Fishing Planet – Intro Part 3

I intend this to be the last post introducing Fishing Planet. I’ve covered a lot of the basics in the previous two and this time I’m intending to cover one of the confusing things that all beginners struggle to understand and that some long term players still don’t! 😉

But before I really launch into that I need to talk briefly about events and issue a clear warning⚡ I’m going to use the current St.Patrick’s event to illustrate and it will also provide the image that I will reference for the rest of the post. Here’s the deal – Events often involve a challenge to catch specific fish. These fish may not be the normal ones you’d expect at the location. Sometimes they will even be fictional – for example a Leprechaun Fish…

…Clearly it’s a relative of the Redear but look at its weight – It’s something like 15 times the normal weight and will fight accordingly. The event requires you to catch these and other fish at certain lakes and rivers…

…That includes Rowdy Bass – another rather over weight fish…

…Normal Bass rarely top 5lbs! There are specific baits issued to assist you in catching these special event fish – great, that’ll help… Except normal Bass and Redear will happily take the special bait. And worse, the Rowdy Bass and the Leprechaun Fish will both take the standard baits that their normal cousins get hooked on. As an example, I caught the Bass above using Crawfish Cut. Why is this an issue? Well, if you go fishing at a venue where an event is in progress, you’d better go loaded for bear because a 13lb rod, reel and line set-up isn’t going to cut it! Here’s the good news – Lakes and Rivers where an event is taking place will have a symbol (a shamrock in this case) to make you aware. If you want to enjoy some peaceful fishing just go to venues that aren’t displaying the symbol.

I realised what was likely to be needed before I got involved and decided, for the first time since I started playing, to buy the current ‘Green Fortune Pack’ and give the dev’s some money. I also used in-game cash to upgrade my keepnet. As the pack only gives a spinning rod and a casting rod, I also treated myself to the Ardix 12’2″ match rod so I could float fish for such large specimens.

Final warning – Also prowling the rivers and lakes where the current event is in progress, you might hook one of these…

…That’s a very mean animal and it took me over 10 minutes of real time to haul it in using a 25lb set-up. I was using the spinning rod and line that came in the ‘Green Fortune Pack’ and I had expected to hook a Bass 🤣 The screenshot below gives a glimpse of what those 10mins were like…

…Almost continuous redline!

This screenshot gives the opportunity to talk about more usual things but, just quickly, look at the purple line in the message box on the bottom left – this was my second Northern Snakehead of the day! And if you’re wondering why the water is bright green – It’s St. Patrick’s Day 😎

Ok – enough of the warnings – lets talk about something that seems to confuse a lot of players. Look again at the message box. At the top it says Room (4) – 4 is the number of anglers currently in your server instance at the river or lake. I believe the maximum number is 6. The grey number to the left is the number of current players of the game – nearly 1500 at the time. Below that is a record of what the players in ‘Your Room’ are catching or doing – everything is time stamped. At the bottom you see that it’s possible to post messages to the players in the same room.

On the top left you can see your personal info – In my case, my player name ‘Roach_Pole’, the time of day that I’m fishing, the current weather conditions and how much weight I have in my keepnet.

If you’ve noticed a discrepancy, then you’re on the right road for understanding. I’m fishing at 7:23am but the timestamps in the message box are around 09:00. I will have arrived here at 05:00 because that’s when your day starts at a venue – regardless of the actual time IRL. I could have actually started fishing at 21:30 but my in-game time at the venue would start at 05:00 regardless. During the day I might take a break and return to fishing a couple of hours later – my time at the venue will still be the same as the time I left but the timestamp for my catches will be whatever the IRL time is. Additionally, the in-game day moves faster than IRL time – so the two can never, ever, be in sync for more than a few short minutes.

So, when you and another angler in your room are standing right next to each other fishing the same piece of water, remember that he may be a visual distraction but he isn’t stealing your fish – he’s probably fishing at a totally different time of day and in different weather conditions. He’s just in the same room on the server!

With that in mind… When a player in your room asks ‘What bait you using?…’ He clearly hasn’t understood this important differentiation. Remember that the fish do act like real fish and adapt to weather conditions. In your time the Crappies may be taking your Semolina balls but that info may be no good for his time and place. If you choose to reply – always include the time that you are fishing at in your instance. That makes the info relevant.

Most of the time people who ask ‘What bait you using…’ don’t even understand the need to address a specific angler in the chat. What bait I’m using is pretty redundant if I’m spinning 🤣 But a new angler might ask ‘What should I use to catch Redear?’ And that is a general question I feel a more experienced player should be answering. Trouble is, often players don’t use the message system to do that which is a shame. If you decide to play and you see Roach_Pole appearing in the message box – Just say ‘Hi Roach’ and I’ll be happy to respond.