Fishing Hotspots

Fishing hotspots are places in Aeternum that offer faster "bite" speed whilst Fishing. Hotspots contain the same fish species as the rest of the water they are in, but the quicker bite rate allows you to catch many more fish in one time period.

Hotspots act as "nodes", and can be depleted, just like a Mining node (like an Iron Vein). While you can continue fishing when the hotspot is depleted, you will no longer see the "Landed in Hotspot!" text when you cast, nor will you get the quicker bite. They will take time to respawn (see below). While the fish needed to deplete a hotspot still needs to be confirmed, in previous releases the amount of fish (fished by any player using the hotspot) varied from 10 to 20.

Respawn Timers

 * Broad: 20 to 30 minutes
 * Rare: 30 to 45 minutes
 * Secret: 45 to 90 minutes

Types & Amount
There are 3 types of hotspots, distinguished from the map by their amount of "stars", and a short description when hovering over the icon:


 * Broad (one star) - "The fish are jumping out of the water!"
 * Rare (two star) - "Rumors say rare fish swim here."
 * Secret (three star) - "Extraordinary things lurk in Aeternian waters".

There are 80 hotspots in total through Aeternum. 27 are Broad, 25 are Rare, and 28 are Secret.

Unlocking Hotspots
Before unlocking hotspots, they only show on your map as a plain, dotted hexagon (see image to right).

As one levels Fishing, certain hotspots become discoverable & trackable. Discovery means they will appear on your map with the hotspot icon (the jumping fish with stars below it), after visiting them at least once. Trackable means that you can see them on your compass at the top of your UI.

Specific hotspots unlock as Fishing skill increases. Once unlocked, they will appear on your map, if visited before or after unlocking. You can view the number (but not the exact locations) of hotspots you've unlocked from the "K" menu, under Fishing in the Trade Skills list. For example:



The level 2 picture is lit up because that level has been achieved, whereas 200 has not, and thus the graphic is not lit up.

A few notes:
 * Being near a hotspot and receiving the map update does not actually mean a hotspot is currently active - that is, that there is a circle of rippling water with fish jumping out of it. It only indicates that the player is in the vicinity of an area that could potentially have.  This is notably different from other kinds of resource icons, which only appear when the resource is actually present and available for extraction.
 * When very close to the hotspot, the compass icon will actually disappear, making figuring out where to look for an active hotspot slightly more difficult.

Identifying a Hotspot
Active Hotspots appear as small ripples of water with fish jumping out of them, as pictured here. Inactive hotspots can appear as white patches of water without fish (usually if the hotspot has recently become exhausted) or as simply regular water.

As with resource nodes, hotspots will always appear in the same location.

Note that when a player approaches a hotspot, that hotspot can appear to be active, but when getting within casting distance, the hotspot suddenly disappears. The inactive state is the correct state in this case - the active state, with fish jumping, appears to be the "default" state of a node that the game loads for distant objects. This can be helpful, however, for figuring out where to look.

Hotspot Levels and Locations
Fishing Hotspots do not have names at this time, so they are referred to with IDs from the game for now. Note that these may not correspond to anything in the game, they are just a unique ID. See each individual page for more info and a screenshot of the hotspot. (under construction)

Hotspot Categories
You can also browse hotspots by category on the Hotspots Category Page.