Starting out- life as a newbie As you can probably guess by now, you need to start with 50 Fishing! Your other choice can be anything you choose, but a couple I suggest would be either Cooking or Magery. Cooking because as a newbie fisherman, your main profit will come from selling cooked fish steaks! It is true that at lower levels, cooking does raise quickly, so keep that in mind. Magery because it does take longer to rise at any level, and is probably the most useful skill in the game. Your decision on a 2nd skill should be based on what kind of future you want your character to have. Do you want to be a pure trade type fisherman? Or do you want to be a fisherman who can pick up a sword like the best of them? Maybe a mage who just likes to Fish! As far as stats go, go with 60 Strength, 10 Intelligence, and 10 Dexterity. While fishing does raise str and dex, your higher str will allow you to carry more fish and equipment, and is the hardest stat to raise in the end.

Choose a city! Every city has water to fish in, but some are better than others! Britain, Vesper and Trinsic all are very populated with people willing to buy fish! These cities also allow easy travel via walking or moongate to cities.

With 50 skill there are two things you can catch from the shore: fish and footwear. Equip your fishing pole, (if you started with 50 fishing like I told you, you should already have one!) head out to the docks, double click your pole and target the water. KEEP FISHING! There is one and only way to raise fishing and that is to fish! While fishing, it's a good idea to practice another skill. (want int? do Spirit Speak. dex? Do hiding) All my characters have hiding, I suggest you do hiding! Eventually you'll fish up everything in one area and will have to move to another a few spaces down.

As you fish, watch your weight! With 60 str, you can carry 240 stones. Once you reach this level, cut up all your fish! Double click your dagger and target the fish. You'll get fish steaks, 4 fish steaks for every one whole fish. You'll also notice you've lost weight! So, now you're back below your weight limit…so start fishing again! Repeat! Once you cant fill up anymore, head to the cobblers inside the Provisoner's shop. Sell any footwear you caught. Take all your gold and put it in the BANK!! Head over to your local tavern, maybe an inn. You need an oven!

You were tempted to double click the pile of fish steaks and target the oven weren't you? I knew it! While that is the fastest way to cook the fish, you won't gain any cooking skill doing it! If you don't care about cooking skill, then you can think about cooking all the fish at once. However, if you are interested in gaining skill, read on. You must separate the fish steaks one by one. Now cook each fish steak separately, one at a time. Takes a LOT longer, but gains skill and stats. Now go back to the bank, and start advertising that you have cooked fish steaks for sale. I believe the best price is 1 gold per steak, some charge more, some charge less. Now days, nobody will pay more than 1 gold a piece unless they are a casual buyer, just too many people have too much fish to sell. If you are tired of spamming at the bank, you might try lowering your price to 1 gold per 2-3 fish steaks, or even less. Bank any gold you get! Now keep doing all of this for a few days!

Moving up- Adept So you've got 80 skill now? Starting to bore a little? You've come a long way for sure. Hopefully you've saved up quite a bit of gold. Around 12,500? That's the price of a small ship! At this point you have two options. You can continue to fish up shoes and fish from the coast, and selling them in town. Or you can purchase a ship. If you do decide to buy a boat, (I suggest you do) then it is a MUST that you go read Shipborne Travel and Adventure. Some quick notes on boats from my experience:

• Always keep at least 2 copies of your key in your bank
• Always put your key inside the ship hold. This way if you die, nobody can loot your key off your body, and therefore getting your boat
• Always stand in the middle of the boat. Monsters can't reach you that way to melee, and monsters can't cast spells until they melee you first
• Use a sextant and maps! Always keep a sextant on you and one in your hold. A clock and spyglass are also nice. (Hint: Maybe start with 1 point of skill in Cartography. That way, you get a newbie sextant, that will stay with your ghost when you die. )
• Torches never decay or burn out of left on the deck of a ship. Placing a few all over your ship makes your ship glow at night and looks nice

At 80 skill, you can start to catch magic fish! For an explanation of the magic fish, as well as all other items which can be fished up, go here. While most people consider these magic fish to be worthless, they can be kinda interesting to study at first…especially if you've been stuck on shore fishing and cooking for a week.

KEEP WORKING!!! FISH, FISH, FISH!!! YOUR RICHES WILL BE AVAILABLE SOON!

Mastering the Skill So you've hit master?! I hope you haven't gone crazy yet….because if you have, you'll miss out on the 2nd most valuable fishing treasure….treasure maps! With 90 skill you have a chance of catching 1st level treasure maps. If you haven't bought a boat yet, I strongly suggest you go out and buy one now and learn to use it, for two reasons. One, in order to catch the real goodies of fishing, you must be out on a boat in deep sea, 16 tiles away from land. Second, I know once you get to Grandmaster, you're going to want to go catch some MiB's (Message in a Bottle) also known as SoS's. More on those later.

Got some maps? As usual, you've got two choices. You can either go out with your friends and look for buried treasure, (more on that in Treasure Map Quests and Professions: The Treasure Hunter.) or sell your maps to other players. Personally, I sell my maps for 1,000 gold each.

Wow your skill isn't moving is it? I didn't think so. What do you do now? KEEP FISHING! If you're bored, go cook some fish, or try and sell some. The only way you will gain skill is if you keep fishing!

The Holy Grail- Grandmaster Are you serious? You made it to Grandmaster? Congratulations! It's been a long and tough road, but it was well worth it. Now it's time for you to make some real cash, and I mean in the MILLIONS! If you haven't gotten a boat by now, go get one! There is nothing more on land for you except places to spend all your shiny gold you're about to get.

So you've got 100.00 fishing, a boat, some maps, a fishing pole and your sextant right? RIGHT? Good. Now here is what you do. Get on your boat. Sail out, away from land for a minute or so. And now here's the tricky part: FISH! As a GM Fisherman in the middle of the ocean, what can you expect to catch? Well fish, and then some more fish, then a pair of boots, some more fish, a magic fish, more fish, some more fish, then one treasure map. Now you will catch about 300 more fish…and *gasp* a MiB! (Note: MiB stands for "Message In a Bottle." These bottles are also known as "SoS's") Full instructions on completing can be found in Professions: The Treasure Hunter.

So now you've got some MiB's? As usual, you have two choices:

1. Actually use the MiB, go out and fish up the treasure yourself, or with some friends. This is my favorite thing to do when I catch these bottles. A few things to note about doing this; NO traps, NO locked chests, and best of all, NO monsters spawn. Unlike land treasure maps, you get treasure and no trouble. Another note: You do not have to be GM Fisherman to actually fish up the treasure from a bottle, only to fish up A bottle. This leads us to your other choice.
2. You can sell the MiB to another player. MiB's are a great thing to sell to lots of people, people who don't feel like spending the time to work up to GM Fisherman. Almost everyone wants to buy a few, at least to try it out, and most of those people always come back for more! Personally, I do not sell my precious bottles. You could sell them for 5-8k each usually, sometimes more, but I almost always get more value out of actually fishing up the treasure myself. It's your choice.

Life as a Grandmaster and Conclusions: Well once you are a GM Fisherman, it is very hard to get bored. (at least if you actually go out and get those SoS's instead of selling them) Everyday is different. Who knows where the ocean will take you? One of the nice things about sailing, is that you see the world. Never been to Moonglow? Why not sail there and fish on your way? The world is your oyster now. Fish up SoS's, ID the magic stuff, and sell them to your friends! Or open up a shop to sell all your wonderful goodies! Just remember, you have one of the few skills, that with nothing but your newbie items, you can make millions of gold. Don't get greedy, don't overcharge people. If a newbie needs help, help them! If someone can't afford fish or even that halberd of power you just fished up, lower your price a bit, or better yet, give it to them! You're a rich man (or woman *grins*) so help the less fortunate people of the land and teach the newer ones of your skill, because if you don't, there may not be any fisherman when your gone. But if the current number of fisherman (and their customers) are any sign of the future, it looks like fishing will be a popular skill for a long, long time.

Do you find this essay and myself to be very annoying? Just want to know how to get rich by fishing? Well, I hope you know what you are doing and are a veteran player, but here's a quick summary:

• Start with 50 fishing and whatever else you want in whatever city you want. 45str and the rest is easy.
• Double click fishing pole, fish. Dump everything or sell it or something. Repeat. Repeat again. Now repeat once more.
• Buy a boat.
• Fish some more on the boat, out in the middle of the ocean. Do this until you get GM Fishing.
• When you get GM, keep fishing. Get some SoS's/MiB's. Either go back to land and sell them, or go out and fish up the treasure.
• Repeat until you get enough gold to buy 5 castles, GM Resist and GM Magery.

- Seminole of Catskills