There are four main fishing games inside Second Life. Two of them involve investing money in a rod or bait, entry fees, or waiting for scheduled tournament times. The two I recommend instead are Gone Fishing and Match Fishing, both made by Splash Aquatics. Nether require you to purchase anything, and everything you need to play is already there in the game.
Most of the Gone Fishing and Match Fishing games are set to cash prizes (some give gift boxes or other non-cash prizes). The game is simple to play, and does not require skill. Most simply - you find a Gone Fishing or Match fishing game, sit on a poseball or chair, and when the game tells you that you have a bite, you type the word strike in your chat window and push enter.
Gone Fishing Game
(click on the photos to see them larger)
The Gone Fishing game (pictured above) has two parts; The blue poseballs with fishing rods, and the trophy stand which is usually placed nearby. You can do a search in world for Gone Fishing under places or events, and here is a SLURL to a place to get you started:
Bethany Gardens Gone Fishin match and tournament fishing lakes
If you left click on one of the blue fishing poseballs, you will automatically sit. Or you can right click on one of the blue fishing poseballs and select FISH! A notecard will pop up with directions called 'Gone Fishing v1.0 - Tournament Info'. You can keep or discard as you choose. Your chat window will display the game instructions and notices as well.
When you first sit down, a message similar to this will be displayed:
"Gone Fishing v1.0 GAME whispers: When you get a bite type 'strike' to hook your fish and reel him in. If you take too long he'll get away so be ready!
Gone Fishing v1.0 GAME whispers: You are now automatically entered into the fishing tournament! Happy Fishin' and GOOD LUCK!!!"
Wait until the game gives you a message similar to this:
Gone Fishing v1.0 GAME whispers: Ooh! Kitania Writer has a bite!
Although it would of course say your avatar name where mine is.
Type only the word strike in your chat window when you get a bite and push enter. The game may not work if you try typing anything else such as STRIKE!, quotation marks, or shout instead of say the word in chat.
Your chat window will tell you if you caught a fish or not. If you catch one, the blue information window pops up and offers you an object called a 'Roach'. According to Wikipedia: "Fish called roach are members of the carp and minnow family (Cyprinidae)." I recommend not keeping them, as you hopefully will be catching many more, and if you're anything like me, your inventory is really cluttered as it is.
The trophy stand will tell you who the current leaders are. Most Gone Fishing tournaments end/begin once a day, and are ongoing. The largest fish you can catch is 50 lbs, and it ranks in the order in which the largest fish were caught if there is a tie. So if you catch a 50 lb fish, and then catch a second 50 lb fish five minutes later, you don't get two first prizes, you would get first and second. You can hold all three places on the trophy stand, and you can come and go any time throughout the tournament.
Match Fishing
(click on the photos to see them larger)
The Match Fishing game pictured above is similar to Gone Fishing. However, the differences are as follows:
Your score on the trophy stand is the accumulated total weight of twenty fish caught. So the trophy stand usually displays how many hours are left in the current tournament, and unlike the Gone Fishing game the $ prize amounts are usually displayed as well.
This may take you some time to accumulate 20 fish, so if you don't have a while to sit and fish, try Gone Fishing instead. For either game, if you set your avatar to busy or away, you may not get the notices that a fish is biting. But, if you do have an hour or so, then Match Fishing cash prizes are usually higher than Gone Fishing.
The chairs are a bit different for the Match fishing game, and do not have the blue poseballs. Usually there are lounge chairs with a bait box attached. Some places have tree stumps either instead of or in addition to the lounge fishing chairs. Again, you don't need to do anything but sit down to enter the tournament. Bait and rod are included and free.
The other main difference between Gone Fishing and Match Fishing is that in Match Fishing you can change the tackle and bait on your rod.
Sit down on the fishing chair or stump by right clicking. You can left click the bait box (attached to the chair) or the base of the tree stump to bring up a blue information window which allows you to choose your tackle and bait. Tackle can be light or heavy, and bait can be maggot, corn or bread. My suggestion is to use heavy tackle with either corn or bread. It may take longer, but you can catch larger fish that way.
Then sit, relax and look for the message that you have a strike. This game may say (avatar name) has a bite, or it may just say "you have a bite." Both Gone Fishing and Match Fishing also play the sound of a whirring fishing reel when you have a strike, so you have an audio and visual cue. I believe the largest fish you can catch in Match Fishing is 29.9 pounds, as I have not yet seen a 30 lb.
For either game, when the current tournament is over, the game will automatically send out the cash prizes to the top three avatars on the stand. You do not need to be online to get your cash. You can check your transactions history for your Second Life account, and if/when you are in world you will receive a notice in chat, and a blue information window.
Currently one of the quirks of both games is that the message you do get in world when you win may not indicate clearly which fishing game is paying you. It may tell you that (avatar name) is paying you $50 Lindens for the Bronze Trophy in the Match Fishing game, but if you fish in many locations, you may not know or recall which avatar owns which fishing game.
Also, if you are in first place (gold position) and someone else beats your score, you will get a message in world that simply says something along the lines of "you have lost your gold position in the Match Fishing game." It doesn't say from where, so if you fish in multiple locations, you may have to guess which location it might be.
If you're in world when you win, you may see a message in chat similar to this one:
Match Fishing Trophy Stand: You have won the SILVER TROPHY in the FISHING MATCH! You win L$50 in prize money. Well done!!
In later SL viewers you can click on where it says Match Fishing Trophy Stand in your chat window (as you might on another avatar's name to get their profile) and it will give you the location (SLURL) and the owner of the fishing game (who paid you.)
If you win, it also may be helpful to look at the profile of the avatar who is paying you as many of them have their fishing game location in their picks with a lot more info. Another thing you can do if you're organized, is to keep a list of fishing locations along with the name of the avatar who owns the trophy stand. If you hold your cursor over the trophy stand, it will tell you who the owner is. Or an easier way I've found is to right click on the trophy stand, select edit, and then you will see the name of the creator of the trophy stand (Kaikou Splash) and the Owner's name of the game/trophy stand.
In the later browser versions of SL, next to the owner's name is a button link to their profile. You can copy and paste the name of the owner of the trophy stand into your fishing landmark title, a notecard, or something outside of SL such as Notepad, Word or Excel. Figuring out how to be organized is always my challenge, hopefully you'll figure out a system that works for you.
Bethany Gardens (SLURL above) also has a Match Fishing game, but here's another SLURL to the creator's Match Fishing game:
Splash Aquatics
There are also free strike gestures available in world (don't pay for these!) so you don't have to manually type strike all the time.
Have fun, catch the big ones, and earn some Lindens!
:)
