Fishing

	Fishing (Profession)
	Equipment Skill required Items Fish Locations Schools Quests Trainers Vendors

Fishing is a secondary profession which allows players to fish various objects, primarily fish, from surfaces of water (or lava). Most raw fish are edible directly or can be fed to Hunter Pets. Many can be cooked to improve their properties. (Raising Fishing and Cooking skills together is a good synergy.) Fish have value and can be vended (for a pittance, at low levels, but look at [Goldenscale Vendorfish]) or sold in the Auction House. Deviate fish caught both within and just outside the Wailing Caverns can fetch a good price, for example. A few fish are used as reagents for Alchemy, these will have a steady demand. Occasionally, fishing may also yield lower-level equipment, fish-related offhand items, locked chests, gems and herbs. Rogues can train up Lockpicking with locked containers they or others have fished. However, the Fishing profession is often neglected, as it provides little opportunity to improve a character's stats.

Occasionally, you might run into fishing that does not use the Fishing profession. For instance, the quest [6] Red Snapper - Very Tasty! has you fish with a net. These exceptions will be limited in scope; that net only catches quest fish and only from those quest pools.

How to fish

FishingLine — Wait patiently for up to 22 seconds before clicking the bobber to find out whether the fish got away.

Fishing requires the Fishing skill, taught by fishing trainers, and a fishing pole, sold by a general trade goods or fishing supplies vendors. Fishing trainers and fishing supply vendors are often in the vicinity of fishable waters. Consider using a fishing lure, available from the same vendor that sold you the pole.

After procuring both the fishing skill and a fishing pole, find a body of water; a pond, a lake, a river, a section of coast, a dock or pier, a moat, or something similar. To be fishable, a body of water has to be sufficiently deep - if it is not, you will get a warning that the water is not sufficiently deep and will be unable to fish at that location. Most bodies of water in Azeroth are deep enough, but some minor pools are not. The small ponds in the Valley of Trials in Durotar do not support fishing, for example. If a fishing trainer is standing nearby, you can be sure the water is deep enough. If you are in a river and get the message, try moving up or down stream. If in a lake, try moving a bit into the lake.

Also, you can now stand, sit, or even lie down while fishing. The [Fishing Chair] is unnecessary, but a nice touch. You can be on land or in the water and fish, but you can not be swimming.

Equip the fishing pole, and, while facing the water, use Fishing skill (found in the general tab of your spellbook) to cast the fishing line. Your character will cast the fishing line in the direction he is facing, with minor random deviations in length and angle of the cast. If you miss the body of water ("Your cast did not land in fishable water"), you may wish to adjust the direction your character is facing and/or simply cast Fishing again.

FishingSplash — The bobber splash effect consists of a few unfocused white particles shuffling around the bobber for about a second.

A fishing bobber will appear somewhere in the water in front of you, and you'll notice that your character will start channeling the Fishing spell. Move your cursor over the bobber and it will turn into the standard interaction cursor. Wait for the bobber to splash, then click it (within 3-4 seconds) to draw the fishing line in. Depending on the area you're fishing and your fishing skill, you may either catch something, or the fish will get away. You can then repeat the whole process by using the Fishing skill again.

The items you can fish up depend on the region you are in; the different sub-zones within any given region will usually yield the same fish. There are a few exception to this: for example bodies of fresh water (lakes or streams) will yield different fish from sea water. Schools of fish also have their own distinct contents.

Technical Information

It helps to have a bar add-on that has a casting bar that shows the actual seconds as a number, such as Bongos2. It also helps to move the casting bar to the center of the screen right above the water line so it is easy to see with the bobber. You should move your character so that they are mostly submerged in the water (but not swimming) and angled so that no casts will go onto land or shallow water. If you are having trouble seeing the bobber bob when a fish is on your line, you may want to zoom in so you are looking 1st person.

Fishing is like channeling a spell, counting down from 22 seconds to 0 seconds.

There are 3 opportunities during that 22 seconds that the bobber will bounce and you can catch a fish.

Counting down from 22 seconds:

1) At 11.0 – 10.0 seconds remaining. 2) At 6.0 – 5.0 seconds remaining. 3) At 1.1 seconds remaining.

My guess on these is that: 30% of the casts it will be at 11.0 – 10.0 seconds. 30% of the casts it will be at 6.0 – 5.0 seconds. 40% of the casts it will be at 1.1 seconds.

This makes it slightly easier on the wrist and eyes while fishing. There is sufficient time to start by clicking your line and placing the cursor on the bobber and then let go of the mouse and stretch your arm for a few seconds before the first opportunity that the bobber will move.

If it does not move by 10 seconds you can relax for a few seconds again (keep your hand on the mouse this time) and wait for 6.0 seconds.

If the bobber does not move by 5.0 seconds remaining then you can stop looking at the bobber and instead concentrate on the casting bar. As soon as it hits 1.1 seconds remaining click and you should catch the fish.

Fishing pools

Fishing pools are a location objects found in bodies of water in WoW. A higher portion of more desirable items can be fished within a fishing pool. Fishing pool is a general term; a School of Fish is a fishing pool that contains (primarily) fish, floating debris contains primarily chests and container objects, and so on. Fishing pools can be found in both Azeroth and Outland, so presumably will also be found in new areas in future releases.

Fishing pools appear at set locations along coastlines and rivers. Similar to the schools of fish particular to the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza, characters can catch specific fish and valuable items when their cast lands in the pool. Pools despawn after several item are caught, only to spawn again over time, much like mineral nodes.

[Weather-Beaten Journal] is a book that can be found in crates that are fished from fishing pools. It teaches [Find Fish], which shows fishing pool locations on the mini-map (all types, not just schools of fish). Though BoP, the book can be sold while still in the crate. If you open such a crate with less than 100 fishing skill or after having learned fish finding already, you won't see the book, but the crate won't destroy itself - you can store it for later, or mail it to someone else.

Time of day / seasons

Some fish may only be caught during specific times of day or season. Nocturnal fish can be caught from 6 PM to 12 AM, diurnal fish from 6 AM to 12 PM.

Nocturnal (Night)	Diurnal (Day)
[Raw Nightfin Snapper]	[Raw Sunscale Salmon]

Other fish such as [Stonescale Eel], [Plated Armorfish] have been rumoured to only appear during certain times of the day - however all of these can be caught 24 hours a day.

It is known that Winter Squid and Summer Bass appear during their respective seasons. During Autumn and Spring, they can both apparently be caught, although the frequency of each might scale throughout the season.

Edit: Time of day / seasons}
Given examples ( Nightfin vs. Sunscale) can be caught as follows: }
12.00 till 18.00 99,x% Sunscale
18.00 till 24.00 50% both (*1
24.00 till 06.00 99,x% Nightfin
06.00 till 12.00 50% both (*2
(*1 in earlier hours this will lean more toward Sunschale and later hours more toward Nightfin)
(*2 the opposite of (*1 of course
(My apologies for messing up a nice make-up on this page)

Fishing level requirements

All locations that can be fished have a fishing skill requirement to fish there at a base 5% success rate, and an incremental 95 skill point increasing success rate span to 100% success, no fish get away. (You can still fail to get a bite.) You are disabled from fishing in any location where you don't meet the minimum fishing skill requirements.

The easiest areas (any designed for characters level 20 and below) appear to have an negative fishing skill requirement, allowing you higher success initially. You will need to have one point of fishing skill (apprentice level fishing training) to fish these.

For information on fishing locations and fishing skill requirements, see Fishing skill requirements by zone.

Training

Fishing training follows the gathering profession training model. There are no individual skills to learn, only the proficiency levels.

Apprentice and Journeyman level fishing are both taught by fishing trainers around the world.
Expert level fishing proficiency is learned from a book ([Expert Fishing - The Bass and You] sold by Old Man Heming in Booty Bay).
Artisan level fishing proficiency is a quest reward (see [45] Nat Pagle, Angler Extreme at 225 Fishing skill and level 35).
Master level fishing proficiency is taught by another book ([Master Fishing - The Art of Angling] sold by Juno Dufrain in Cenarion Refuge). Alternatively, it may be learned from fishing trainers in Northrend.
Grand Master level fishing is taught by fishing trainers in Northrend.

The Nat Pagle Artisan Fishing quest takes approximately 1½ to 2 hours if you focus on completing it. Most of the time is spent running to the locations to collect the 4 fish. Once there, it takes about 20-30 casts each to catch the special fish (another estimate is about 1-10 casts, 5 casts on average, based on a handfull of alts who leveled fishing). Fishing in the Swamp of Sorrows for the quest is good for fishing up sturdy locked chests, too. You can get the coordinates for each fish from the [45] Nat Pagle, Angler Extreme quest page.

Increasing fishing skill

Bobber — You will loathe staring at this eventually.

Unlike most professions, increasing your fishing skill is completely unrelated to the difficulty of the task. Every time you catch a fish you gain fishing experience towards your next skill level. It works similarly to xp and leveling. The first 75 or so fish caught will be enough fishing experience to gain a skill up every time. The next 75 or so fish caught will give enough fishing experience to gain half of a skill point etc etc. It's very standard and you can count the fish between skill ups with extreme accuracy. Knowing this can help alleviate some of the grind. A partial exception is that at some levels you will need a fraction of a fish to level, you might gain the skill point on the 11th fish and on the 10th the next (in reality you needed about 10.5 caught fish to increase). It appears that there might be a random factor of whether a particular fish increments the skill counter, leading to slightly different numbers of fish required from character to character (see El's mentioned in next paragraph).

The best resource outside of Blizzard for detailed information on how this works is El's Extreme Anglin'. El's has results of empirical trials by an active community of experienced WoW fishermen and women, and is updated expediently as new patches change the fishing environment.

Skill ups are based on number of fish caught and nothing else! Because of this it is in your best interest to grind in the easiest fishing spot possible, or alternatively wherever you can guarantee not to miss a fish, since any fish that "gets away!" will never count towards your next skill up. You can easily grind every fishing skill point without ever leaving the village level fishing pond or coastal waters or a racial city such as Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, Ironforge, or Stormwind. However, many people level fishing in more difficult areas, as this allows them to catch better fish to level Cooking with or to sell for higher amounts.

Level	Skill Point Span	Fish Needed Per Skill Point	Total Fish to skill up	Approx. Time Needed (assuming 3 fish per minute)
1-75:	74	1	74	25 minutes
76-145:	70	2	140	47 minutes
146-190:	45	3	135	45 minutes
191-225:	35	4	140	47 minutes
226-265:	40	5	200	67 minutes
266-300:	35	6	210	70 minutes
301-340:	40	10.5	420	140 minutes
341-375:	35	11.5	402.5	134 minutes
Totals:	374		1721.5	574 minutes

Items that increase fishing skill

Some items that increase fishing skill are:

Fishing poles

Fishing poles replace the basic [Fishing Pole] and provide a fishing skill bonus when wielded.

[Blump Family Fishing Pole] +3
[Strong Fishing Pole] +5
[Darkwood Fishing Pole] +15
[Big Iron Fishing Pole] +20
[Seth's Graphite Fishing Pole] +20
[Nat Pagle's Extreme Angler FC-5000] +25 (Horde Only)
[Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole] +30
[Arcanite Fishing Pole] +35

File:Nat's Lucky Fishing Pole.jpg

Fishing line

Fishing lines are a consumable that create a permanent enchantment on a fishing pole. These can only be applied to a fishing pole in your own inventory. You can not put a line on someone else's soulbound fishing pole.

Fishing lures

Fishing lures are a consumables that create a temporary (10 minute) enchantment on a fishing pole.

Fishing apparel

Fishing apparel items provide a fishing skill bonus when worn.

Enchantments for apparel items

Enchantments for apparel items create a permanent fishing skill bonus on an item, which is then worn to apply the fishing skill bonus.

[Formula: Enchant Gloves - Fishing] +2

Consumables

Consumable items provide a temporary fishing skill bonus when consumed by the character.

[Captain Rumsey's Lager] +10 for 3 minutes (no cooldown)

Adding up to a maximum fishing skill of 612.

Items you can fish up

File:Lurker Killed.jpg

If you appear to have caught this fish, run for your life.

The following general classes of items can be obtained through Fishing:

Raw fish - typically, different versions of fish are available from salt water and fresh water fishing areas of the same skill level.
Bloated fish - These fish have mistaken a gem for a tasty meal. That they still bit the bobber is proof that fish have a 2 minute memory. Can be "opened" to retrieve the gem.
Trophy fish - offhand items with no stats, such as [47 Pound Grouper].
Alchemy reagents - [Oily Blackmouth], [Deviate Fish], [Firefin Snapper] and [Stonescale Eel] can be used in various pre-Burning Crusade Alchemy recipes.
Containers - ranging from Venture Company crates (a frequent source of engineering supplies), Trunks (similar to generic low-level world chests), and Locked Chests.
[Essence of Water] in Azshara or [Mote of Water] in Nagrand, providing an alternative to farming those items off water elementals, which are frequently in high demand.
Raid Bosses - The Lurker Below, as well as [Zulian Mudskunk] required to summon Gahz'ranka.
[Rockhide Strongfish], [Steelscale Crushfish], [The 1 Ring], [Mr. Pinchy] and much, much more...

Quests

[6] Red Snapper - Very Tasty! rewards [Fishing Pole] and [Shiny Bauble]
[12] Electropellers rewards [Aquadynamic Fish Lens]
[12] Gaffer Jacks rewards 2 50
[14] The Family and the Fishing Pole rewards [Blump Family Fishing Pole]
[16] Selling Fish rewards [Murloc Fin Soup] Cooking recipe
To raise fishing skill level above 225 (artisan fishing proficiency) you need to complete the quest [45] Nat Pagle, Angler Extreme. Four widespread locations must be fished to complete this quest.
[50] Snapjaws, Mon! rewards [Nat Pagle's Extreme Angler FC-5000]
[55] Strange Engine Part rewards 2 20
[60] Craftsman's Writ - Plated Armorfish (30 required) rewards [Insignia of the Dawn] or [Insignia of the Crusade]
[60] Craftsman's Writ - Lightning Eel (30 required) rewards [Insignia of the Dawn] or [Insignia of the Crusade]
[60] Craftsman's Writ - Stonescale Eel (40 required) rewards [Insignia of the Dawn] or [Insignia of the Crusade]
[64] Rather Be Fishin' rewards [Seth's Graphite Fishing Pole]
Serious fishing enthusiasts will want to participate in the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza to obtain the associated fishing equipment.

Daily fishing quests

At level 70, you can obtain daily fishing quests. Those quests do not have any explicit fishing skill requirement, but the areas which must be fished for the quests do. In practice most of them require a high fishing skill (approx 250 minimum, 300+ recommended) and additional fishing skill buffs from fishing equipment, especially fishing lures. These quests often reward the character with fishing equipment, most often (approx. 75% chance) with a small stack (4 to 6) of [Sharpened Fish Hook]s, a +100 fishing skill fishing lure, so the fishing skill buffs become somewhat self sustaining. The recipe for [Captain Rumsey's Lager], a consumable which provides a +10 fishing skill buff, has a just under 10% chance to be awarded. These buffs will help you level your fishing, but become vital when you want to fish the most difficult areas.
One daily fishing quest, [70] Crocolisks in the City requires only fishing skill 1 (but the cities are tier 2 fishing zones so a [Shiny Bauble] fishing lure will be helpful if you are just starting out fishing).
Fishing quests can not be completed while in a raid group. Instead you will receive 'empty' loot (you can still gain fishing skill points though).
The quest fish is believed never to drop in a pool of fish. As a result, you must fish outside a pool of fish (anywhere in the water, just not in a pool) in order to complete the quest. This does not encourage good fishing practices.
Although not numerically verified, it appears a higher fishing skill will result in a (much) better catch rate. Basically, in Outland you will always want to use a fishing lure; the only place this isn't necessary would be in Stormwind or Orgrimmar because your fishing skill will probably already be capped.

Tips

As of patch 2.2, each cast of fishing will result in a bobber splash; the splash can occur when there are approximately 17, 13, 7, or 3 seconds left of the Fishing channeled spell.
Turn up the sound — if you are in a quiet area, it is often easier to listen for the fishing bobber effect than to stare at it as you wait for it to splash.
You can right click the fishing bobber to auto-loot anything caught. Turning on auto-loot will allow you to not have to worry about pressing Shift on each right click.
If you have auto-loot turned on and your inventory is full when you click, the loot window will stay open, allowing you to make room and manually click.
Fish caught by fishing can be used as a source of cheap hunter pet food even after cooking it to improve the character's cooking skill. Cooking certain fish also results in unique food buffs.
Having a macro to equip your weapons can be handy if you get attacked while fishing.
Fishing-related addons, such as "Fishing Buddy" and "Autobar", can be of help.
Zooming all the way to first person perspective keeps the bobber from ever leaving your field of view, giving you some control over where a cast will go.
When aggrod by a mob, it is possible to finish your current fishing cast. Damage taken and even stun effects won't break the cast. Most mobs will hit you as little damage that you can easily get another fish first.
Good food buffs sell well on the auction hall. Don't be scared to ask a fair price(1-3g) for them and put them in convenient (5/10/20) stacks. Raiders(without time to grind) will love you for the trouble. Requires cooking.

Best class for fishing

As this is a bit redundant subject, since any class any level can go successfully fishing, there may be some minor differences. There are 3(2) factors in consideration, whatever weight they have is pretty personal and/or dependant on location: 1. Ease to reach fishing spots, avoiding mobs. 2. What-if you encounter a mob (or the mob encounters you). 3. What-if you encounter an enemy player.

Especially #3 deserves attention, as you will not have your weapon(s) or shield equipped while fishing, since you need both hands to hold a fishing rod. This issue impacts melee based classes most, but casters are affected as well as they miss important stats (spelldamage etc) or protection (shield). While a simple macro or having your weapon/fishing rod placed in action bar fixes this, it is still an extra action to do, and impossible to do while cc'd (sheeped, stunned etc).

Probably no-one will choose their class based on fishing capabilities, still, here we go.

Shamans: Advantages: Water walking makes it easy to reach fishing spots circumventing mobs, and walking from one spot to another, as well as mounting up on flying mount from within the water. Ghost wolf for fast traversing short distances. Disadvantages: relative large penalty for not having weapon/shield equipped.
Hunters: Advantages: Have pet to aggro nearby mobs. Can track humanoids (although that competes with tracking fishing spots). Do not rely on melee weapon for their dps or (most) cc, just lack some stats. Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack allows fast moving from spot to spot.
Druids: Feral Druids do not rely on weapon ability as much as other melee classes, similar to casters, they just need the stats (this affects level 70 Druids rather negatively, as a large amount of attack power comes from your weapon). Also Druids have a high amount of mobility (Feral Swiftness talent, Travel Form, Aquatic Form (Glyph of Aquatic Form allows a total of 135% speed) make it easy for moving from fishing spot to spot. Can also stealth when a player comes near, or can cast Nature's Grasp, rooting any attackers in place and allowing for a quick get away.
Mages / other caster (specs): do not primary rely on weapon when aggroed, just miss some stats.
Priests: Can hover above ('walk on') water.

External links

For leveling guides please visit Tradeskill leveling guides

World of Warcraft Community Site

Wowhead

El's Extreme Anglin'

Voodex Gold-Making with Fishing

Wowpedia