Old Rod.

[HitmonFonty]

When you first went through the game, did you buy a fishing rod as soon as you could? Did you wait until you had the surfboard or other items first, or wait until much later in the game?

For those too lazy to reply there is a simple poll.

If you want to add your reasons here, please do.

 

[Zywa-Torpeda]

I bought it to caught some water pokes early in the game, and to finish "Fishermans Hat" quest in order to access water lab

 

[Merlino]

I had put all my effort in making 100k for the wind surfboard. That basically allowed me to get all the water pokemons i wanted! Then I've bought it after all the badges to enjoy fishing and mostly to do the DD quest!
Since there is no difference between pokemons got by fishing and by surfing, I can't see rodes used frequently! Just my opinion

 

[weee123]

I agree, my rod has not been used since getting the windboard, due to it not giving me any advantage in terms of pokemon available. I guess the rod is useful for the early game though, to catch some water pokemon before the player can afford the board.

To me the rod is a disadvantage due to the level system, and not being able to catch rarer pokemon without a lot of training in it, where you could just use the board to catch them.

 

[pieoffury]

I bought it early in the game to get a water poke for my team. Though when I had bought a surfboard, the old rod was left to rot in my backpack. Could I throw in the issue of the old rod not having a unique advantage compared to the surfboard?

The surfboard is more useful compared to the old rod despite having to encounter the same pokemon in a sense that the surfboard doesnt have a cooldown time limit.

 

[DarkCyrus]

When I started playing, Pokemon didnt appear while surfing so ofc i had to buy one, and ofc water pokemon was important so yes I had to get it fast, now that pokemon are able to appear while surfing, I dont rlly see old rod as an useful tool, not to mention it is way faster surfin´ then fishing, my point is I wouldnt buy it first now, maybe would be the last item to buy

 

[EcoWOLFrb]

Never really saw a need to get one, fishing is boring and monotonous, even more so than hunting or level grinding. There's also no obvious advantage to fishing over surfing... I eventually got one some time after 16 badges.

 

[Julio~]

I bought it as soon as I could but just because I was beginner and haven't read informations about the game. If I'm starting right now I wouldn't buy an old rod, first off because it would be a lost of money, once surf is more useful and allows us to catch the same pokémons.

 

[SapphirePhoenix]

I bought the fishing rod as soon as I found the house of the NPC selling it.

Back then I didn't read the wiki, and I saw people with the wind surfboards in the Cerulean and Vermilion waters but didn't know where to get those, so the fishing rod seemed really cool at the time and I fished often. I thought there would have been some fishing-exclusive Pokemon which motivated me to up my fishing levels, but I discovered I was wrong about that when I got the wind surfboard and found that you could encounter the water Pokemon on the surfboard. That explained to me why I rarely ever saw people lined up at the water's edge to fish..