I spent months getting Lik and Gugrusaurus, went through the motions to get Ebisu +1 and big money making fish still break the line. Particularly Matsya. They break the line 3/4s of the time and couple that with an insanely low drop rate of Shaper's Shawl makes the effort almost worthless taking far less time and effort to raise a craft through brute force and gil. Considering the required bait is exclusive and hard to come by it is actually a very frustrating endeavor to actually fish these as you only get 1/4 of the hooked Matsya. Most of the bait is lost to Jellyfish or monsters.

I understand the shawl could be a problem with characters making gil from crafting easier or devaluing the fish further but I do have a couple of ideas for fixing this.

1) Edit the Shawl. - Perhaps, make the shawl worth while by adding stats beyond skill ups like HQ success or material loss down, Allow it to be sent POL so you only need 1 per account, or create some restriction to it's use level like requiring a certain rank of fishing or crafting to be equipable or of use.

2) Stop the line breaks. - It's not just Matsya that make Ebisu+1 a small let down. The absolute best rod in the game has line breaks on almost every top tier fish. Ebisu+1 does give you more time but it's just disheartening to lose your previous 3 catches after fighting to bring down the stamina bar and you just end up with... nothing. I appreciate the realism but I play this game to play a game. So, instead of editing this and that and some other thing, why not add an item to the game?

Kachina Gloves +1 : Fishing skill +2, Prevents the line from snapping.
(so maybe a 1 on the skill and makes lines more resistant to snapping? But I had to try. Maybe save the above for the +2 version.)
It could be added to the RoE quests after obtaining an Ebisu+1 and make the players work for them a bit like the original. This change could drastically help with catching all sorts of gil-making fish and reward our hard work.

3)Change the means of acquisition. - Instead of having Zaldon be the gatekeeper of this annoyingly rare item, maybe have him give you a different item. Something all together worth the 3 catches/hr, ex limited bait, 1% drop rate, 110+ fishing, nocturnal, 3/4th line breaking mess that this is. Or just flat out increase the drop rate from Zaldon from that abysmal 1% to something more like 30%. The shawl in its current state is very limited on usefulness.

Lastly, I'd like to say that I personally favor Kachina Gloves +1 to help overall. Lik and Gugrusaurus are also a good way to make a profit from your skill and help players still trying for their Ebisu rods. And in the event that Lord of Ulbuka or any other of the Legendary fish end up with something Zaldon worthy (inside the belly) the gloves could help drastically with fishing them up as well.

Thanks for reading and happy fishing!