Quote Originally Posted by Joven View Post
There isn't a message. When you get a bite your pole bends and there's a creaking sound. You have to respond by hitting the 'hook' button. Some bites are more subtle than others so you have to watch and listen.
This. This is also why you have that otherwise useless ability to activate a light on the tip of your rod. If audio alerts don't work for you, whether it be because you have sound off or are unable to hear light tugs over the music and ambience, then the light will help you identify tugs. You can see the rod bending when you hook a fish, and the bigger the fish the more obvious it is, but the light just makes it all the more noticeable.

If you stick with fishing it'll be good to learn the differences between heavy and light tugs, whether you use sound or visual alerts, or both. Eventually you get an ability that makes getting higher quality fish easier but makes it much less likely to actually catch them, unless you use the correct hooking ability, based on the size of the hooked fish, which negates the catch penalty completely. Sounds more complicated than it is, but just saying, pay attention to the different tug alerts