Best location for quest scrolls?

You should try the homestead again. Your original scroll % has a mistake and should be much higher. 14/26 is over 50%.

Oops. Yes; definitely something dodgy there. Unfortunately I didn't keep the paper copy so I can't trace the problem, but I would have noticed a success rate over 50% if it were true. I suspect I accidentally switched the "Fish" and "Quest scroll" numbers for the Physis Homestead when typing them in here. 4/26 gives the 15%.

On the castle lake front, I've put another bait tin through each of the more favourable locations. So for 900 attempts at each I've got:

Dugald Aisle Castle Lake: Got 519:176:205. So 19.6% scrolls.

Sen Mag Castle Lake: Got 494:196:210. So 21.8% scrolls.

The character I've been doing these experiments is about to hit the maximum required for fish, making working out an exact count problematic, so I won't be extending any of these counts further in the near future. I might extend them further when another character gets to level 1 fishing.

And finally, almost a year later, here's more data. Ignore all my previous comments about fishing at Reus River and Physis homestead. I was operating on the assumption they were identical, and it seems they are not.

Here's the data from running 5 bait tins through Reus River ice fishing.

Fish: 468. Scrolls: 755. Items: 277. So 50.3% scrolls.

Given the tendency to choose round numbers for parameters like this, a plausible guess is that the true underlying probability of scrolls is 50%.

Now here's a surprising bit. I ran 2 bait tins through a Physis Homestead.

Fish: 332. Scrolls: 110. Items: 158. Only 18.3% scrolls.

So, it has been alleged elsewhere that Reus River fishing and Physis homestead fishing are identical. They may be using the same lists of fish, scrolls and items, but they are definitely not using the same probabilities for those 3 things.

So, an efficient way to train level 1 fishing is:

1. Fish at Reus River, which has the highest quest scroll rate, until quest scrolls are complete. (Do NOT use Physis Homestead.)
2. Then, fish at Port Cobh, which has no quest scrolls, until fish are complete.
3. Finally, fish at Avon, which has only items, until items are complete.