Fisherman

 is a profession which gathers fish and can make gutted fish. Most fishermen go on to become a Fishmonger, turning the fish they catch into edible fish. Fishing can be quite a hard profession compared to others but equally well rewarding.

Acquiring
He will give you a list of special bait to bring back to him, talk to Bish Fone (2,-17) He will give you the baits, return and talk to Si Nighford to learn the profession fisherman. He will ask you to get baits from Aga Dou, which you have to bring back to Bhan Laka in less than 5 minutes.
 * Foreman Ikure in Incarnam (3,3)
 * Si Nighford in Astrub (1,-17)
 * Bhan Laka in Amakna (9,0), Aga Dou (1,1)

Tools
The levels listed are the profession level needed to equip. All these rods and equipment (except the Apprentice Fisherman's Rod) can be bought from Bhan Laka in Amakna (9,0). The range of a fishing rod indicates how many squares away it can reach fish, as well as its range when used as a weapon in combat.

Crafting
See /Recipes.

Gathering
See /Gathering.

Devourers
Once your character is a level 20 fisherman, you may fight Devourers. Devourers drop bags of corresponding fish that contain 50 of said fish.

Success Rate
Here's the problem of fishing: the success rate is bad, and you don't get XP when you don't catch a fish. Apparently it's about 50% for Small River Fish); please fill the survey (Fishing Research), so that we can make out a general formula.

From Fisherman level 30, there are two different types of rods, sea rods and river rods. They drastically increase your success rate, since you will have high chance of catching a fish after the 50% base rate (something like 90%). Obviously, this works only with the rod corresponding to the fishing school.

Fishing Hints
Turning off "Display all monsters in a group" (in Options>Performance) will reduce the number of monsters on the screen. If you're fishing somewhere with lots of creatures wandering the water edges (such as Madrestam Harbour), this will reduce your chances of getting into an accidental fight.

The amount of fish and devourers you catch depends on the time. Keep track of it and you'll learn the magic hours (Fishing Research).

Try not to scare the fish, see the Fisherman's Soul.

It seems that if you fish in one spot for too long it will become over-fished, meaning that your odds of catching something go down.

If you're no higher than character level 15 and profession level 5, you can repeat the quest Manufacture for Poss'Ybel Nhin in the side room of the Incarnam Inn (3, 3). Each time, give her a Gutted Gudgeon, whether you gutted it personally or not, to receive 75 job experience. 11 repetitions of the quest, thus 11 Gutted Gudgeons, are sufficient to get you from profession level 1 to 6.

Up untill the better rods at around level 30, it's better to fish at the Sufokian Schwimming Pool at (15,25). You can level up quickly there because of the very high success rate. The snappers themselves are pretty useless, but you still get XP from them. Make sure to rent the Fishing Rod for Snappers, from Mer, first!