How can I improve as a fisherman?

There is only one tier of Fishing Rod, and I can only use Frenzy and Elemental Hit with it. I've been doing my best, and I've reeled in countless thousands of monsters. But I am in Merciless now, and it is getting harder and harder to stay afloat.

To gain more health is to sacrifice much needed damage. To gain more damage is to forsake my defenses and risk a turbulent life ending in a swift death. And if I put down my Rod, I may as well put down my quest, for it is the only way to reel in the answers I need.

What must I do to get a better Fishing Rod? Or get a Fishing Rod based skill gem? Do I need a full stack of Albino Rhoa feathers, because I only have eight. Do I need a Song of the Sirens? Perhaps my Fairgraves' Tricorn just needs to have perfect stats?

What must I do? Who must I turn to? Perhaps Krillson can guide me further along the pier of life. Or must I turn to Merveil; turn to the corruption? Does Fairgraves know the answers, and if so did he find them in life or beyond it? The only sea Cadiro knows is one of gold, and the same goes for Prospero. If the Rhoas know the truth I seek, they do not speak it. Not a word, not a whisper.

Who can I trust to show me the path? The Karui have been too decimated in this land. The inhabitants on the shore have too much to worry about. The docks are polluted, the shores corrupted. The lakes stagnate, or dried up; wasted away by man to flush away their filth. What deity holds sway over the lives of fish and men? Are they still with us? Were they ever with us, or have they forsaken this land, this sea of life we all swim through? Perhaps those of Winding Pier Fame know, but if they do they do not tell us.

I have searched long and hard for the answers, but the only clue I have found is another fishing rod. Pried it from Merveils clutches as she lay dying. Is this a sign that I must destroy her kind of corruption; flush it from the world that I may find more? Or is it a sign that her way is just, and I must follow it to truly advance?

If the answer is written on a map, I do not know if I shall ever find it. For if that is the case, I need the strength to move on, and I need to move on to find the strength. Life is too short to fish the same fish for years. How can you find the answers if you look only in this pond or that, and never move on to see if there are other ponds that have what you seek, or rivers, or seas.

And yet that is what I fear I must do. Fish along the coasts and the islands. Fish along the ledges and high places. Fish in the caverns and the wetlands and on and on, only advancing when I have learned far more than I need learn. Only at the end of that path shall I be strong enough to search through the maps for the land I must find... if there is such a land.

It is not that I doubt the answers provided by men and gods. It is just that I do not know how to find them, or who to ask, or who to destroy.

But I can ask you. Your class, your station in life, your wealth: they do not matter. Take up your Rods and follow me. Or if you can not, provide me aid. Your lures, your Rods, your secrets. Help me find the answers that I seek. For in the end, all else is for naught.

Yours sincerely, Gilly Polebaiter.

I have needed help from no deities, and am at the end of Act 3. Clearly I am a master fisher.