Originally posted by Mharr:

This is Ultima Online fishing spots all over again. (Players theorycrafted huge dissertations on how and where to get the best drop rates. The game was flipping a coin and giving you a fish on heads.)

Certain shards actually had "zones" of increased drop chance for certain fish types, including most cities to be "♥♥♥♥-tier only".
Wasn't ever been playing the official one, tho.

Originally posted by WhamyKaBlamy:

I've not say down and really grabbed any numbers in Valheim, but the wind does change an awful lot. I don't mind using tacking (or beating into the wind, for those that are going to be pedantic about the use of the word tacking) but it would be nice to have a headwind that stays in the same direction for more than a minute.

I think, the world is split into "weather zones". Each "weather zone" has its own wind direction, so it is completely random. If I understand it correctly, if you're getting no wind - you should move sideways, into another "weather zone" and hope its wind direction is what you need.