I played for about 7-8 hours I think. At one point in story there is an event where someone steals from the market and I have to compensate the items that was stolen from people. In that quest I have to bring back a total of 6 fishes to the girl that buys fishes from me. I managed to get 4 of them but the last 2 fishes are located in the lake area, and I can not get those fishes unless I had invested xp in my fishing skills. At that point that game becomes a huge grind.
You can upgrade the fishing pole without fishing, and after this you get the "auto-fishing", i personaly just let the thing run wile doing other things on my computer. You just have to go sleep at night because the MC stop fishing when it's too late.
But i'm quite certain that the fishing is totaly optional and you can get candy for the even in other way.
