You will need to be in at least Year 4 to get any of the blessed tools
To get the blessed fishing rod you will need to have purchased the gold fishing rod from Van for 50k, you will need to purchase the copper and silver upgrades before the gold will appear in his shop and have used the fishing rod 500 times. If any of the rods are not showing up in Vans shop, you will need to wait as upgrades are tied to the year you are on from what I noticed and the usage of the tool itself with 500 being the max needed. So just keep fishing away until Vans next visit.
Once you have the golden rod you will need Gary to be at least 95% friendship before his request will pop up on the bullet board, Gary likes any fish but after year 1 he becomes much harder to accept gifts from you so you will have to talk to daily, but he will eventually accept them again, I am not sure when or how, it might be tied to the year or his mini game for cleaning, I was in Year 4 when I tried to gift him again as he was already 90% friendship for me by the end of Year 1.
His request requires you to give him any rare fish such as Ahi, Langouste, Bonytongue, Unagi and King Fish, but any fish with the name "Huge" in it will count as a rare fish thanks to Undead Immortal for confirming that.
Once you have the blessed rod, all you have to do is simply fish once in the ocean to get the message in the bottle, you can also fish again to get the sword here as well and you can find the golden axe at the Goddess Spring by the sprites tree.
Any questions I will try my best to answer or if I have missed anything I'll try to correct.
