Many of the types of fish we need are not just predicated bait type or location, but more importantly time. Fishing for anything that requires a storm or the sun being down is always going to have that ticking clock feeling but it puts a highlight on a huge problem with fishing in general.
It's a time sink. No other way to put it. Right now it officially serves the purpose of wasting time with a tedious grind to level 50. It doesn't need to be as bad as it is though.
There is absolutely no reason why we should be waiting up to 20 seconds for the a fish to appear after we cast. That is way too long. Should be no more than 3-5 seconds if that (while it's realistic they wouldn't show up that quickly in real life - nothing in this game has any semblance of reality, taking 20 seconds for a fish to even appear is a time waster and nothing else.)
Next once that fish does appear we're dealt with another 10 seconds wasted as the fish saunters about potentially jumping out of the water twice to show off how much time it can waste. While you definitely need time to make sure it's not a splash tail, 5 seconds would be plenty of time to make that judgment call.
So already 30 seconds wasted if it's a fish we're trying to catch, that's not including the better part of a minute it's going to take to catch it, longer if it's a trophy fish. Time it takes to catch the damn things could be reduced too but that's another argument.
IIRC the sun is only down for about 7 in game hours, giving 7 minutes to attempt to catch nocturnal fish. I could catch about 4 Seafoam Splashtails during those times. Less for all other nocturnal fish because how often Splashtails show up just to waste time.
Somehow it's feels worse when storm fishing, unless I'm at an island where the storm is going to pass over me entirely, I'm not going to get more than 10 casts in looking for a Shadow Stormfish before the storm passes, and at least 6 of the times you cast will be Splashtails.
There is so much wasted time in fishing and the grind is such a ridiculous one that there's absolutely no reason it should waste that much time with each cast.
There's no reason why Splashtails should show up at a higher than 50% rate when fishing with leeches in a storm. Getting a splash tail while fishing with the right bait in the right location should be an anomaly, not a given, it should keeps us on our toes, not outright prevent us from getting anything done. That wastes time and does nothing else. Why is that a part of this game?
Seriously, Rare, can somebody do something about this? I'm fine with the grind being slow, the prices being mediocre, an reputation gains minimal, what's not fine is the sheer amount of time that could shaved off fishing to make it more enjoyable.
TL;DR:
Fishing has way to much "wasted time" built into it that could easily be reduced to make fishing less of a time sink. Should not be wasting 20 seconds waiting for fish to appear. Splashtails should be reduced when fishing with right bait in correct locations.
