Am I missing something? I have fully upgraded gear, yet my gathering is nowhere close to being high enough for at least one of the fish (need about 750 gathering and I'm at 712 I believe). Even with the best food in the game currently, it's still not enough.

Are they seriously forcing you to ignore some of the accessories and buy random ones that have materia slots so you can pump your gathering up? Or am I missing something completely?

Edit: You can downvote this. Posts asking for help are always, without fail, downvoted on this sub. Thanks for the replies. Didn't realize Ironworks was the better choice. It takes a little bit of work (and especially time) to max out gear with red scrips. It'd be nice if they were at least comparable to Ironworks (or at least meldable). Ah well.