Can't find fishing spot

Use a lime as bait I think it is a lime,and test the water where there is activity even without rainbow flowers.

EDIT: The rainbow flowers make great pond decor used them in my build made yesterday.

My sim is now in the utopian future, where the floating flowers for the rainbow snail are not appearing on the water. She had successfully caught them before I went back and sent her to the dystopian future without buying a house instead. But now it's the opposite again. I thought it would work this time, because one of the tests I did last night was to start where she was about to leave for the utopian future and change it to dystopian instead. The floating debris for the three-eyed fish weren't there that time either. So I concluded it must be because she had bought a house. Now it appears that no matter which altered future I send her to first, that will be the only one she will be able to catch the mutated fish in. So much for my goal of having her catch all of the fish in the game! The rainbow snail is the only one she hadn't caught, and it looks like she's not going to be able to. Has anyone besides me ever had this happen?

@IreneSwift

Hello! I was intruiged and did a test run. This is what I did:

In an unmodded game and in a fairly new save (week 4) my sim was already in the normal future, and did not know how to fish. When examined, the fishing spots/water will say "unknown fish", until the skill level for that particular fish is reached, and then show a name, 'goldfish' etc.

The two fishing spots I used throughout was in the canal right next to the 'EP-XI Import Gallery' and the pond/lake next to the Zephyr station, Reality Road in the Waste Land, fishing spot at the other side of the water than the station. All 4 times I used them both. I fished during daytime as well as nighttime, the temperature of 4 degree Celsius/40 degree Fahrenheit is only during nighttime, in the fall, at around 00:00 - 01:00 'military time'/12-01 a.m.

I first levelled up my sim's fishing skill to 10 (with Multipad 6000 while partying) then went back to 'current time', changed the future to dystopian, went there and tried to fish.

The garbage was in the water, and when 'examined' showed that '3-eyed fish' were there, and fishing it was successful.

My sim then went home to current time, changed the future to utopian, went to the two fishing spots and they both had flowers on the water, 'rainbow snail' when examined, and she caught several of them.
This was summer.

Then came fall:

She went back to to current time, changed future to 'normal', went to the future, bought a house ("Campus", the big one outside of the city, near the waste land), went back to change to dystopian future and back again, chose the bought house as 'home lot".

The garbage was in the water, examination showed '3-eyed fish', and fishing was successful.

She went back, changed to utopian, chose the bought house as 'home lot' and since it was night went to sleep. Meanwhile I looked for the flowers in the water, but could not see them until after a while (a couple of sim hours, fast forwarding because the sim was asleep). When morning came she went there, examination said 'rainbow snail' and fishing was successful.

I do not know why I did not see the flowers at first, it could be that they weren't there or that my eye could not catch them (highly possible). The flowers are smaller in area than the garbage and during nighttime are blueish, as are the waters, and my graphic settings are on low/middle for the most part. From afar they look more like an ordinary fishing spot with jumping fish as the most visible sign.

I searched for the problem (unsuccessfully), but found one comment (on Carl's Sims 3 page), saying that rainbow snail had been found in a rainbow knoll, so my sim dug a lot of them out. (They are small beige dirt mounds in the green area outside of the city, visible in map view and when close up have a little rainbow attached). In a week she found: rainbow stones (17), rainbow trout (12), rainbow butterfly (12), pot of gold (11) and rainbow bug (6), but no rainbow snail. It does not mean they can't be found that way, it took half a week until rainbow bug appeared.

Another comment (somewhere) said a witch could transform an object to a 3-eyed fish (I have not tried this).

If in a bed in the future 'dream' is chosen, the option 'sleeping with the fishes' will give several random fishes in the sims inventory, upon wakening, that are not bound by the sim's fishing skill level, or world exclusive. My sim dreamt for a week, but got no 3-eyed fish nor rainbow snail. Skilling in advanced technic gives more dream options, I think the fish alternative need around level 5, sorry, I did not pay attention to it.

Hope someone else has a solution/explanation :smile:

Since I had made quite a bit of progress the first time, I returned to the original. So now she still needed to catch the three-eyed fish. After reading your post, @Auroraskies, I did a test without mods, but nothing changed. Even after two sim days, the floating trash never appeared.

The first time I ever played in OL, using the collection helper, I found that there is a fishing hot spot in Miner's Park, the playground in the non-technology area in the mountains. It was on dry ground. Using MC's object info, I had learned that it was a dystopian fish spawner. Also using MC, I found that it was the only ITF fish spawner in OL. The floating flowers and trash are from base game spawners, modified along with the other changes. I had considered placing one in my current sim's koi pond at home in the present, to see if she could catch them there, but first I tried to find the spawner in Miner's Park. It was not visible in buy debug. I tried building a basement nearby so I could go down one story, but there was still nothing there. Maybe it was even farther down than one basement level, but I decided not to pursue that further. I think someone who was involved with creating OL made a mistake and never caught it. No surprise there. I've found many mistakes that should have been corrected in EA's worlds.

So while my sim was still in the dystopian future, I made a small pond behind her house and placed the spawner there. First thing in the morning, she caught several three-eyed fish, and has finally made her goal of catching every fish in the game. After she returned home in the present, I placed the spawner in her koi pond temporarily, just to see if it would work anywhere other than in the dystopian future. It did. The utopian fish spawner did too. So in the future, when I have a sim with fishing skill and want them to catch those fish, I'm going to place the spawners in the pond behind Miner's park.

The opportunity chain was finished before the problem occurred. She only went home with the chain unfinished once in all the times I played through trying to find the problem. Then she completed it as soon as there were debris piles to excavate in the changed future. And with both the sim I was playing with when I originally started this thread and the current sim, I waited for two or three sim days with none of the floating objects ever appearing on the water. Maybe I should try it sometime without doing any of the opportunity chains.

If I ever do manage to get both of them to work OK, I'll share that. I don't remember for sure, but I think I did play a sim fishing in both futures successfully once. And I do know for sure that I haven't always bothered with the opportunity chains, after the first time.

@CravenLestat It is lime. I sent plenty along with her. So, do they not show up when you have your sim inspect the water? Because I did that with every fishing hotspot there, and none of them said rainbow snail.

OK, I sent my sim to fish in a regular fishing spot. She used up all of her bait, and got only base game fish.

I had the same problem again with my current sim, only in reverse. This time there were no fishing spots for three-eyed fish in the dystopian future. It made me wonder if it was broken in my game, so I started a test game with a different sim in a different town, and when I sent her to the dystopian future, the debris piles were present on the water. So I did further test runs at other points in my current sim's life, and discovered that after she bought her house in OL, the debris piles for the three-eyed fish would never show up in the dystopian future, even if I sold the house before she changed the future to dystopian and returned. So I returned to the save where she first arrived in OL, and started over from there.

She went through most of the first opportunity chain, but when the step came where she was supposed to excavate a dig site, there were none. So I sent her home then and had her change the future with the time remote control and return. I sent her fishing as soon as she got there, and she has now successfully caught six three-eyed fish. So I guess she needs to go to the utopian future now, so she can catch rainbow snails before she buys her house in OL.

All very interesting - I'll have to try fishing in the future one day.