Fishing RNG... Really!?

[Eye_Gore]

i had about 330 gathering on mine, got the titanic sawfish to appear, and lost it because "gathering skill was too low"

If you are referring to the message that appears something like "you sense a larger catch comes to the surface" or something like that. That was added in 2.4 patch, I don't think that is the saw fish, from the patch notes:

Fish that only appear based on your previous catches have been added.
E.g. Breeds of fish that only appear after five of their natural predator have been caught.

I can't imagine the silver shark or wahoo being a predator of the saw fish, since you need the wahoo to catch the saw fish. I think the only way to know that you hooked the saw fish is to watch the pole and how it bends. I've now been through over 500 lugworms and no saw fish.

I will try and overmeld my gear, to get my gathering up over 300 and see if that helps ( I know people here are saying that if you have enough gathering to fish the hole thats enough, but I am still not convinced that this is true, it seems like people are just speculating this). I did increase my gathering some and I have noticed now when I fish for the boar skin maps I now catch them within 5 casts, before it would be 20 or more. Happy fishing.