How the heck do fishing abundance zones work?

[rayblon]

So, I've been doing some field experiments with fishing to map out exactly how the fishing abundance depletion happens. What I've figured out:


1. It creates a square or rectangular zone somewhere around 40-50 tiles large in both the N/S and E/W directions.
2. It's generally centered NEAR but not necessarily on the spot you're standing. I can't tell if the tile you choose to fish at or where you're facing matters.

3. when you fish just outside of one of these depletion zones, they overlap, but perhaps not how you'd expect.

 

 

 

It doesn't really matter, but let's say that you started fishing and created the yellow zone, then moved to make the green and red zones after by fishing just outside of the yellow zone on the corners.

Let's say that the yellow zone has 75% fish abundance, green has 40%, and red has 60%.

If you enter any of these zones from an undepleted area, you'll immediately see those numbers depending on the zone you step into. This is the expected outcome obviously.

However, if you start in the red zone and move to where the yellow zone overlaps with it, you still see 60%. Fishing "inside" the yellow zone where they overlap in this way only depletes the red zone. When you enter a zone, it doesn't try reassigning you to another zone until you leave the one you're in, basically.

With this quirk, you can have a shrodinger's cat type situation where there's both numerous and no fish available at the same time, all depending on your angle(or zone) of approach.

#3, I've got a fairly good grasp on and just wanted to share, but I can't seem to figure out how these zones are actually drawn in #1 and #2. I was hoping someone else might know the exact mechanics at play here, because it's actually really interesting seeing how it works.