I fished my way to skill level 28, cancelling all hits followed by the three exclamation points !!!, as I'd been told they were always monsters or arrowwood logs that could snap my line or break my rod. So it was some frustrating hours of fishing and quizzing my linkshell, before I turned up a fishing guide that specifically noted that Giant Catfish, as "Large" fish, also have the !!!.
I knew something was wrong when the guy next to me kept fishing up catfish after catfish at the little pond in West Sarutabaruta, just north of the gate to Port Windurst, using the same type rod (Mithran/Composite) and lure (Minnow), but all I kept hooking was Dark Bass. ;p So yeah, when you're fishing these, don't cancel on bites with the !!!, or you'll never catch a Catfish. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vaprak (talk • contribs).
Just making a note here, the last line on the main page mentions that these fish usually read "Terrible feeling." This may or may not be true for all players, as a character's fishing "instinct" is based on their fishing skill. Positive messages mean you will drain a fish's stamina easily and negative messages mean you will have a more difficult time draining it. Because your efficiency at draining stamina increases as your fishing skill increases, your character's fishing instinct will most likely become more positive toward these fish (since they're such a low level fish, even if they are large.) I'm not removing this line from the main page, since these fish seem to be mainly fished by players skilling up, so for them it will most likely be true, just bringing up the fact that it may not ALWAYS be true if, for whatever reason, a higher level fisherman comes back down to these for fish ranking or something.--Erwing 15:49, January 21, 2010 (UTC)
For Catfishes[]
Go to the bridge in Zeruhn mines and use minnow as a lure. I was using lushang and caught 10/10 catfishes there.
--happy fishing! ~~
Agree entirely with above post. --Buffylvr (talk) 20:50, September 6, 2012 (UTC)
Also agree. I removed the Sarutabaruta recommendation on the main page as you don't isolate Catfishes with the setup(will also get Dark Bass IIRC, and much more frequently), and the bite rate seems pretty bad as well. The Port San d'Oria recommendation does isolate them, but the bite rate from my experience is kind of bad. With this setup, you isolate them and the bite rate is pretty good. About a 40% bite rate for me on a Waning Gibbous. --Futan (talk) 02:40, December 25, 2016 (UTC) Oh, and Merry Christmas! :P
Best place to catch these?[]
The article recommends a Frog Lure in La Theine Plateau for catching these. I tried that setup and went 0/37 on even getting a nibble. I then moved to Davoi (Pond) and got 8 catfish in 17 casts. Was I just unlucky? Can anyone share their experiences fishing for catfish in La Theine?
--Bawb 02:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
The "best" places for various fish varies depending on who you're asking. Some go by whether the lure catches other types of fish, some go by which places they feel have the best bite rates, and some just go by what other people say. I just use Kida's FFXI Fishing Database [1] to see what may work best for me. I had no trouble fishing up Giant Catfish in Port San d'Oria, so I didn't try anywhere else.
As for La Theine Plateau in particular, I think I tried fishing there a long time ago for Dark Bass. But I got nothing from fishing around The Ephemere. I assumed it was because I had already hit my fishing fatigue limit for the day, because at that time, I was fishing up as much moat carp as I could every day, and I didn't know about fishing fatigue yet. --Ivrai 04:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Testimonials[]
Jugner Forest (location = "East 1" lake JungerFishingMap, pos = h-6) using a Composite Fishing Rod and a Sinking Minnow as bait produced and average 3 Giant Catfish per 4 bites. Happy skilling!
Port San d'Oria + Sinking Minnow : Giant Catfish is the only thing that bites this lure and no need to worry about monsters. Reelik 19:39, March 1, 2010 (UTC)
In addition to the !!! size, these generally feel like: "You have a terrible feeling about this one..." and such.