How to fish good in ff14

This is a basic to advanced guide on ff14 fishing, made by akadapo (Yumi Mimi ✿ brynhildr) a fisher of no particular renown
This guide will skip over the basics like what every skill do (at least for now - let me know if u would like me to add it)

Why would you wanna fish?

Why would you or anyone want to fish?

To get fish

But why would you wanna get fish?

First of, if you don't think its fun, don't bother, it's not gonna make you rich or give you any advantage on other parts of the game, but it can be something enjoyable and relaxing (DEBATABLE) that you can spend as much or as little time as you want in.

But also, there are many achievements related to fishing, some of them are extremely long term but they come with stuff that achievements normally come with, titles, minion and an occasional mount and framer's kit

Baits, Weather, Hooks and Resources

So fishing in ff14 is very RNG for what fish bites your hook, but some fish require some conditions

First thing the location, ofc not every fish is available in every location. You do have access to a fish log in game but its just going to reveal fishing spots you have some info about.
I recommend going into this website: https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Category:Fishing_Log
and equipping the versatile lure (which is a all-in-one lure) and just tag all the fishing spots (get 1 fish from each) so they will appear in your fish log in game and you know exactly where they are from now on. That website is also my favorite to know what each fish can give from desynth, you can get some interesting stuff

Second thing is the bait, The versatile lure is all-in-one lure, it can be used in all fishing spots and can hook a large variety of fish (all fish except for the big fish a.k.a. legendary fish), its really good for some casual fishing where u don't rly mind what you get, however changing the bait can greatly increase the chances of getting specific fishes, some require a specific bait and there almost a hundred of them, baits are supposed to be used in different bodies of water and different level fishing spots but there is big overlapping, thankfully people gathered the data and there are websites to aid you with that:

This is the holy grail of fishing websites, it gives you the required bait and conditions window for specific fish, also it lets you mark of the fishes you already gotten so you know what is missing: https://ff14fish.carbuncleplushy.com/
Carbuncleplushy also have a "youtube" button for the big fish in which there are video guides on how to catch, some have very interesting tricks, slap recommendation, etc.
This one (again) is best (imo) for when u want to get all the common fish on a spot so you might switching baits a lot but not locations https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Category:Fishing_Log
If you want to check a specific fish or fish hole stats you might wanna search in: https://ffxivteamcraft.com/db/en/item/32114/Placodus

Some fish are always available and some fish requires certain time windows and/or weather conditions for them to be able to be hooked, sometimes its still pretty darn rare to get a bite even if you are doing everything right but otherwise its a 0% chance.
use this website for this and tracking condition window:
https://ff14fish.carbuncleplushy.com/

Intuition: Some fish require you to get a buff, called fisher's intuition (or something like that) to have a chance of hooking it (not guaranteed), its rare a fish does require intuition but they require you to meet a certain criteria to get the buff, of get "x of y fish", the duration of intuition varies, if can be just 15 seconds or it can be a 10 minutes long one, but its predetermined per fish, i think longer intuitions are usually related to lower chance of biting fish, so you get more attempts, but idk maybe i'm just imagining things, its easy to be superstitious as a fisher.

Ocean fishing

Ocean fishing is a different kind of fishing, depparting from west limsa every 2 hours (open for 15 minutes) it takes you different routes on diferent times of the day which affects which fish you might be able to get
I like to call this like a fishing raid, you can go in solo but you can also go in as a party and even share some successes like party achievements and points bonuses

This is the best website to track where the boat is going, bait to be used, etc:
https://ffxiv.pf-n.co/ocean-fishing

It's worth noting that the bait used in ocean fishing (other than versatile lure) is different from the non ocean fishing, it sells right next to the boat departure point and inside the boat, but also for catching the ultra special blue fish (spectral intuition) you have to have special bait and i recommend always having those in your inventory so you dont forget and miss a great opportunity

Ocean fishing has a special event inside it called "spectral current" which hasa chance of triggering when you catch a spectral fish of each zone, dont get upset if you catch a spectral fish and it doesnt trigger the current tho, the chance can be pretty low on a full boat. this adds another layer of rng added to the time limit of ocean fishing, it can lead to some really rare condition windows to happen

Fish in the ocean are very plentiful and not particularly valuable, people go into ocean fishing, other than for fun, for achievements, there are achievements for making a certain amount of points in one ride 10k, 15k, 20k, giving a mount and titles. It has achievement for lifetime cumulative points giving a minion and title, and it has some achievements, with titles, for catching a certain number of a certain type of fish as a party, thesse can be quite hard and require some coordination (i used this discord to find parties for that: https://discord.gg/fishcord) , specially having a macro to count down the bite time to make it easier to id which fish you get hooked before you pull it.
this spreadsheet has helped me so much in everything ocean fishing related specially for achievement hunting: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/fufetp/zekes_ocean_fishing_guidebook_everything_you_need/

Spearfishing

Spearfishing kinda simple:

• There are 3 fishes sizes - small, medium and large, but each fish size can be more than one type of fish
  
  
• You can differentiate between different fishes of same size based on the speed they move
  
  
• some fish holes are hidden and only appear after u get a certain amount of a certain type of fish in an area, like fisher intuition
  
  
• the abilities (other than GIG) are just quality of life and not rly needed
  
  
• should be ez pz to get all the spearfishing fishes

Tips and tricks

• I like to store my baits in my chocobo saddle, this way i always have access to them but they don't fill up my inventory, though i keep the ocean fishing ones in my inventory so i don't forget to grab them before i embark.
  
  
• If you are trying to collect all the fish, going per expansion might be a good way to limit the amount of bait you have to carry at one time. BUT maybe u should do it backwards? I feel like they changed the mechanics of fishing difficulty and HW can be really disheartening
  
  
• You can prep fisher intuition before the window open, if you need to catch like 5 fish to get a fish intuition, and the fish which requires so only opens at a certain time, you can catch 4 of that fish, then use identical cast, so you know the next one will be the same and will trigger intuition, and just afk and let your stamina regenerate, when the window opens or is about to open you can catch the 5th fish getting the buff. HOWEVER don't move or you will withdraw your rod and lose any fishing buffs u have
  
  
• On top of that for a bit more complicated fish there are other intuition prep tricks, like turning on collectors glove and only accepting or denying the fish collectability when u want the intuition to trigger or knowing that u can move around and do other stuff; list taken from this guide by fruity snacks:
  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B7wjAtw5uCiARS9tXsozYAX8l6JZOzl2YtJSjejqchk/edit
  
  
  
  
• VERY IMPORTANT fishing tip is, within patience and patience II, even though the precision hookset is used to "!" and powerful hookset for "!!" and "!!!" fish, there are a LOT of big fish that you have to use the precision hookset instead of the powerful one, even though they are always "!!!" both of these websites should inform you the correct hookset to use:
  https://ff14fish.carbuncleplushy.com/
  https://ffxivteamcraft.com/db/en/item/32114/Placodus
  make sure to check that or it might be nearly impossible to catch some fish
  
  
• I did mention on the ocean fishing, but ideally having a macro that counts down how many seconds since you last cast ur line, different fish has different bite time window and though some interlap sometimes you know for sure it is a certain fish or it isn't a certain fish, this allow you to make better decisions on when to use double/triple hook. Also if you are targeting a specific fish only and it passes its maximum bite time window then you can just cancel the cast and cast it again.
  
  
• If you are trying to get a specific fish from a location, using surface slap on another fish, hopefully the more common ones, will decrease the possible number of fishes you can hook so increase the chance of grabbing the right fish, and even though the surface slap will only last until you get 1 more fish, if you dont hook a fish it will stay there. This bring it back to fish bit windows, specially for rare fish, they can have some really long bite times so you know when you hook it and when you dont (still should use a countdown macro), so if you dont hook the correct one, you can just not hook it and let the fish escape (it might steal you bait though but its worth it).
  
  
• If all the fish seem equally common, i suggest slapping the one that take the longest to bite, so your fail casts are quicker and you can go through more in the same time. i use teamcraft website cause they give stats on which fish is more common and bite times filtered by bait
  https://ffxivteamcraft.com/db/en/fishing-spot/139/Mok-Oogl-Island
  
  
• Don't want to keep checking clock for window opening and closing? Set an alarm in game, the alarm menu is on my fisher hotbar but u can just do something like:
  /alarm et et 2000
  being the first et the name of the alarm, u can put something like "start" or the fish name if u want
  the second et is eorzea time, meaning is when the in game time hit that, alternatively u can use lt for local time
  and 2000 is the time, 24hours clock (or military timer for americans)
  
  
• If u have the magic bucket minion out during fishing, your success rate is gonna skyrocket! Don't bother to fact check this tho

[✿ Lilli Heart✿]

Aiming for t he new fishers framers kit, ahhhhh.... this is worse than the relic tool quests

[Felicity]

good tutorial. will reel em in

[shin]

all you had to say was fishing mount and im HOOKED