Editing Fishing industry

{{Quality|Exceptional|12:56, 21 January 2015 (UTC)}}
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'''The fishing industry''' is one of five [[food]]-producing [[industry|industries]] (along with [[farming]], the [[meat industry]], the [[poultry industry]], and the [[beekeeping industry]]). In addition to sustaining your hungry dwarves, the fishing industry produces non-edible raw materials that can be used by your workshops, like [[shell]]s and [[extract]]s. Fishing is an excellent way to initially feed your dwarves, requiring very little setup or maintenance, available as long as you have access to some form of fish-bearing water and a cheesemaker or two looking for something to do between breaks.

==Fishing==
[[Fisherdwarf|Fishing]] is the primary activity associated with the fishing industry, as it is the main way to acquire fish. Fishing is unique in that unlike [[hunting]] or [[trapping]], dwarves need no special equipment to catch fish; they just pull the hapless critters right out of the water with their bare hands. The [[fish]] that they catch are usually [[vermin]] fish (or really aquatic animals in general, not just fish), which makes keeping track of stocks much more difficult. Each fish caught will each yield one meal, once prepared. Note that the presence of vermin fish on-screen does not signify there are fish there for fishing.

If you simply tell your fisherdwarves to go fish, they will do so in the nearest source of water. Most water sources more than a few tiles in size have some stock of fish, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you want your dwarves fishing there. While stocks of fish in bodies of water that do not [[flow]] are now renewable, unlike in the past{{bug|2780}}, a fisherdwarf can still have lots of [[fun]] at his secret fishing hole next to the goblin's favorite arrival area. Zoning is highly recommended, but keep in mind an agile Urist McFisherdwarf assigned to an out-of-the-way fishing spot with a nearby lockable escape tunnel can make an excellent sentry.

== Fishing Zone==
Fishing [[zone]]s are preferred areas to fish and changing [[standing orders]] to zone-only fishing with {{k|o}}-{{k|z}}, and then setting fishing to zone-only will force all fishing to be done in the zone. To set up fishing zones, designate a zone({{k|i}}) as usual, on shore tile adjacent to water. You can only set the zone to be used for {{K|f}}ishing if there is some fish-bearing water inside, or if it is not yet known if there are any fish there.  If there are no fish in a particular region, you will get the [[announcement]] "There is nothing to catch in the [region] swamps", and designating a zone next to water in that region will show "0" for fishing.

Fishing zones are also an effective way to temporarily disable all fishing without changing labor preferences, particularly if your fisheries already have trouble keeping up. Activate zone-only fishing as described above, and create a fishing zone. Then you can toggle the zone's active flag to control fishing. However, dwarves that had already made up their mind about it will still carry out a single fishing task.

==Fish cleaning==
Freshly caught '''raw fish''' cannot be eaten; they must first be cleaned at a [[fishery]]. The presence of raw fish automatically triggers "Prepare a raw fish" to be queued up at the nearest fishery.  So long as you have enough [[fish cleaning|fish cleaners]] and [[fishery|fisheries]] to keep up with your fisherdwarves, fish cleaning should be an automated process. Raw fish is a classification in the [[stocks]] menu for fish that have yet to be cleaned, useful for seeing how backlogged the [[fishing industry]] is, or isn't.

Once a dwarf catches a fish, he will carry it off to the nearest stockpile and return to fishing; even if the dwarf has fish cleaning enabled, he will almost never perform the task on his catch, as fishing is regarded as higher-priority, even if fish in your stockpile are in danger of rotting. A rule of thumb is to have twice as many fish cleaners as fishers, as fishers generally catch fish faster than cleaners can process them. To this effect, mature fortresses often have dedicated cooks/brewers/fish cleaners tasked to their food preparation areas. It is especially important to have [[barrel]]s and/or [[large pot]]s in stock if you have a fishing industry, as openly stored fish rot very quickly.

Once a fish is cleaned, it is known as a "prepared" fish, and can be immediately eaten. Fish, both raw and prepared, can also be cooked into food at a [[kitchen]].

Raw fish are known as '''unprepared fish''' in the stockpile settings interface.

==Shells==
Animals with shells (like [[pond turtle]]s) will also leave them behind, useful for the purposes of [[bone carving]] and appeasing [[strange mood|moody]] dwarves. Since cooking unprepared shelled creatures loses the shell, you probably want to disable this behavior for animals that have them ([[turtle]]s, [[mussel]]s, and [[oyster]]s) until after the fish cleaner is done with them. In addition to being used to create low value crafts and some passingly useful/sellable shell armor, ''every'' item type can be [[decoration|decorated]] with shells. Given that any halfway decent fishing industry in a location with [[mussel]]s or [[oyster]]s will keep a craftdwarf or five swimming in shells, this can be VERY lucrative. Setting up a few craftsdwarf workshops next to a dedicated shell stockpile near your fishery with constant repeating orders of "decorate with shell" and assigning bone carving to all dwarves with spare time lets them quickly train bone carving to legendary levels, while delighting your dwarves as every statue, door, and sock they encounter is bedazzled with shell images of shell items decorated with shells and guaranteeing that merchants will pay top dollar for your masterful craftsmanship.

[[Pearl]]s are an as-of-yet unimplemented [[mussel]] and [[oyster]] product. Although you can tell your dwarves to decorate with pearl at a craftsdwarf's workshop, nothing will actually happen, as there are no pearls in the game; this is actually one of the longest-running and most obvious missing features, having persisted since 23a.

==Trading==
You can buy processed fish at embark and from traders, in which case the key word is processed; they will always already be prepared, and will never require preparation or have a shell. Buying fish from [[caravan]]s is often a good idea if you do not have a strong fishing industry, as it adds to the dwarven diet variety, which is always a good thing.

==Fish dissection==
Fisheries can also queue up a "capture a live fish" task; to fulfill this task a fisherdwarf will grab an [[animal trap]] and set it in the river, retrieving it when it catches something. Note that if no animal trap is available, the task will occupy the fishery forever, preventing its other functions from taking place. [[Captured live fish]] can serve as an attraction in an [[Cage|aquarium]], or be made into [[extract]]s with the "dissect a live fish" task at the fishery, using the [[fish dissection]] skill. In particular, dissected [[moghopper]]s yield five units of [[mog juice]], each worth 50☼, making it quite lucrative for something that would otherwise have served little more than a single meal.

==Fish hunting==
Larger, non-vermin fish cannot be caught with bare hands for obvious reasons. Large fish like [[carp]] and [[shark]]s are individual [[creature]]s, appearing as such on the [[Menu|unit list]], and must be [[butcher]]ed, producing dozens or, in the case of [[sperm whale|whales]], hundreds of meat products. Note that fish hunting is mostly an oceanic activity - rivers will only ever have occasional carp runs and the like.

Advanced fortresses located near the [[ocean]], a [[lake]], or large and well-occupied sections of [[river]] may make use of a fishing-adapted [[drowning chamber]]: a large room lined with all sorts of traps into which water is allowed to filter through via [[Screw pump|water pump]] pressure. No creature knows of the evils of the chambers as do the [[Merperson|merpeople]], whose numbers were, in the past, constantly reduced by dwarves seeking their extremely valuable innards.

Large fish can be caught in or killed by [[trap]]s located along the river bottom. The issue is setting the traps and retrieving their bodies for butchering, both tasks that require a dry riverbed; this means that you must dam or redirect river flow, build the traps, funnel it back through, and then have a way to quickly get rid of the water (probably with [[screw pump]]s) so your dwarves can drag them back to the butcher's shop. Such river control, as well as the construction of genocidal chambers, is a fairly complex engineering project.

==Industry management==
For the most part, the fishing industry is self-sustaining. Have some fishers, have some fisheries, and have some fish cleaners, and everything should run smoothly. However, a big part of fishing inefficiency is hauling the fish from the river to the table; solving this requires bringing the river closer to home, necessary for [[well]]s as well and potentially doubling or even tripling your production as dwarves can toss fish right into the nearest food stockpile.

The largest challenge in the fishing industry is ensuring the safety of your fisherdwarves. When working outdoors, they are susceptible to [[ambush]]ers. The process of building an artificial river is out of the scope of this article, but creating an internal fishery is easy once you have the [[pressure]] worked out: simply [[channel]] down to your river, just like with a well, and build some [[floor grate]]s, as dwarves have no trouble fishing through them. Doing so removes the danger of being far from home in case of a potential siege or ambush and keeps your fisherdwarves happily inside at all times.

==Industry Flowchart==

{| style="border-spacing: 0;"

|-
{{Skill Block|skill=[[Fishing]]
  |color=7:0|
  |      |E||      |
  |E|    |C|#ccc|L|#ccc|
  |      |A|#ccc|      |
}}
{{Arrow Block|
  |      |E|    |      |
  |L|#ccc|C|#ccc|E||
  |      |A|#ccc|      |
}}
{{Empty Block}}
{{Empty Block}}
|-

{{Item Block|title=Raw Fish
  |background=#000|
  |α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|
  |α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|
}}
{{Item Block|title=Live Fish
  |background=#000|
  |α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|
  |α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|
}}
{{Empty Block}}
{{Empty Block}}
|-
{{Workshop Block|workshop=Fishery|skill=[[Fish cleaning|Fish<br>Cleaning]]
  |color=6:0|
  |      |L|#AEE|      |
  |E|    |C|#AEE|E|    |
  |      |L|#AEE|      |
}}
{{Workshop Block|workshop=Fishery|skill=[[Fish dissection|Fish<br>Dissection]]
  |color=6:0|
  |      |L|#EEE|      |
  |E|    |C|#EEE|L|#EEE|
  |      |E|    |      |
}}
{{Arrow Block|
  |      |E|    |      |
  |L|#EEE|T|#EEE|A|#EEE|Extracts for trading
  |      |E||      |
}}
{{Empty Block}}
|-
{{Arrow Block|
  |      |L|#AEE|      |
  |E|    |C|#AEE|L|#AEE|
  |      |A|#AEE|      |
}}
{{Arrow Block|
  |      |E|    |      |
  |L|#AEE|C|#AEE|A|#AEE|
  |      |E|    |      |
}}
{{Item Block|title=Shell
  |background=#000|
  |²|#FFF|²|#FFF|²|#FFF|²|#FFF|
  |²|#FFF|²|#FFF|²|#FFF|²|#FFF|
}}
{{Arrow Block|
  |      |E|    |      |
  |L|#fff|C|#fff|E|    |
  |      |A|#fff|      |
}}
|-
{{Item Block|title=Fish
  |background=#000|
  |α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|
  |α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|α|#FFF|
}}
{{Arrow Block|
  |      |E|    |      |
  |L|#fff|C|#fff|A|#fff|
  |      |E|    |      |
}}
{{Industry Block|industry=Industry{{!}}Food industry
  |background=#fff|
}}
{{Industry Block|industry=Industry{{!}}Craft industry
  |background=#fff|
}}
|}

==Bugs==
*If you designate a fishing zone in an [[cavern|underground pool]], fishers will never give up fishing there even when there aren't any fish to catch. {{Bug|1854}}
{{Category|Guides}}
{{Category|Industry}}
{{Industry}}