Fishing Skill Needed for Items

Item	Skill	Picture
Fish	0.1
Footwear	0.1
Prize Fish (+5 Int)	0.1
Wondrous Fish (+5 Dex)	0.1
Truly Rare Fish (+5 Str)	0.1
Highly Peculiar Fish (refill 10 Stamina)	0.1
Big Fish / Deep Water	65
Empty Sea Serpents	80
Special Fishing Nets	80
Treasure Maps	90
Messages in a Bottle/Waterstained SoS	100 to find 65 to fish up

The only things you can fish up from shore are fish, footwear, and magic fish. The treasure maps and MiB's can only be pulled up away from shore, which is I believe somewhere around 14 squares.

Guide to Becoming a Thriving Fisherman

NOTE: Before I get started, I must encourage any serious fisherman out there to download the map program UOAutomap. It is nearly essential when traveling the Oceans of Sosaria, and more so if you plan on hunting treasure in its unknown watery depths.

Download UOAM here

• Introduction to Fishing
• Fishing up SoS's
• Hints for Fishing

Hail fellow treasure hunters! My name is Fisher Minus, and I'll be your fishing guide today.

Let me first say that if you're thinking of creating a fisherman to make some quick easy cash, think again. Fishing is quoted by both Counselors and Game Masters to be the 2nd hardest skill to raise in the game. It could take several months depending on your dedication to reach the level of Grandmaster Fisherman. Unless you're looking for a character to merely keep you stocked with food. I believe fishing is by far the most under-estimated skill in the game. Once you've reached the level of Grandmaster the riches are beyond your wildest dreams. If you are strong of will and dedication to become a Grandmaster Fisherman than please read on as I pass on my knowledge to the next generation of fisherman.

Character Creation:

For all of the skill types described below I suggest to making your starting stats: 44 str / 11 int / 10 dex

Creating a good fisherman all lies in your intentions for your fisherman. If you're going for the pure fisherman I suggest starting out with 50 magery, 49 fishing, and 1 cartography. I cannot stress the importance of magery to a serious fisherman (by serious fisherman I mean one who owns a boat and is striving toward that 100.00 in fishing). If you're killed while on your boat, or kicked out during a lag spike, just use that 50 magery to recall off your master boat key in the bank, and *poof*, you're right back on your boat. The 1 point in cartography is so you get a newbie sextant, which will be used almost as much as your fishing pole later on when your hunting those SoS's.

If you want to create a fisherman just to keep you stocked in food, start with 50 fishing and 50 cooking. The rest is pretty self-explanatory: Use your fishing pole on any ocean body of water to retrieve fish, then use your newbie dagger on them to cut up fish steaks. Use the newbie dagger on any type of tree to gather kindling, and double click the kindling until you light a fire (this will depend on your camping skill). Double click your raw fish steaks and target your freshly lit fire. If you have 50 cooking then you should have no trouble cooking up these fish. I still recommend starting with 50 magery instead of 50 cooking because cooking raises so quickly compared to magery and at no cost.

If you're creating a fisherman/treasure hunter, which I recommend, since they are by far one of the more fun classes in the game, you should start with 50 magery, 49 Cartography, and 1 fishing. Again the magery is so you can recall back to your boat if you're booted out. 49 Cartography because it is the hardest skill to raise for a treasure hunter, so you really want to start off with as much as possible. With this, as I said previously, you also get your newbie sextant, which is used in both treasure map hunting and SoS hunting (see: How to Conduct a Treasure Hunt section for more information on map hunting). Finally that 1 final point in fishing is obviously so you get a newbie fishing pole. Fishing, compared to magery and cartography, is very easy to raise in the beginning stages, and considerably less expensive.

Other skills to work on for these types of character are Lockpicking, Item Identification, Mining, Detect hidden, Remove Trap, Musicianship, Peacekeeping, and Provocation. Of these secondary skills I suggest picking 3 to work toward GM on, because of the skill cap. Also I would suggest working on your primary skills until you're happy with their level, before you start on these. I guarantee you will have much more satisfaction getting the tough skills out of the way first, as most of these skills develop fairly easily. (see: How to Build a Pure Treasure Hunter section for help in these skills).

Starting Out:

The city you choose to start out in depends on the type of character you're working on. If your fisherman is just a food mule I suggest starting out at a convenient city for your fisherman to transfer the food and money he makes to your other characters or friends. Also, I suggest picking a fairly populated city such as Britain or Vesper, so you can always find a customer to sell your fish steaks to if you need some quick cash. Britain is great because it has every store you need all centrally located around the bank and the ocean.

If your character is a treasure hunter or a pure fisherman I suggest Moonglow, Jhelom, or Skara Brae. All of these towns are located near great fishing spots (which I will explain later). These towns also all have cartography and mage shops, in case you need to work on those skills. Also, these towns are less populated than Britain, for example, so if you walk around their coasts fishing each spot until it's dry, not many people will try and bug you, unlike the more populated towns.

When you appear in the town of your choice for the first time you have several options of what to do first. Bank all the items you don't need. I say this because you want to have as few items on your body as possible, so you can carry more fish in your backpack without having to empty it or stop to cook. Once you've emptied your pack and taken off your newbie clothes, and banked them, find the nearest ocean body of water. Equip that fishing pole and get to work. Make sure you find a spot where someone isn't fishing already or isn't likely to fish while you are there. I suggest walking around the coastline, fishing each spot until the fish stop biting. I suggest fishing from shore until you have around 60-70 fishing; then if you're really serious about getting Grandmaster Fisherman you MUST buy a boat. Maybe not right now but at some point before 80 I plead with you, for your sanity's sake, BUY A BOAT. Its a heck of a lot easier than fishing from shore and you get better skill gain in deep ocean water. (Deep ocean is any place 14 tiles "steps" away from land)

A great approach for any serious fisherman is to have one of your other characters with more money buy your fisherman a boat deed. Get that deed over to your fisherman character, whether it be by aid of a trusted friend holding the deed for you or by any other secure means possible. If you have no way of getting a boat deed, try borrowing a boat from a friend. If all else fails and you can't get a boat, don't worry, keep fishing from shore until you have enough money to buy a boat deed. Keep cooking up those fish steaks by way of kindling if you want skill, or go to a bakery and use the oven if you want to cook without skill gain. I suggest selling cooked fish steaks for 1 gold piece per fish steak, or if you really need to sell some quickly, sell 1 gold piece per 2 fish steaks. I sell 2 for 1 because I usually have bulk fish and don't care about losing a few bucks for a quick sell. Besides, fish are free *smile*. Also sell any footwear you get, such as boots or sandals, to the Cobbler or Provisioner for quick, though limited, cash.

Serious Fishing:

Once you have a boat deed, you can really start fishing seriously. If you started on any of the island towns like I suggested for the treasure hunter class, then you're that much closer to the great fishing spots, which you MUST have a boat to access. If you started in on of the other towns it's ok too, either use the moongates to get to one of the island towns I listed, or sail there in your shiny new boat *smile*. In either case your destination is the server boundary line. If you don't know what this is, this is where the east-most points and west-most points wrap around and meet.

Also before you depart make sure and take your fishing pole, sextant and some kindling from nearby trees. Place the kindling inside the built in box on your boat or on the deck; this way you don't need to go to land every time you need to cook up some fish steaks. I suggest bringing around 20 pieces of kindling. Get all your banking needs out of the way now, because we won't be back here any time soon. Take everything you don't need out of your backpack, as well as all your clothes again so you weigh as little as possible. Once in your boat with your fishing pole in hand and your sextant at your waist we set sail. If you're departing from the town of Jhelom, Skara Brae, Yew or any point on the Western coastline sail directly West. If you're leaving from Moonglow, Nujel'm, Magincia, or any of the Eastern island cities then you would sail directly East.

Before I go on with the directions, I must explain to those who don't know how to use a sextant how to use one of the most useful items in the game. If you already know skip to the next paragraph.

Ready? When you double click the sextant you get a serious of numbers and letters. These are degrees of longitude and latitude. Here's an example coordinate and a point on the line I fish regularly: 160o 58'S, 88o 10'W

The first two numbers (160o and 58'S) mean 160 degrees 58 minutes South. The second two numbers (88o 10'W) mean 880 degrees 10 minutes West.

Each of the above sets of degrees mean that your coordinates are either North/South or East/West of Lord British's Castle, located in Britain. His throne is 0o 0'N/S 0o 0'E/W.

Think of Degrees and Minutes as Feet and Inches. Every degree contains a certain number of minutes. Below is a map marking where each section is marked North/South/East/West.

With this map and the cloth/paper map you were given you should be able to get the general area to which the coordinates you're looking for or the coordinates you are at are located. It might take a few days but you'll get the hang of it. I suggest marking on your map at home where each of the North/South/East/West boundaries are just as the map below is marked.

Here are the sextant coordinates for the server line: 92o 40'W. I recommend staying on the Jhelom and Skara Brae side of the server line, the Western Hemisphere of Britannia. Also, don't sail directly on the server line; it's better if you move east a few tiles to the coords of around 88o 10'W longitude. Once there turn your boat to the right so you're sailing parallel to the server line. This is a beautiful spot, because as long as you're sailing parallel to the server line you will never hit land, and if you fish while your boat's moving along the line you will never run out of fish. Also, you will never get caught be a sea monster because your boat's moving and it can't keep up with you.

It might take awhile to find a line of longitude near the server that is free of parked boats.

You will find that many people park their boats around the server line; make sure if you're going to macro that before you start macroing, the line you're sailing on is free. If it isn't, move to the left or right a few tiles and test that line for a while manually. I suggest sailing around at least once to make sure nothing's going to cause your boat to stop while in mid-macro. You would then begin pulling up sea monsters, which could easily prey on you while you sit in your motionless boat away from your computer.

NOTE: Be careful, I don't recommend macro fishing because it is so dangerous; yet with the current difficulty of fishing there are few other methods. Also, some people like to stop your boat on purpose while you're macroing and either call a GM on you or kill you. If someone calls a GM, you could lose your account. So be careful if you're going to macro. Just be cautious and be aware of other people and your surroundings if you're going to macro fishing.

With this magic fishing method you will be able to gain fishing quicker than any other means. Just make sure to keep an eye on your backpack. Make sure it's not getting too full, because if it's at about 417 stones, then you won't gain any more fishing skill because your pack can't hold any more fish. So don't panic, just empty your backpack. Cut up all those fish into steaks and stack them in a pile on your deck. Any other items you get, such as boots or footwear, I suggest putting into a pouch on your deck, then when you're done for the day take that bag to a Cobbler or Provisioner and sell those shoes for pretty good cash.

Once you hit about 90 fishing you will start to find level one treasure maps when you fish. This is the second best item you can find as a fisherman. If you started your character as a Fisher/Treasure hunter then you're in luck; you just found some new bounty. Decode that map and get to work on finding that treasure. If you didn't, then sell those puppies for anywhere from 500-2000 gold, depending on the shard and customer.

With any luck and the information I've given you, you'll be a Grandmaster Fisherman in no time.

See the following section once you reach GM fisherman. It goes in depth on an SoS hunt.

You're GM already? Time for some SoS information:

Congratulations, you're a Grandmaster Fisherman now! All who have come before you are pleased to see that our wisdom has been passed onto the next generation. Ok, if you haven't gotten any yet, the cream of the crop of all treasures lies at the end of you fishing line: SoS bottles. If you don't have one, guess what�time for more fishing!! It usually works out to about 1 SoS every hour, if you fish for an hour nonstop. It comes out to something like 250 casts.

Read the following once you get an SoS.

You got one already? Great!

These wonderful little bottles, when double clicked, release a Message in a Bottle, aka MiB. When you read the MiB it gives you a neat little message about someone's tragic mishap on some deserted island or during sea travel. The gist of this message is to say "We lost our stuff, if you find where we lost it, you get it!" Nice deal if you ask me. Anyway, enclosed in the message somewhere are coordinates just like the ones from your sextant. Only these are coordinates you have to go find instead of your current location, which is what the sextant usually tells you.

You should have UOAutomap at this point, because finding SoS coords is a pain in the ass if you do it the old fashion way. If you haven't opened UOAutomap yet it will take a long time for it to load the first time. Don't worry, that's just the first time, after that it's considerably faster. Ok, so you've got UOAM open. Go to the UO menu tab on the top of the program. Then select the calibrate option. This basically pinpoints your exact location in the world of UO. If you haven't used this program before, take a few minutes to get used to the zoom menu, and maybe find a friend with UOAM and use the tracking feature in the linking options under the Link tab. Also, don't scroll around the map using the sidebars once you've calibrated, it will un-calibrate you as the center of the map. Then you'll have to re-calibrate.

After you've gotten acquainted with UOAM go to the Places tab, and click "go to location". This will bring up a menu telling your X and Y coords. Click the button that says "Latitude/Longitude". This will bring up another menu where you plug in each of the coords given to you in the MiB. Make sure you plug everything in exactly as listed in the MiB. Once you're done hit ok, this will take you directly to the point where the SoS is located on the map. Now go immediately to the Places tab and click the "Drop Marker" option to mark this spot. Then go back to the UO tab and calibrate again. This will take you back to where you are located, but this time you will see a white line pointing in the direction of the SoS location.

Before you go dashing off after that treasure, use the zoom options to pan out and get a better view of the whole world. It might take a minute to load but you will get a much better sense of where the SoS is. This way you can go to the bank and dock your boat, and recall to a town or place closer to the SoS location. This can save you a lot of time.

Once at the closest departure place, set sail in the direction of the SoS. Hide yourself on the way so no one bothers you, monster or person. You will notice a yellow number in the bottom right corner of UOAM, this tells you the number of tiles you are away from the marker. You want the number of tiles to be under 5 and as close to 0 as possible.

Once you've got the number of tiles around 5 check your sextant and see if the coords it gives you are anything like that of the SoS. If so, groovy. If not, you might be having problems with UOAM.

Anyhow make sure the MiB is in your backpack while you fish, and try a few casts. You may find some strange things before you find the actual treasure. Such items can include different paintings, globes, pieces of skeletons, pieces of barrels, pillows, sea shells and more. You will know you can't fish anything else up when you receive a hefty wooden or metal chest from the heart of the ocean, full to the brim with magic items, gold, regs, and gems. This is your bounty for all the hours of hard work that has come prior to this moment. Paid off, didn't it? See below:

There are three different levels of SoS that can be found. Below describes the bounty within each:

• LEVEL 1 Chests (1000 gold, 5 magic items, 4 scrolls, 3 gems, and 150 or so reagents)
• LEVEL 2 Chests (2000 gold, 10 magic items, 8 scrolls, 6 gems, and 300 or so reagents)
• LEVEL 3 Chests (3000 gold, 15 magic items, 12 scrolls, 9 gems, and 450 or so reagents)

Which chest you find is random and from what I've found is that any level fisherman has the same chance of pulling up a level 3 as does a Grandmaster Fisherman. Yet only the Grandmaster can find the SoS bottle. *grin*.

Well good luck on your travels and may the gods smile upon your ship with good fortune.

If you have any questions or comments please see my profile in the Members section. It has my current Email address and ICQ number.

Fisher Minus of Baja

P.S. Check out this hints section. I have some good suggestions, tricks and facts to help you out.

Hints for Fishing on a Boat in Deep Ocean:

1. I must again encourage any serious fisherman out there to download UOAutomap from http://uo.stratics.com/uoam/. I cannot stress its importance; I have gotten lost countless numbers of times and without this I might still be lost to this day. SoS hunting as well would be frighteningly hard without this program. For those of you who don't like using third party programs I strongly urge you to check this one out, it's a very well made program intended only to help aid you when you're lost or need to find something quickly. It also has a nice tracking feature, so if your fellow guild mates also have this program you can keep track of each other.
2. Always keep one of your master keys in the bank where it was originally placed when you used your boat deed. Also when you're on your ship, keep the other key in the hold box on your ship, so in the case of your death it will be secure in the boat and no monsters or person can loot it, nor will it decay. Even better, make a copy of your boat master key, leave both of the keys in the bank, and bring the copy along with you. That way if you get off your boat in an unguarded zone and get killed the person who takes the key can only unlock the boat; they can't dock it or recall to it.
3. If you have UOAssist, turn on the stacking option in the Macros section and put a few of the 4 different types of fish at your feet. When you fish, instead of your backpack getting full from fish, they will be stacked directly into the piles on the ground. Nice option, yet a little unfair as most 3rd party programs are. I recommend using UOAssist, it will double your fishing time because you don't have to empty your backpack as frequently.
4. If you're in Jhelom, pull your boat up right next to the bank along the south wall. You'll notice the bank is right along the water line. I've found for convenience that you can access your bank while on your boat if you get close enough to the bank in a certain spot. Play around with it until you get it, it's very helpful, since you don't have to unlock your boat every time you want to do some banking.
5. Remember, if you get murdered or awake from a macro to find yourself but a ghost on a ship all alone in the middle of the ocean, don't panic. You can still control your ship as long as you're the only person on it. Just open up UOAutomap and find out where you are, then sail to the nearest city/shrine. If you don't have UOAutomap, it sucks to be you. You now have to sail aimlessly until you find land then try to determine where in the heck you are, then make way towards a town. I suggest getting UOAutomap, if you haven't already. And yes, you can even open the plank of your ship when your dead, just make sure you are in war mode, and therefore are visible, before you use the plank.
6. Always keep a few recall regs or scrolls in the bank so you can recall off your master key in the bank if you are booted off your boat from lag or if you want to get back on your boat without unlocking it.

Again, good luck! Fisher Minus ICQ: 8558475

To update this listing, send your additions / deletions to [email protected].