The fishy stick is a phenomenon began when Captain Eldrad joined the Bethesda Forums. "The graphic used is from an advertisment for Captain Morgan's rum, with a fish stick in place of the bottle of rum. In the beginning, fishy sticks were only given to those who truly deserved the honor, by Captain Eldrad himself. Later, his friend Soursha gave them away to new members. Eventually, it became customary to give fishy sticks to the newcomers of the forum. The Bethesda developers were very amused by all of this, and they added tributes to the fishy stick in both Morrowind and Oblivion."

The Bethesda developers added multiple references to the fishy stick in their games, Morrowind and Oblivion. The reference in Oblivion is from M'aiq the liar which is shown in the pictures below and the other, in Morrowind, is a book called "Capn’s Guide to the Fishy Stick” which pages are smeared with fishy stick sauce, making it impossible to actually read the book.