've never seen it used, but I've seen it on
the AH history. I did visit a Japanese site that lead me to believe that
it is a HQ2 item for a worm lure. I didn't know there were such
things as HQ2 items. HQ1 for the worm lure was cited as the frog
lure. So I don't know what's up. So if anyone has any
information, let me know please! |
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4-9-2004 |
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Jugnar Fishing
Part 2 |
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I didn't log last night,
so this morning before work, I wanted to test a theory about the anti-bot
code. Started fishing about 5 hours after I stopped last night.
Boy, the code was still alive and kicking when I jumped on. I
caught a few fish, but the rusties were rolling in big time. In
like 30 minutes, I had 3 arrowwoods, 2 buckets, and 7 rusty leggings.
I know there are still people who think that there isn't anti-bot code
and that the reason fishing goes bad is due to people outfishing the
area. Well, I know this to be untrue. Jugnar, like last
night and always, is a pretty deserted place. I saw 1 guy last
night. I think he was botting on the other side of the rock from
me. (you get to where he was by going through Ronperre's Tomb).
Stay tuned for the second part of our
experiment. I logged this morning and shut down the computer.
I'll log back in later today and see if if the code is still there
without zoning.
Oh, and we'll see if I can lose this lure. I think I'm up to about
5 hours now without a lure loss, which is by far longer than normal with
the composite rod. |
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4-9-2004 |
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lushang's day 1 |
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Okay, first impressions
were not that great. My first task was to visit the NPC in Rabao
and see if he discusses fixing my LuShang should I break it. Nope.
He said the same thing. My guess is it's one of those things where
you need to break the rod, then just trade it to him, then he chats.
Well, part of my ferry fee to Rabao was to let my guildmate use the rod
for a bit. She gave it a try for about 2 hours, but didn't notice
any difference. Rabao was streaky as hell though. On a very
interesting side note, I borrowed her composite and threw on a frog lure
(targets giant donkos). On my 3rd cast, I got a "you lack the
skill." Huh? Donkos are supposed to be level 50, which puts
that 8 levels below my 58. So one of three things is happening
here: 1) Donkos are higher than 50. 2) There is something
else in the water. 3) You can get these messages on fish below
your level. On
another side note...Bradley released another strategy guide. If
you owned the first one, you noticed that the guide went basically up to
level 50, missed a lot of things inbetween, and totally blanked out on
the expansion regions. Well, this guide appears to be doing
similar things. When a friend checked the fish chart for Rabao, it
only listed the place as having crayfish and moats. So buyer
beware. My first
experiment was to try and break my line with LuShangs. So I headed
to Jugnar forest and fished the rock for about 3-4 hours. Plenty
of time for the anti-bot code to kick in. I've logged a lot of
hours in this spot and I usually keep my frog lure on for about 2 hours
before I lose it if I don't zone or log. So last night I kept it going
for about 4 hours until I went to bed. During the last couple
hours, I caught items like crazy. But the interesting part
(besides that I never lost my lure) was that I was yanking up arrowwood
logs like mad. I totaled about a dozen during that period. Still no snappy. I
decided to leave my character standing at that spot all night in order to test
another theory... |
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4-9-2004 |
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I got my lushang's!!!! |
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Well, the big moment hit
this morning. I would have had the rod last night but the damn
power went out. So I woke up early to catch the last 40 or so and
then use the remainder of my money to buy the rest. Thankfully,
the recent increase in moat prices to $4k/stack is meeting resistance,
so moats are piling up, thus driving down the prices for me. I was
able to get some for $3k and $3.5k. I'll have to post later on my
initial impressions of the rod since I'm late for work. |
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4-8-2003 |
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This Page |
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I finally decided to
make a page that discusses various thoughts and adventures while
fishing. Hopefully people can learn from this and enhance their
own experiences. So you'll probably see a lot of crazy thoughts
and random stuff.... |
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4-7-2004 |
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