agree... the fishing mechanic needs a bit of work imho..
1: having a Harpoon that cant catch fish :-(
2: trying to build waterline fish traps with earth or wood so fish get trapped in storms :-(
3: no burley or fish attractant
4: Harpooning a leviathan should give us a free underwater journey (to somewhere??) secret destination? or run us out of air if low swimming stamina...
5: if underwater,releasing catch from harpoon should surface us relatively quickly.. and with good swim skill experience.. we should be able to have stamina left for a short ish swim ...or improve stamina in water whilst near a boat ??

It is very disappointing. Having to buy fishing equipment as the only reliable way of actually fishing seems ill-fitting. Yes, I know you can technically pick them up, but aside from lucky finds that washed ashore it's annoying to do, and success just further highlights how ridiculous it is that you can grab them by hand but not spear them. Nets might be interesting too.

I was taming a particularly stubborn and aggressive 2 star boar once, and I could not figure out why it kept swimming out into the sea. When I got close to it I noticed that it was attacking something. It was actually attacking the fish in the water swimming below it. I have never seen this behaviour repeated ...

i pretend deer are fish and haul them in. big sad.