Fishing research!

[koda733]

I did some research on how much the Alley Catfish lure augments the catch rate, quality, and weight of the Angelfish.

I put many spawners for the Angelfish in my pond, and after about 55 Sim hours, including me fishing for more bait (since I ran out of my base stock many times) and seeing a burglar beat up a police officer, I got this!

Variables: The Alley Catfish were all in Perfect Quality, my Sim is at level 10 in the Fishing skill, and he had the traits of Lucky, Natural Cook, Flirty, Friendly, and Handy. The Sim fished for 24 hours with and without the lure.

Without the bait, I got 9 Angelfish. Their qualities and weights are below:
Nice: 1 fish (16kg)
Very Nice: 7 (18, 21, 22, 22, 23, 24, 26kg)
Unknown: 1 (21?kg)

With the bait, I got 26 Angelfish. Their qualities and weights are below:
Excellent: 1 fish (44kg)
Outstanding: 6 fish (43, 44, 47, 49, 49, 51kg)
Perfect: 19 (52, 52, 53, 55, 56, 56, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 61, 63, 63, 66, 68, 68, 72, 76kg)

In total, 35 Angelfish were caught. The total average of the fish caught without the bait is 21.2, if you count the Unknown fish that is estimated at 21kg. The other average is 56.9. The total average of all of the Angelfish combined is 47.8. The average weight of the fish caught using the bait is 168.4% higher than the average weight of the fish caught using no bait. I caught 188.9% more fish using the bait than I did without bait. I hope this helps out with the guide a little bit more!

[Chuckles_82]

Interesting finds I must know though, how do you get an unknown fish? Did you accidentally sell it before checking it's quality and weight or something?
It would also be interesting to see if lucky had an effect here, and how much the angler trait augments the fishing skill and fish caught (both number and weight) - I know that they do catch more fish.

[koda733]

I accidentally clicked the X button too fast on the dialog box that tells you what the quality and weight of the fish you just caught is.

[Chuckles_82]

I have been looking at the _XML resource for fishing in the gameplay package, and have come up with the following:

It takes an average of 30 sim minutes to catch a fish; +/- 25%
Active fishing spots take 33% less time to catch a fish
It takes 85% less time to catch a fish if a sim has the angler trait
Fish weight usually varies by 40%
Weight goes up by .5% for each fish caught
If you have the icthyologist challenge completed, fish will be 120% bigger
There is 25% chance a sim will lose the fish; 60% chance if they are clumsy


The coding can be a bit hard to understand, but I think your fishing skill goes up 3 times as much if you catch a new fish type.