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When you embark on the giant sea world of Sail Forth, the first question that pops into your mind is if you can fish. And sure enough, the game has an entire structure that allows you to fish while you sail around, and it also makes sure that you don't have to stay in one place for too long.
Fishing in the game can get you a lot of things other than fish as well, but there are quite a few steps before you can start. When you first start the game, you have nothing but a small ship and a crew member to help you. If you follow the right path, you can get your hands on a fishing rod.
How To Get A Fishing Rod In Sail Forth
The game will begin on an empty island where you'll finish your initial tutorial. During this tutorial, you'll get your first ship, a cannon, and a second crew member. You will also have to break a wooden crate if you want to get a map fragment that will reveal the next island. On the second island, you'll face off against a Skull Clan fort.
Defeating this fort will give you another map fragment to reveal the third island. On this island, you'll have a Shipshape shop and an Anglerwrangler Emporium. The latter is marked by a fish symbol and you'll find three people as you get close to the port with this symbol, and there'll be a giant fish on top.
You don't have to defeat the Skull Clan fort to get the second map fragment. You can simply keep sailing in the northern direction and the island will be revealed to you as you go past the boundary of your current island and keep going further.
In case it doesn't reveal itself automatically, you can check the island map as it zooms out in all directions. You'll be able to locate the adjacent island with this method.
Upon talking to the people at AnglerWrangler Emporium, you'll unlock three new mechanics: fishing, taking pictures, and painting your ship. You'll also acquire a fishing rod and a Camera. Once you have acquired these items, you can start your fishing journey.
How To Find Fishing Spots
A unique aspect of Sail Forth is that you can't simply go to a predetermined location and start fishing. The fishing locations in this game are completely random, and they can spawn at any point while you're sailing through the horizon. This can be particularly annoying if you get a fishing spot during a fight.
Moreover, you can only have one fish from one spot. After you've fished in the spot once, it will not give you the prompt to fish again. This prompt will go away even if you fail the mini-game to get the fish.
As you sail in the giant sea, keep an eye out for small ponds that have a little different color with a white outline. The color of these ponds will be the same as the color of the trail left by your ship. Once you locate a pond like that, get close to it and you'll get the prompt to start fishing.
Sometimes, you'll get a wooden crate or a map fragment bottle from these ponds, and the wooden crate usually has Ancient Junk in it. This goes along with the lore since the nocturnal being at the lighthouse mentioned that the Ancient Junk is deep within the sea now. There's a clear way to tell if you're not going to get a fish.
Most ponds will have a couple of fish jumping in and out of the water at certain intervals, but some of them will have white bubbles on top instead of the fish. You'll always get the non-fish items from ponds with these bubbles.
How To Fish In Sail Forth
You have acquired a fishing rod and found yourself a spot where you can catch a fish, and now the final step is to actually fish. When you press the button on the prompt as you get close, the ship will slowly come to a halt and one of your crew members will cast out their fishing rod.
From this point, you have to keep your eyes peeled at the bottom of your screen since another prompt will appear there as soon as a fish bites. Pressing this prompt in time will begin the fishing mini-game. During this game, you'll see a giant black circle at the bottom with a little green area in the middle.
You simply have to keep the fish icon in the middle of the green circle. When the fish is in the right spot, another green circle will start covering the area slowly, and you'll catch the fish when this circle fully takes over the black part.
Whenever you catch a new fish, you can read a little about it on the pop-up before it goes into your inventory. Although, this is simply for lore purposes because all the fishes are exchanged for 50 wooden planks at AnglerWrangler Emporium.
The lack of diversity in selling price does make this mechanic a little stale over time.
Fishing is not a mechanic that will get you the most planks, so you don't need to actively look for fishing locations unless you like it. It's also recommended to not ignore a location if you pass by one since it takes very little time and the 50 planks can easily get stacked with more fish in your inventory.