Do I need high Fishing skill to complete the catalog?

No, but it helps. Standard UO fishing skill governs whether you can land specific fish; the catalog uses normal fishing mechanics with regional and time constraints layered on top. A new character can start the catalog with low skill and pick up entries that don't require advanced fishing; the rare and trophy-tier entries are easier with skill in the 70+ range.

What's the difference between this and standard UO fishing?

Standard UO fishing produces fish for cooking, magery reagents, or sale. Fish Collection layers a curated catalog on top: specific named fish that count toward your catalog when caught in specific regions and (sometimes) specific time windows. You can fish normally and ignore the catalog, fish toward the catalog, or do both — the layers don't conflict.

Where does Silas Rivers appear?

He's a wandering fishing-curator NPC who frequents docks and fishing villages. His personal logbook (a quest item) gives the system's flavor; his shop opens after you've made meaningful catalog progress. Like other collection-arc NPCs on Immortal Realm, he's not a glowing exclamation point above a head — find him by paying attention to the docks.

Fish Collection: The Old Angler, Riverkeeper Title, and the Fish Catalog

The Fish Collection is Immortal Realm's fishing archive — a curated catalog of specific named fish across UO's regional waters, with Marks of Trust currency, the Old Angler curator NPC, and the Riverkeeper title at the end of the road. It's the collection arc for players whose patience runs to the dockside rather than to dungeons or alleys.

This page covers what the catalog is, how regional and time gating works, what Marks of Trust buy at the Old Angler's shop, and how the Riverkeeper title path closes out the system.

What the System Is

Fish Collection is a per-character collection arc with these mechanics (all verified against Scripts/custom/Quests/Collection/FishCollectionSystem.cs):

A catalog of specific named fish spread across UO's regional waters. TotalBaseFish = 60 for base completion plus 7 rares for the full ledger of 67 entries (TotalWithRares = 67).
Each fish has encounter conditions — region (one or more zones), facet (any of multiple), sometimes a time-of-day window.
Catching a catalog fish under the right conditions logs the entry and pays River Marks — the parallel currency. The pickup message reads "You feel {N} River Marks in your pocket."
Silas Rivers, the Old Angler is the curator NPC; the Old Angler Shop opens after 10 base fish caught (VendorUnlockThreshold = 10) and carries themed cosmetics and items.
Completing all 60 base fish unlocks the Riverkeeper title and a public listing on the Riverkeeper Roll, persisted to Saves/Custom/RiverkeeperRoll.txt.
A Water Spirit Follower companion (gated by the HasWaterSpirit account tag) is part of the post-completion content.

The system rewards persistent fishing in specific places at specific times — work that pairs naturally with downtime, conversation, and ambient play.

The Fish Catalog

Each fish in the catalog has:

A name — a specific named fish, not just "a trout."
A regions requirement — one or more named zones where the catch counts.
A facet flags value — any combination of Trammel, Felucca, Ilshenar, Malas, Tokuno where this fish appears.
An optional time window — a min/max hour pair; windows can cross midnight.
A hue — visual identifier when the fish appears in your pack.
A Mark of Trust value — payout in the parallel currency.
Notes describing the fish and its place in the catalog.

The constraints make this a slower-paced collection than the unconstrained ones. A fish that only counts in Vesper's harbor during the morning hours genuinely requires you to be there at that time. You can't shortcut it.

River Marks

Fish Collection's parallel currency is River Marks — a separate currency from the Beast Collection's Marks of Trust. The two systems sound similar but use different account tags and don't share spending power.

Earned by adding fish catalog entries.
Spent only at Silas Rivers (the Old Angler) (Fish curator) — does not work at the Beast Keeper.
Higher-difficulty entries pay more — rare fish in specific time-and-region combinations pay above common entries.
Account-bound — not tradeable.

A player serious about both Beast and Fish catalogs progresses each currency in parallel. The currencies are themed similarly but live in separate wallets.

The Old Angler Shop

The Old Angler Shop carries the fishing-themed item line:

Old Angler's Hat, River Cloak — cosmetic gear.
Riverstone Trinket, Lantern of Still Water — symbolic items.
Blessed Tackle Satchel — fishing-utility item with quest provenance.
Mounted Trophy Fish — wall decoration showing specific catches.
Koi Pond Deed — placeable decoration for housing.
Riverkeeper Title Deed — the title path entry.
Water Spirit Charm and Water Spirit Follower — the post-completion companion path.

The shop opens after meaningful catalog progress; like King Whiskers, Silas Rivers (the Old Angler) isn't open for business to a zero-progress character. Demonstrate engagement and the shop opens.

The Old Angler's Logbook

Silas Rivers (the Old Angler) carries a personal logbook — a quest item that surfaces the system's flavor:

Reads as Silas's own field notes about specific fish.
Provides hints about where rare and difficult-conditioned entries appear.
Refers to the Weathered Signpost — a physical waypoint connected to the questline.
Sets up the Riverkeeper Plaque as the system's hall-of-fame surface.

The logbook is the in-character documentation. The page you're reading now covers the system; the logbook covers Silas's voice.

To check your catalog progress at any time, type [fish or [FishStatus in-game — both are registered as AccessLevel.Player commands.

Riverkeeper Title and Plaque

Completing the full catalog grants:

The Riverkeeper title through the Register of Honors, Collection category.
A public entry on the Riverkeeper Plaque — physical hall-of-fame surface near the Old Angler's hall.
Eligibility for the Water Spirit Follower companion.
A Riverkeeper Roll Gump that lets visitors browse all named Riverkeepers.

The plaque is one of the shard's prestige public-recognition spaces. Like the Hall of Bonded Masters for Beast Collection, the Riverkeeper Plaque is a real place other players can visit and learn who has actually finished the catalog. Walking in and reading the names is part of how new players understand what serious collection completion looks like.

How the Fish Collection Compares

Among the shard's collection arcs:

Frog Collection — 60 frogs, Frog Coins, light pacing.
King Whiskers — 60 cats, bells, royal-flavored.
Beast Collection — region-and-time-gated, separate Marks of Trust currency.
Fish Collection — region-and-time-gated, separate River Marks currency.
Lost Recoveries — treasure-recovery archive.
Living Herbarium — botanical archive.

Fish and Beast are the paired catalogs — similar constraint shapes (region + facet + time window), different worlds (water vs land). They use separate currencies (River Marks vs Marks of Trust) and separate shops, but the design instinct is shared: long-arc collection with real-world-time pacing.

Pace and Total Time

Casually engaged: months of incidental fishing. Fish while you do something else; catalog entries accumulate slowly.

Focused completion: 30-60 hours of active fishing depending on time-window discipline. The time-gated entries spread the work across many real-world sessions; the rare regional entries demand actual travel.

Rare-tier and Riverkeeper-Plaque inclusion: the long tail. The plaque names are earned, not given.

Why the System Exists

The shard's design instinct: fishing should be a real activity, not just a skill grind. Two failure modes Fish Collection is built against:

Fishing as background. Stock UO fishing is a low-engagement skill — you cast, you wait, you sell what you catch. Fish Collection makes fishing intentional: which fish, in which region, during which window.
Catalog completion without recognition. Plenty of MMO collections have completion percentages nobody else sees. The Riverkeeper Plaque is a real public surface; finishing the catalog is visible to other players.

Fishing also pairs with conversation play — it's an activity you can do in the same window as chat, civic scenes, and ambient social time. The system fits the rhythm of a player who wants long-arc accomplishment without dedicated grinding sessions.

How to Engage

If you want to start Fish Collection:

Find Silas Rivers (the Old Angler). He's the curator; the catalog is his to share. Check fishing villages and dockside areas.
Read the constraints. Each entry's region/facet/time matters. Casting in the wrong place at the wrong hour wastes line time.
Plan around time windows. Late-night fish need late-night sessions. Spread the catalog across multiple real-world days rather than trying to clear it in one weekend.
Spend River Marks at the Old Angler only. River Marks (account tag RiverMarks) and Marks of Trust (account tag MarksOfTrust) are separate currencies in separate wallets — River Marks won't spend at Rhoswen's Sanctuary, and Marks of Trust won't spend at the Old Angler. A serious collector progresses both arcs in parallel but spends each currency at its own curator.
Visit the Riverkeeper Plaque. See the Roll. The active Riverkeepers are who you'd be joining.

Where to Read Next

For the paired catalog with the same constraint shape (region + facet + time window) but a separate Marks of Trust currency, Beast Collection.
For other collection arcs with different tones, King Whiskers and Frog Collection.
For the title system that records Riverkeeper status, Register of Honors.
For the broader system map, Immortal Realm Custom Systems.
The download page is the on-ramp when you're ready.