Basically, I like big fish and I cannot lie so I instead try to convince others liking fishing is absolutely normal. And that big fishing is not going to ruin your life and sanity. Also, an excuse to talk about big fishing.
I felt a DoHDoL-shaped hole in my life once I had gotten all my Oizys relics, so inspired by the RathGames video where he took part in the 24h legendary marathon, I decided to start big fishing on a whim. The Beast of Brewer’s Beacon quest had been on my quest list for ages so I figured I could do it, then Feast of Famine to see if I liked this enough to continue, then work my way through as and when. It was supposed to be ‘free and easy’, but I unexpectedly really enjoyed it. Ended up getting The Final Fish (3/6/26) less than 2 months after I completed Beast of Brewer’s Beacon (13/4/26). And procrastinated about as long on writing this post.
I could accomplish this so quickly thanks to rng and the work of those who had fished before me: A Fisher’s Guide to Eorzea (A Fisher's Guide to Eorzea) compiled by Fruity Snacks from the efforts of the fishing community, Carbuncle Plushy’s tracker (FFX|V Fish Tracker App), various reddit posts and comments about their fishing experiences. Look to those who fished before to guide those who fish after. So, I decided to pay the favour forward.
How I approached big fishing
Firstly, the most important element to how long this takes is luck. I think I got really lucky finishing within 2 months. I did already have Zalera from a previous mogtomes event and The Salter from...not sure when (probably while doing ARR fisher quests??), but I doubt that would have added much to the time. This is more my approach to planning for The Final Fish instead of staring at a list of 289 fish and wondering where to go. Inventory management is also an issue (thank goodness for the dye consolidation update halfway through).
I also have a job where I cannot step away to fish at all during work and did not want to compromise sleep on working days because I need that sleep. Not to mention the rest of life that goes on and I am not cancelling to fish. Therefore, I wanted to plan my fishing such that I did as much as I could within the time I had available. It also worked well in reducing frustration because it spread out difficult fish over the entire duration while I still made progress on easier fish in between. I only made an exception to wake up on a weekday at 3am for Cinder Surprise because it was my last fish and the next window I could make it to was a month after.
u/rfandomization’s post (The Final Fish: what it's like in 7.1 : r/ffxiv) was what originally guided my approach to prioritisation of windows. I also used u/Anaximandar1’s post (My Big Fish Journey : r/ffxiv) that was linked within to further add onto it.
Top priority list:
1- Big 3: Ealad Skaan, Cinder Surprise, The Ruby Dragon
2- Fish with infrequent windows (potentially 1wk or longer)
- HW: Bobgoblin bass (can have more than 1 month downtime!), Thunderscale
- SB: Banderole, Suiten Ippeki, Duskfish, The Unconditional
- ShB: Deephaunt, Aster Trivi, The Ondotaker, Python Discus, The Sinsteeped
- EW: Vidyutvat Wrasse, Eehs Fan
3- Fish with infrequent windows (few days downtime or more) that typically take multiple tries to catch
- ShB: Lancetfish
- EW: Sidereal Whale
These fish I pinned on the fish tracker always (until caught) and went for whenever I could.
I then went per expansion ARR->EW for bait inventory management reasons and prioritised among fish within the expansion:
4- Fish with downtime >2 days
- I just looked at the tracker for low % uptime fish and checked for downtime >2 days. May vary depending on weather rng.
- ARR: Dawn Maiden
- HW: Paikiller, Moggle Mogpom, Thousand Fin
- SB: Nhaama’s Treasure, Pinhead
- ShB: The Mother of all Pancakes, Ondo Sigh, Celestial, Moonlight Guppy, Sunken Tome, Leannisg, Pearl Pipira, Steel Fan, Recordkiller, The Horned King, Aquamaton+Shadeshifter
- EW: Furcacauda, Glit Dermogenys, Hyphalosaurus, Antheian Dahlia, Snowy Parexus, Onyx Knifefish, Chlorophos Deathworm, Wakeful Warden, Durdina Fish
5- Fish with a reputation for potentially requiring multiple windows or I found they took longer to get
- ARR: Feast of Famine fish, Ignus Horn, Floating Boulder, Spearnose
- HW: Sea Butterfly, Madame Butterfly, Charibenet, Raimdellopterus, Opabinia, Problematicus, Aphotic Pirarucu
- SB: Stethacanthus, Warden of the Seven Hues, Drepanaspis, Xenacanthus, Diamond-eye
- ShB: Henodus Grandis, The Greater Serpent of Ronka, Listracanthus
- EW: Gharlichthys, Browned Banana Eel, Rimepike
6- Fish with time + weather conditions
7- Remaining fish (usually slot between more important windows, sometimes went for half a window only etc)
When I was left with maybe 10 fish or mostly waiting on rare/difficult fish within an expansion, I added the next expansion to the tracker because I enjoyed running from one window to another continuously. There is no need to do that if you prefer to take it slow. There will always be another window. You will get there eventually.
Now I get to talk about the actual experience of big fishing and I will do it through stats:
Fish that took the most windows
- Henodus Grandis (14W, 1S)
- Sea Butterfly (12W, 4S): To be fair I initially kept messing up the bait switching, and this didn’t take as much time overall as some other fish.
- Lancetfish (11W, 2 intuitions triggered, 1S): Partly on me as I didn’t realise I could use fish eyes for ShB initially…
- Stethacanthus (7W, 1 intuition, 2S): I hate this
- Cinder Surprise (7W, 7 intuitions, 1S): Deserving of its reputation, the final fish I caught for the title due to tragic windows
- Warden of the Seven Hues (7W, 4 intuitions, 4S): Seven windows for seven hues is very poetic
- Ignus Horn (6W, 6S): It’s just low bite chance and slippery
Everything else took 5 windows or less.
Most annoying fish
- Stethacanthus (7W, 1 intuition, 1S): It took SO LONG each attempt and sculptors practically don’t exist. Wasting hours being unable to get intuition is the worst in my opinion because it feels like you don’t even get anywhere near the fish. The process was also technical and required concentration. The only fish I dislike more than Stethacanthus is the Pearl Eyes I kept catching instead of Sculptors.
- Lancetfish (11W, 2 intuitions, 1S): Similar to Stethacanthus because getting 2 Mora Tectas is so difficult, but Fish Eyes makes it more manageable. I was just dumb and forgot that Fish Eyes can be used in ShB until my 9th attempt or so haha. The fishing hole location is also inconvenient to get to.
- Henodus Grandis (14W, 1S): Getting the Spearhead Squid to mooch was a pain in itself. I would come down early to prep squids with Spareful Hand and use them up once the window starts, then sometimes only catch one more squid within the entire window. Also the tease of getting !!! but it's just Henodus.
- The Matriach (23S): The fact it is an all day fish is deceptive, it slips SUPER often. I remember fishing until the fish got wary and having to leave.
- The Second One (3W, 0S): It took me 200+ bait to get that one bite, though thankfully it did not slip. It was really boring since it is a straight catch fish.
- Magic Carpet (2W): I remember trying to catch this for the desynthesis glam and failing. And then I got Helicoprion early in its window and mistakenly thought I could catch Magic Carpet in that window as well (the windows sometimes overlap, but that one did not). I only realised my mistake near the end of the window, after catching another Helicoprion but of course no Magic Carpets. I did finally get the glam though.
- Armorer (2W): This one has history. I remember trying to catch it I think for mogtomes. I tried for a bit and gave up and it kind of made me not keen to do big fishing back then (along with struggling to catch big fish for glam desynth). When I started proper big fishing, I took 2 windows to get it.
Also, somehow when I think of the Labyrinthos music I am immediately reminded of fishing at the hole for Hyphalosaurus (2W, 5 intuitions, 0S) and Circuit Tilapia (3W, 0S) and my heart rate increases.
Fish I got lucky on
- Ealad Skaan (1W, 0S): This was the first fish I went for after completing Feast of Famine as a window happened to be coming up. Got !!! on my second cast of the window and thought surely not, it’s going to slip. Then I got it and was like…ok so is Ruby Dragon or Cinder Surprise going to be the problem (it was Cinder). And if you caught one of the big 3, you’ve got to catch all the other big fish right?
- The Unconditional (1W, 0S): Got it on the very first cast. Realised how lucky I was with that when I thought why not go for another and subsequently slipped !!! 8 times within the window. I did not manage to catch a second one.
- Ninja Betta (1W, 0S): Got the mooch chain done on my first cast. I had actually messed up and forgot to use Patience, but was lucky enough to get a large sized fish so I could do the mooch chain. Also got the Assassin Betta minion on desynthesis and that accompanied me for the rest of my fishing endeavours. My lucky charm.
- Suiten Ippeki (1W, 0S): The fish where I made the mistake of muscle memory clicking rest instead of hook on !!!, but fortunately got another bite soon after and caught it, else that mistake would really sting.
- Charibenet (1W, 1 intuition, 0S): I remember seeing people complain about this fish so I planned to start catching it before starting on the rest of HW fish, only to get it very quickly into my first intuition.
- Bobgoblin Bass (1W, 0S): Just the fact it did not have 1 month long downtime while I was big fishing. I had to skip 2 windows because of work but even then that was about 2 weeks of waiting in total and I caught it very early into the window (and caught another 2 in the window because I already prepped, might as well).
Honorable mention to Frozen Regotoise, where I took so long to find the fishing hole I missed the entire window. Then when the next window came around, I caught it on the very first cast before even using surface slap. It classifies as both annoying and lucky I suppose.
Fish I enjoyed (unironically)
- Warden of the Seven Hues (7W, 4 intuitions, 4S): The fish that taught me so much about prep, intuition and how to manage GP. By the time I caught the Warden, there was the satisfaction of having learnt how to reliably get intuition each window (triple hook is key). I also do like how often the windows are up, so even if it doesn’t work out, just come back another time at your convenience. I like fish that respect that you have a life. I liked it so much I took the Wardens of Pride event in June as an excuse to drag 2 friends to go big fishing. I caught my 2nd Warden in 2 windows but unfortunately my friends didn't get any. Now to find more big fish to lure them in with…
- Sea Butterfly (12W, 4S): Am I crazy for enjoying this because I would try to squeeze a 3rd intuition in one window (regardless of whether I could use the full duration) just because I could? I felt engaged throughout the window, but the window is not so long it becomes tiring. You can get at least one intuition (usually 2) per window, so you feel like you’re getting somewhere. Windows are frequent enough that I can pick and choose when to do it without much consequence, so if I got a little bored I just skipped some windows and went for other fish. My main issue was forgetting to swap away from metal spinner.
- Namitaro (2W, 1 intuition, 0S): Namitaro made me understand the thrill of big fishing without too much frustration. Having not gotten the Giant Takitaro at all for my first window, having one slip in the 2nd window, then catching it on the very last cast of the 2nd window. Chumming and resting hoping for a !!!, watching the intuition timer run down to 0 with dread then hearing the intuition jingle for the first time ever was a dopamine hit like no other. This is probably what made me want to continue big fishing.
- Banderole, Ruby Dragon, Deephaunt, Durdina Fish, Ondotaker, Cinder Surprise, Gharlichtys, Catastrophizer, Eehs Fan: These were enjoyable because of the fishers I met, one of the reasons I enjoy big fishing so much. Fishing is something where instantly you have a common topic and people also have time to chat. Some fishers have been really chill to stand around chatting even after a window. Even if they don’t chat, many will cheer on and congratulate each other during the process. Or you know, commiserate in lack of Cinder Surprise. Usually, the rarer or more difficult to catch a fish is the more likely you will meet others there, so it offsets some of the frustration. And when they tell you how they are on their 10th Durdina Fish window, you feel better about not getting the fish yet haha (to the catgirl I met, you were indeed right that it is usually a 3 window fish as I did catch it on my 3rd window). Thank you to all the fishers who made my day feel so much better with your kind presence.
I really enjoyed the experience. I did not find myself wanting to quit at any point. It felt like any frustration would largely vanish once I caught the fish, especially if it is cute like Aquamaton. And whatever lingered was not enough to outweigh the fun I got from the experience overall. I would happily accompany someone to do it again (but probably on a less intense schedule). I also finally have motivation to continue MSQ so I can start big fishing in Dawntrial. And finally get the orange scrip gear to craft BiS for DoHDoL. The unending DoHDoL journey continues.
Hopefully this post was helpful or enjoyable for someone out there!
