Final Fantasy 14 is filled with all sorts of collectibles for players to hunt, like rare mounts and minions, offering players unique ways to personalize their characters and show off their achievements. These types of collector’s items are ubiquitous across the MMORPG genre, but one unexpected type of collectible item has found a surprisingly passionate community in Final Fantasy 14: big fish.
Fishing is one of three gathering disciplines in Final Fantasy 14, differing from its mining and botanizing counterparts by utilizing fishing holes found throughout the open world rather than discrete gathering nodes. Big fish are a rare category of fish found in these locations, requiring unique conditions to be met for players to even have a small chance of obtaining them, including narrow windows of availability and specific weather condition requirements.
Related
Final Fantasy 14 Angler Explains Why Eorzea’s Fishing is Better Than Other Games
Game Rant speaks with a self-described Final Fantasy 14 Fisher main about the beauty of fishing and connecting to the game environment in Eorzea.
How To Catch The Salter In Final Fantasy 14
The Salter is a big fish found within the Hidden Falls fishing hole in Eastern La Noscea (X:31, Y:23). In order to catch The Salter, players will need to make sure they have at least 345 Gathering, visit the fishing hole between 17:00 and 20:00 Eorzea Time, and use the Honey Worm bait — which can be purchased from the Merchant & Mender at Wineport in the same zone (X:21, Y:21).
Fishers that have reached at least level 57 can make use of the action Fish Eyes to ignore the time requirement, allowing them to hook The Salter at any time of day, and those that have reached level 71 can take advantage of the action Surface Slap to block one common fish from biting.
The Salter in particular is unique, as it is the only big fish to display a single exclamation mark when hooked, rather than the three exclamation marks that usually appear when hooking big fish. This rare behavior can be used to the player’s advantage to tell when the fish pulling on the line should be reeled in, and when it can be safely ignored. Specifically, it is the only fish with a single exclamation mark bite that can bite after a line has been cast for 23 seconds. By starting a timer at the same time as a line is cast, players can determine whether a fish that bites the line is The Salter or just a common fish.
For this reason, many fishing enthusiasts make use of in-game macros to track the seconds since casting, such as:
/macroicon “Cast”
/ac “Cast”
/wait 2
/echo 2 seconds<wait.2>
/echo 4 seconds<wait.2>
/echo 6 seconds<wait.2>
/echo 8 seconds<wait.2>
/echo …10 seconds<wait.2>
/echo …12 seconds<wait.2>
/echo …14 seconds<wait.2>
/echo …16 seconds<wait.2>
/echo …18 seconds<wait.2>
/echo ……20 seconds<wait.3>
/echo ……23 seconds<wait.3>
To effectively use this macro, players should replace their normal Cast button with the macro, then use it to cast into the fishing hole. Any fish that bites before the macro prints “……23 seconds” can be safely ignored, ending the cast, consuming the Honey Worm bait, and allowing players to start over. Once players have a cast that lasts at least 23 seconds, any bite that presents a single exclamation mark over the character’s head is guaranteed to be The Salter and should be hooked immediately.
