Right, so as a dude who's been cough not afk fishing cough for the last few weeks, and admittedly slacked off because I hit Legendary, I have a few things I'll like to add my two cents in.
I think this idea is great. If it this was actually implemented, I'd cry tears of blood because I want to experience leveling with these things. This idea has potential to make fishing interesting and addresses the concept of fishing as of its current state as stale and bland. But there's a few illogical things slotted in here that Imma comment on.
Say for the Fly fishing rod, doesn't really make sense on why catching smaller fish is a handicap. If ya cook it it's gonna be the equivalent of a normal fish. And for the sturdier fishing rod and the lure fishing rod, it sounds like enchanters would be useless to fishers already, cutting the ties of a possible social interaction. Also, in real life different methods of fishing and rods catch different fish, yes, but with the simplicity of MC fishing by itself, you might have to conform your ideas to match it to such. Making things more complex than it already is will just make it a hassle, since I see no reason why this should be implemented since it won't bring anything good into RP. Brevity isn't that bad sometimes.
Great idea. I like how you connect the chef profession deeper towards fishing, as well as the new connection of a blacksmith, das gud. More EXP is always welcome as well. I love the idea of fish breaking out of cages, maybe we can have a swarm of silverfish coming out when opened haha. But be a bit more specific on how basic nets are different from the cages, because again, why would we want larger fish when we can have loot. This seems like over complication to me, and it'd just make things a hassle.
Sweet. Only thing though, why breeders? I like how you implement more professions like earlier, but this makes no sense. Breeders breed worms ?!?!??!
Tbh Most fishers want their fish stacked, since the logic of 'hur hur armour can be stacked SO WHY NOT FISHIES DUR DURR' is pretty legitimate, unless the specifications of the fish matter. Which they don't since you can manually stack fish. I know fish have an expiration date that separates them, but seriously, cook a bunch of fish together and it's renewed. It'd be good to suggest why 9 or 18 fish are special enough to be kept in a bag, and rather not stack the fish, which leads me to question the purpose of the big and basic bags in comparison to the stacked bag.
In all, this is a good idea. Spicing up a profession is always good. But most people do fishing for two things; caskets and the grappling ability. Fishers advocate for better casket drop rates along with other professions, and you're making our grappling ability limited, which is eeeeehhhh since I sacrificed RP time to psuedo fly around places. Appeal to the fishers, my friend, because we need a good reason on why over-complicating certain aspects of our profession (which I do understand is to make it more realistic, but Nexus is hated for taking too much of player lives. Making things more realistic = increased complexity, which will only make the grind longer, and like I said earlier, more of a hassle) is equivalent to limiting grappling, which most of us grind for and take so much time out of our RP time.
Edit: I'll sacrifice grappling for better treasure chests. Kudos to Squirt.