40d:Fishing

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Fishing is the labor used to catch fish. It is a good source of food (and some raw materials) in the early game, though somewhat dangerous since fisherdwarves usually have to go outside and may encounter fell beasts. Its usefulness diminishes somewhat as your fortress grows.

Any dwarf with the Fisherdwarf labor enabled will fish, either in a cave river, an outside river, the swamps (i.e., outdoor lakes, murky pools) or artificial lakes connected to the river. Fisherdwarves can catch various kinds of fish, as well as other aquatic creatures like turtles. Turtles can be very useful to a starting fortress, since eating them uncooked leaves behind bone and shell which your craftsdwarves can use to make trade goods, armour, and ammunition.

Fishing requires no equipment, as Fisherdwarves have developed a highly superior fishing method. When tasked, the dwarf will go out to a body of water he has picked and wade in knee deep. The dwarf then simply lowers his prestigious beard into the water and waits. Inevitably a fish will arrive, attracted by the remains of the dwarf's last meal still lodged in his beard. When the fish makes the fatal error of attempting to acquire this morsel, it is hopelessly entangled.(In some kobold societies they fish exclusively with nets made from dwarf beard hair.) The only flaw in this method is that devilish carp have learned to drag dwarves into rivers by their beard. In some instances, when the carp rips out a significant portion of the Fisherdwarf's beard, he will simply allow himself to drown. Most dwarves see this as more honorable than returning home in horrible beardless shame.

Overfishing can exhaust the fish population of a pond or river, both temporarily and permanently. If a dwarf can not find some fish in a specific area, you will get the message "there is nothing to catch in the [directions] swamps" and the area will no longer be used for fishing. When the season changes, all areas will become available for fishing once again, though eventually they will remain permanently empty and simply give the above message on the first fishing attempt of every season.

Note that the game considers fishing a very high-priority labour, meaning that your fisherdwarf will often spend time fishing, usually at the expense of more urgent tasks that need doing. It is sometimes a good idea to turn fishing off for a while so that your dwarf can work on other tasks. However extremely skilled fisherdwarves can produce a really immense amount of turtle which can either be tossed near the water in horrible rotting piles or end up in your food store.

Swamp-fishing can draw your dwarves far away from the safety of the fortress. If your map has a lot of dangerous wildlife, you may want to consider assigning guard dogs to your fisherdwarf, or post a military squad near the designated fishing zone.

Fish cannot be eaten as soon as it is caught; it must be cleaned in a fishery first. (An exception is the raw mussel, which can be cooked at a kitchen instead of cleaned at a fishery). Again, even if your fisherdwarves have the Fish Cleaning labor turned on, they may prefer to keep fishing rather than clean the fish that they've already caught. (Can you blame them?) More than one dwarf has starved to death because of this: don't let it happen to you!