I hate Arapaima with a passion and there's 3 maps in FSW I just don't bother with unless weekly online tourny take me there because there all I seem to hook. To me they are a time black hole, you can't herd them, you gotta let them do what they gotta do and they all seem to look for some structure or point to snag behind. It should be a great feat to catch 1 and rare, but to me they are the vermin fish of the game because there are far to many. Or at least give us a hammer or gun to kill them on sight.
I think the Arapaima can be frustrating at times. They were definitely a welcome addition to the game when they were implemented. What I found out is that if you spend enough time to tweak the bait/lure setups & areas fished, it becomes much easier to pinpoint the species you do want to catch. As far as landing these monsters well, I can say timewise it is very realistic. Dovetail made quite a bit of progress & improvement in fine tuning the fish behavior for each species since FSW's release. Don't know if you've ever fought a 100-500 lb fish for real but, unless your cheating using a downrigger or other auto reel system; the amount of time to reel in & level of resistance, fight & behavior of this fish is pretty accurate.
