Compiled by Badbacca
Bait Selection

Doesn't seem to be much difference in bait types. Use whatever's most convenient. If you're on the Tempest server, drop by my shop.

Baiting the Hook

This is here for the n00bs. Baiting the hook is as simple as dragging a jar of bait onto your fishing pole.

Location

Another n00b section. Each location has two ratings: Fish Density and Vegetation. Both can be from 0 to 5. Higher Fish Density ratings means less time between nibbles. A low Fish Density rating will give you a lot of "Waiting..." events
High Vegetation ratings means it's more likely for your line to get snagged. This will cause you to lose your fish if you have one. So seek low Vegetation ratings. The ideal fishing spots are Fish Density 5, Vegetation
You can fish in almost any sized body of water. I have fished in puddles on Rori that weren't any bigger than a small torton. I have fished in the man-made pond in the park at the back end of Coronet City. I have fished on every planet in the game, including Tatooine.

Skinny Bug

The skinny bug affects Fishing as well, sorta. Whenever fish meat shifts for a given planet, Fish Density drops to 0 all over the planet. You can still catch fish, but it takes a while. However, if you can catch one, it's possible to get more than one unit of fish meat from fileting it.

Casting your line

Casting your line involves typing out the command: /fish
Make a macro for this and hotkey it. You'll thank yourself later.

Bait Texture

Bait has three textures: Fresh, Soggy, and Mush. The wetter the bait is, the more likely it is that you will lose it. You can still catch plenty of fish on Mushy bait, and you can still lose Fresh bait. But, generally, Mush bait will get stolen much more often than Soggy or Fresh bait.
Bait texture refreshes when you stop fishing, and may actually improve. If you have Mush bait, you might be able to freshen it up by selecting the "Stop Fishing" option and re-casting. I've had bait go from Mush to Fresh this way. However, IMHO, it's better to keep using the Mush bait, combined with the techniques I will be relating here in a minute. I've caught tons of fish with Mush bait, and reeling it in and starting over in hopes of freshening it up is just a waste of time.

Mechanics of the Fishing Window

When you cast your line (with the /fish command or the convenient /fish Hotkey macro that you've set up for yourself -- you HAVE set up a /fish macro and hotkeyed it, right?), a window will pop up with five selections: Tug Up, Tug Right, Tug Left, Small Reel-in, Stop Fishing. There is also an OK button.
As soon as you cast your line, hit the ALT key and go into "Mouse Cursor" mode (instead of "Movement" mode). This will spare you the minor aggravation of having your mouse cursor re-center every time the Fishing window refreshes.
What happens is that, as long as your bobber is in the water, every five seconds or so the game will check to see if anything happens in a fish-related capacity. When it does this, the window will re-draw itself (and re-center your cursor if you haven't hit ALT first) with the new status (which may be unchanged from the previous status). If there is a status change (i.e. you get a Nibble), you will want to select one of the options (more on this in a moment) and click "OK". Alternately (and this is easier and faster), you can select one of the options and hit "ENTER" on your keyboard.

The Basic Fishing Process

When you fish, your goal is to get the "CAUGHT SOMETHING?!" message. Once that happens and you start to reel in your fish, the fishing engine will begin randomly generating fishing events to determine if your catch gets closer to you or gets farther away from you (or if you lose your bait, which can also happen). If the fish gets farther than 10m away, you lose it. If the fish gets within 2m of you, you catch it.

Volsted's Power Fishing

Here's the big secret of Power Fishing. Find a nice spot with a shallow beach, shoreline, or riverbank. Do NOT face straight out into the water. Instead face along the shoreline or the riverbank. Step into the water just enough that you can face straight along the shoreline and cast your line and have it hit water. The reason for this facing will be explained momentarily.
When you have cast your line and you get a Nibble, pick a Tug option. Doesn't matter which one. If that leads to a Bite, pick a Tug option again. It could be the same option as before. It could be a different one. As near as I can tell, there is no fundamental difference.
I am not certain how the fishing engine determines which combination of tug options will get you a Catch. I am, however, 100% certain that it's not a flat 33% chance per option for Nibble, and another 33% chance per option for Bite. That would give you a chance of 1-in-9 of actually getting to the "CAUGHT SOMETHING?!" message, and my experience indicates that the chance of getting the "Caught Something?!" message is much, much higher.
I strongly recommend that you do NOT change your combination around from cast to cast. Pick a Nibble-Bite combo of Tug options and use it every time. If you always use the same combination, eventually the fishing engine will swing back around to YOU, rather than you trying to chase it around. In my experience, picking a combo and sticking with it will get you more fish in the long run than changing combos every time and trying to guess what the fishing engine wants. I always use Tug Up for Nibbles and Tug Left for Bites, but again, I don't think it matters. The important bit here is not the specific combo I use, but the fact that I never, ever use any other combo. Using Tug Up/Tug Up, or Tug Left/Tug Right, or whatever, should work just as well, as long as you never change it.
Eventually (and hopefully sooner rather than later), you will get the "CAUGHT SOMETHING?!" message. (Or you could lose your bait. But we won't talk about that.) A lot of people will tell you you need to select "Small Reel-in" at this point. You don't. If you get the "CAUGHT SOMETHING?!" message, just wait a few seconds and you will get a message saying "You start to reel in your catch." A few seconds after that will be the first "reel-in event" where the fish will either get closer to you, farther away from you, or will take your bait.
And now you find out why you're facing sideways down the river or the shore.
Once you get the first "reel-in event" (for example "Your catch charges your location!" or "Your catch takes a bit more slack from your line"), RUN to where the bobber is. You should be able to see it floating in the water.
Remember: If you start reeling in your catch, the sole criteria for "Do I catch this fish?" is "Is it 2m or less away?" There's nothing that says you can't run out to the fish and grab it.
A lot of folks know this already, but still fish facing out into the ocean, river, puddle, swamp, or whatever. They wait until the fish gets close enough so that they can run out to grab it without entering Swim mode (if you enter Swim mode while fishing, you immediately stop fishing and lose any fish you mave have dangling on the end of your line). When you face along the shoreline or the riverbank, you don't have that problem. You never leave shallow water, and you never go into