Fishing is definitely something a bit different in XIV. It’s not the most profitable activity and it doesn’t reward you in many of the typical ways other professions do. In a lot of ways, much like real fishing, it’s something you do for leisure. You can make a little bit of money from it. But that’s not why you’re doing it. Nevertheless, the Fishing job is still packed with cool skills and utilities to make your life easier. It’s a rich and relaxing activity, with a surprising amount of detail. If you want to, ahem, catch ‘em all, you’ll have to pay attention to spawn locations, weather conditions, the time of day, and which bait you’re using to reel them in. And if you’re trying to support your Culinarian job, you’ll want to get well acquainted with fishing, as it can provide you with several ingredients for free! As your character grows you’ll unlock a variety of new ways to enhance your fishing experience. Fish Eyes is one of these enhancements. It’s a relatively small tool in your fishing arsenal, but it can come in handy from time to time. We’ve covered some of the factors that can impact the fish you catch above, and Fish Eyes allows you to manage one of them efficiently.
So How Does Fish Eyes Work?
So basically (as you’ll hopefully be well aware of by the time you unlock Fish Eyes) certain fish will only appear under specific conditions. This includes a combination of factors: weather, bait used, location, and the time of day. Fish Eyes nullifies that time requirement for sixty seconds, removing one of the conditional factors that impact the fish you can catch. It’s important to remember that all the other modifiers will stay in play. Weather is the other big environmental factor when it comes to fishing, and you can’t negate that with Fish Eyes. The idea is you can use it to mitigate the time factor when all the other circumstances are in your favor.
How Do I Unlock Fish Eyes?
Fish Eyes will be unlocked at level 57, so quite a way into your fishing journey! And it’s limited to A Realm Reborn and Heavensward areas. So you won’t be able to use it in Stormblood, Shadowbringers, or Ocean Fishing activities. It might seem a bit odd, but the skill would have been introduced in the Heavensward fishing story towards the end of that particular arc – and it simply wasn’t carried forward into the expansions. Still, it’s a useful tool to have. There’s plenty of fish to be caught in A Realm Reborn and Heavensward (even if you technically have about three levels of use for it by the time it unlocks).
