Getting Started:
Download and unzip the 1.12.1 compatible version of FishingBuddy (bottom of this post). Among other things, this addon allows you to cast your rod by simply right clicking on any water deep enough to fish in (only when you have a rod equipped obviously), mutes world sound and increases the volume of the ‘splash’ when you have a catch (if toggled in the options), tracks your catches, time spent fishing and a whole host of useful titbits for fishers. I’ve included the addon as an attachment to this guide.
So, fishing is well partnered with cooking, and is one of the better ways of making money. Most people find it boring, and never get it much beyond level ~100 (if they bother with it at all) and you can easily make good gold by farming raid consumables like Sagefish for Sagefish Delight or Deviate Fish for people either gaming the Garr encounter or generally looking for an outfit. Deviates sell slightly better Alliance side than Horde side, simply due to the fact that it’s more of a pain to get to Wailing Caverns for them than it is for Horde. Prices range depending on the server, but you’re looking at 5g Alliance and 3g Horde currently on K2 for a stack of 20.
We’re going to presume the following;
- You’re fishing specifically to level your skills, not just for fun.
- You bought the Fishing Book and Cooking Skill books while leveling.
- You have several stacks of Lures and the +5 (10) fishing pole to get started with.
- You’ve saved your meat from leveling, or already have some points in cooking from leveling.
This guide will tell you the best places to go to get the most ‘bang for your buck’. You can technically get level 300 fishing without leaving the starter zone except for your training, since it levels off how much stuff you catch, not the difficulty of stuff that you catch. It is important that you level cooking in conjunction with leveling, because if you rely just on fishing to level it you will require many, many, many more catches to reach 300 cooking.
It is also important to understand the difference between salt water and fresh water fish. At level 1, you can learn both the Brilliant Smallfish recipe and the Slitherskin Mackerel. Smallfish are freshwater fish, and can only be caught from lakes and river. Mackerel are saltwater fish, and can only be caught from the Sea in areas level 1-10. This guide almost exclusively focuses on Fresh Water fish.
Note: Find Fish and the Weather-Beaten Journal were added in TBC patch 2.3, don’t waste time fishing pools looking for it.
Well worth reading this thread before you start as well, for the discussion on various poles and where to get them.
Step #2: Learn Cooking and Fishing from the apprentice trainers, and head to your first location.
Alliance: 1-75 – Crystal Lake in Elwynn Forest.
Horde: 1-75 – Bloodhoof Village Lake in Mulgore.
You will get roughly 70-75% Brilliant Smallfish, and 25-30% Longjaw Mud Snapper. It should not take more than 75-90 casts to reach level 75, depending on how unlucky you get during the early levels with fish getting away. Cook everything you catch. If we presume each cast takes the full 30 seconds to catch something & loot it, and you have a 100% catch rate, it will take 37 minutes and 30 seconds to complete this stage. You will not need a lure for this stage.
It took me 75 catches to go from 0-75. If we presume each cast takes the full 30 seconds to catch something & loot it, and you have a 100% catch rate, it will take around minutes to go from 0-75. Roughly 1 skill every 1.01 catches.
Cooking Recipes; Brilliant Smallfish (1), Slitherskin Mackerel (1), Longjaw Mud Snapper (50), Rainbow Fin Albacore (50).
Step #3: Learn Journeyman Fishing and Cooking.
Alliance: 75-110 – Loch Modan.
Horde: 75-110 – Orgrimmar Pond.
Once you reach skill 100, it is recommended that you start to use a lure. You will catch roughly 50% Longjaw Mud Snapper in this section.
Most guides advise you to go to Stormwind Canals. However, on some servers (Kronos for example) the canals of SW are not able to be fished at all due to Mangos bugs. The reason you are advised to go to SW is that it has a slightly higher drop rate of Bristle Whisker Catfish, which are mainly used for this stage of cooking. However, if you go to Loch Modan, you can also get the Loch Frenzy Delight recipe. Loch Frenzies are ‘attached’ to other fish when you catch them, netting you 2 fish per cast. If you are lucky and get plenty of Frenzies, this can be the most efficient places in the entire game to level cooking and fishing when compared for time per cast. You can also find Floating Wreckage and Sagefish Schools around the Loch that you cannot find in SW. The Sagefish are particularly useful, especially if you are a mana user and are going to be doing isntances. If you can’t use them yourself, pass them to your healer and make your leveling life that little bit easier.
Between level 75 and level 100 you are no longer guaranteed one skill point per catch, and you will being to creep towards averaging 2 catches per point.
Between level 100 and 175, you are no longer guaranteed skill points at all, and you will begin to see skill points fluctuating between two and five catches. This trend remains the same until level 300, with the average creeping up to around 20 catches per skill as you approach 300.
It took me 56 catches to go from 75 to 110 in Loch Modan, with 16 ‘bonus’ Loch Frenzies. If we presume each cast takes the full 30 seconds to catch something & loot it, and you have a 100% catch rate, it will take around 28 minutes to go from 75-110. Roughly 1 skill point from every 1.6 catches.
Cooking Recipes; Loch Frenzy (50), Smoked Sagefish (80), Bristle Whisker Catfish (100).
Step #4:Learning Expert Fishing & Cooking.
Both Factions: 110-150 – The Tarren Mill/Southshore River.
Use the book “Expert Fishing – The Bass and You” as soon as you are able to (125). This can be bought in Booty Bay (Stranglethorn Vale) from Old Man Heming. Use the book “Expert Cookbook” as soon as you are able to (125). It can be bought from either Shandrina in Ashenvale (Alliance) or from Wulan in Desolcae (Horde).
Here you will be mainly catching Bristle Whisker Catfish (50-60%), as well as getting Sagefish from the schools dotted along the river. It is worth doing Soothing Turtle Bisque at the same time, each faction has its own version of this quest.
It took me 92 catches to go from 110-150. If we presume each cast takes the full 30 seconds to catch something & loot it, and you have a 100% catch rate, it will take around 46 minutes to go from 110-150. Roughly 1 skill every 2.3 catches.
In this step and beyond, you will begin to see world PvP if you are playing on the appropriate server. Be wary, fishing players are a prime target to gank.
Cooking Recipes; You will continue to level up with Bristle Whisker Catfish (100) here. For this part of leveling cooking, you have many more recipes that are for generic meat drops than for fishing.
Step #5: Getting ready for Cooking & Fishing quests.
Alliance: 150-180 – The lakes/moat of Stromguard Keep in Arathi Highlands.
Alliance: 180-225 – Lake Nazferiti in Stranglethorn Vale.
Horde: 150-175 – The pier in Shadowprey Village in Desolace.
Horde: 175-225 – Swamp of Sorrows.
For this part of leveling cooking, you have many more recipes that are for generic meat drops than for fishing. 150-175 on purely Catfish can take a lot of fish. You will be getting Mithril Head Trout between 50-60% of the time.
Cooking Recipes; Sagefish Delight (175), Mithril Head Trout (175), Rockscale Cod (175).
It took me 176 catches to go from 150-180. If we presume each cast takes the full 30 seconds to catch something & loot it, and you have a 100% catch rate, it will take around 88 minutes to go from 150-180. Roughly 1 skill every 5.8 catches. This is the next part of the ‘break point’ with catches explained earlier. While you will occasionally be getting points every 2/3 casts, we are now starting to approach the real true grind. You will have had some skill points between 150-175 reach the 10-15 casts per point stage, 179-180 took me 17 catches. From 175-225, you can expect the average to continue trending upwards.
It took me 358 catches to go from 180-225. If we presume each cast takes the full 30 seconds to catch something & loot it, and you have a 100% catch rate, it will take around 179 minutes (~3 hours) to go from 180-225. Roughly 1 skill every 11.9 catches. As I said in the previous paragraph, you can see how the average catch-skill ratio has continued to increase. If you are Alliance and fishing Lake Nazferiti, make sure to check north and south of the lake for Greater Sagefish schools and Floating Wreckage. The Wreckage in this area tends to drop Iron Bound Trunks, while regularly gives Bolts of Silk and Mageweave cloth.
This part also saw the longest chain of catches between skill ups, with it taking 27 catches to go from 203-204.
As I did all the writing for this guide on Kronos 2, this is where I will stop giving time guidelines. I was playing a level 29 alliance PvP twink, and had no desire to go past 225 on a character I am not playing long term. It took me 757 catches, roughly 378.5 minutes (6.5 hours) to do 1-225, including writing this guide in the background.
Step #6: Cooking and Fishing quests for Artisan level crafting.
Nat Pagel Quest
To learn fishing skill past 225, you need to visit the head man himself, Nat Pagle. He sits on a small island west of Theramore, and gives the quest Nat Pagle, Angler Extreme. This requires you to;
Fish a Ferelas Ahi, caught to the west of Camp Mojache, under the bridge by the Ogres.
Fish Misty Reed Mahi Mahi, from the east coast of the Swamp of Sorrows.
Fish a Sar’theris Striker, from the Sar’theris Strand in Desolace. (Same place Rogues go to level up lockpicking, watch out on a PvP server!)
Fish a Savage Coast Blue Sailfin, from the Savage Coast in north west Stranglethorn Vale.
Return all four fish to Nat to learn Artisan Fishing.
Clamlette Surprise Quest
Clamlette Surprise is a quest given by Dirge Quikcleave, in the Tanaris Inn. It requires you to bring him;
12 Giant Egg’s (dropped by the Roc’s in Tanaris).
10 Zesty Clam Meat (looted from the clams dropped by Turtles, Giants and Crawlers in Tanaris).
20 Alterac Swiss cheese. There is no where to but it nearby, it’s recommended you bring it with you before coming to get the quest, otherwise you have lots of running/flying back to a capital city.
Turning in those three items will teach you Artisan Cooking.
Step #7: The “Grind” strikes back.
Alliance 225-250 – The pier at Steamwheedle Port in Tanaris.
Horde: 225-250 – The Coast around Raventusk Village in the Hinterlands.
Cooking Recipes; Spotted Yellowtail (225), Grilled Squid (240), Hot Smoked Bass (240).
Step #8: Nearly Over!
Both: 250-275 – Bloodvenom Falls in Felwood.
Cooking Recipes; Poached Sunscale Salmon (250), Nightfin Soup (250)
Step #9: Finished.
Both: 275-300 – Azshara, Winterspring, Eastern Plaguelands.
Pick your poison, this is the longest and most grindiest part of skilling up fishing. World PvP is about equal in all zones, so it’s literally just a case of finding somewhere out of the way and sticking to it!
Cooking Recipes; Baked Salmon (275), Lobster Stew (275), Mightfish Steak (275).
Download the Official FishingBuddy from VanillaWowAddons.com here
