Fishing in SL Colonies is a game of its own: you cast, wait for the bite, and fight every fish to the bank. Over a hundred real species, with rare ones that move from realm to realm every week. This guide and the video walk through all of it.
What you need
- The free SLC HUD and meter. Get them from the HUD and meter page, or register at Start Playing on the website and the HUD is sent to you.
- The fishing HUD: touch the tool icon on the SLC HUD and choose Fishing HUD.
- A fishing rod, worn from the SLC HUD’s tools (Use Tool). Your first rod is free. If your HUD does not have it yet, use Get Tool and the land’s server sends it.
- A fishing pool within 40 metres. Fishing Spot flags mark them, and the fishing page lists every realm with a pool under Where to fish, with a teleport.
Each cast costs 1 energy.
The fight
- Touch Cast on the fishing HUD. It looks for the water, then waits for a bite.
- When a fish bites, the button changes to Reel. Click and hold to reel: the line comes in and the tension rises.
- Let go when the fish runs. Reeling during a run makes the tension shoot up and barely brings any line in.
- Keep the Tension bar between empty and full, and bring the Line out bar down to nothing. Then the fish is landed.
Two ways to lose it:
- Too much tension: the line snaps.
- Too little: leave the line slack for about five seconds and the hook slips.
Rarer fish pull harder and run more often. A bite you leave alone for five minutes is gone.
When you land a fish, the catch card shows its species, weight and rarity, and whether it is a record.
Bait
Touch the bait slot on the fishing HUD to choose a bait. The next cast uses it.
- A bare hook catches common fish only.
- A bait reaches the species that take it, up to that bait’s rarity. Only live bait reaches epic fish.
- Lures (spinners and flies) are not used up: you lose one only when a fish gets away with it. Every other bait is spent on the cast.
- When you use your last one, the slot clears and says so.
The kinds: worms, maggots, bread paste, sweetcorn, spinners, flies, cut bait, live bait, shrimp, squid and crab.
Where bait comes from:
- The Fisherman Master sells some baits and lures for CXP, and some can only be had there.
- The Compost Bin turns out worms and maggots.
- The Cooking Station makes most of the rest (sweetcorn bait, cut bait, shrimp bait and more).
- Bait tanks breed live bait (its own guide and video soon).
The fishing page shows which baits each of the week’s rare fish take, so you can make or buy the right ones before you travel.
Live bait, mooching and the bucket
Land a small fish (common or uncommon, up to 0.6 kg) and the HUD offers three things:
- Live bait now: it goes straight back on the hook as live bait, within a minute (“mooching”).
- Bucket: keep it alive to use later, anywhere. The bucket holds five, each for an hour from when you landed it.
- Keep: it goes into your inventory as a fish, to cook, trade or sell.
The bucket is how you carry a baitfish from one realm to another to go after a rare that takes it.
Where the rare fish are
- Commons bite at every pool, every day.
- Every Monday each public realm is dealt its own uncommon and rare fish for the week, and one realm in three an epic. The rare runs move every week, so the best fishing is never in the same place twice.
- The fishing page’s Biting now shows each one: where it is, its water, and the bait it takes.
- Pools on private land fish their commons only.
Legendaries: the chains
A legendary takes no ordinary bait. Each one is reached through a chain across three realms, lasting three days:
- Catch the chain’s baitfish on the first realm.
- Use it as live bait to catch the predator on the second.
- Turn the predator into a chain bait with a chain binder.
- Fish the legendary on the third realm: a chain bait gives three casts within an hour.
Every miss makes the next cast likelier to hook it, and the sixth is sure. The third realm is shown to everyone once somebody lands that chain’s legendary.
Rods
The rod and the line change how forgiving the fight is. Three things move:
- Window: how fast tension builds while you reel, and how long the line can stay slack before the hook slips. A better window gives you more room for error.
- Run hold: how much reeling during a run adds to the tension. Better run hold lets you keep pressure on a running fish.
- Reel: how fast the line comes in, so how short a fight can be.
| Rod | Who | Pros | Cons | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fishing rod (made by Carpenters) | anyone | takes every bait, live and chain bait included | no bonuses | learning, and anything when you are not sure |
| Light rod (400 CXP) | Fisherman level 3 | window +15% on light fish | run hold -25%: a strong runner snaps it. You must stand within 35 m | commons and uncommons, fast |
| Heavy rod (800 CXP) | Fisherman level 5 | run hold +25%: holds big runners | reel -15%: longer fights; window -10% on light fish | rares, epics and legendaries |
| Fly rod (1,200 CXP) | Fisherman level 7 | window +15% with flies and spinners; keeps the lure half the time when a fish gets away | flies and spinners only: no live bait, so no mooching and no chains | the many species that take lures, without burning lures |
A special rod’s effects only work for a Fisherman of its level. Anyone else can wear it, is told so, and fishes with it as a plain rod. Rods wear out with use (1,000 to 1,500 casts) and cannot be repaired.
Lines
A line goes in the line slot on the fishing HUD and lasts a set number of casts. You do not need one.
| Line | Who | Pros | Cons | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light line (10 CXP, 100 casts) | Fisherman level 2 | reel +10%: shorter fights | run hold -15% | volume fishing on small fish |
| Heavy line (15 CXP, 50 casts) | Fisherman level 6 | run hold +15% | reel -10%, and it wears out twice as fast | big fish, with the heavy rod |
Rod and line together are capped: the window never improves by more than 15%, and run hold never moves by more than 30% either way.
- Light rod and light line: the fastest fights on small fish, but a surprise big fish will snap you.
- Heavy rod and heavy line: the big-game set-up, for the hundreds-of-kilos fish. Long, slow fights.
Which rod for which fish
Every common and uncommon is a light fish (pull 1 to 4). Rares are mostly medium, a few light. Epics are medium and strong. Legendaries are all strong.
So the bait decides most of it. A bare hook only ever catches commons, so the light rod has no downside there. When you go after a realm’s rare or epic with the bait that reaches it, take the heavy rod. Swapping rods is just wearing a different one.
The Fisherman
Anyone with the HUD can fish and earn Fisherman CXP: in full for a Fisherman, half for everyone else, spendable at any Master. To level up and unlock the rods, lines, rod looks, taxidermy and the Mastery shelf, take up the profession with the Fisherman Master on Everdale Isle. He gives you quests, and levels cost CXP.
Your catches
- Every fish is a real item: cook it, trade it, or sell it at a market hub for coins.
- Your fish journal (Profile, then Journal, then Fish) shows every species you have caught in each water, your best weights, and what is still missing.
- The fishing page keeps the weekly leaderboard (resets every Monday), the all-time board, the rarest catches and every species’ record. Fishing also earns achievements and titles.
- Now and then the line comes up with something that is not a fish: junk for crafting, a message in a bottle, and very rarely a pirates’ treasure.
More
- The fishing page: Fishing HUD & Game for Second Life — SL Colonies Roleplay
- Setting up a fishing pool on your land: [GATHERABLES] Fishing Pool
- All the video guides: Second Life RPG video tutorials — SL Colonies Roleplay
Questions? Ask on the forum, on Discord, or send Samuel an IM. Our mentors are happy to help.