Fishing is a secondary skill, which means any character can pick it up alongside their main professions. The whole loop takes about a minute to set up: find a trainer, pay a few copper, equip a pole, and start casting. The fish you pull out feed hunter pets, restore health, sell on the Auction House, and level Cooking almost by themselves.
Quick answer: Learn Fishing from a trainer tagged
What you need before your first cast
Everything on the shopping list comes from the same NPC, and the total cost is under 40 copper. The pole is a two-handed weapon, so it takes over your weapon slots while you fish.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Fishing training | 20 copper, starts you at skill 1/75 |
| Fishing Pole | 19 copper, two-hand, must be equipped |
| Pole bonus | Fishing skill increased by 5 |
| Pole durability | 30 / 30 |
| Fishing ability | 1.5 sec cast, requires a Fishing Pole |
Because the pole occupies your weapon slots, pick a quiet stretch of water. Hotkeying both your pole and your normal weapons makes it quick to swap back if something wanders over and attacks you.
Learn Fishing and buy a pole
Cast the line and hook the catch
K to open the Professions menu. Fishing now appears there with its skill bar and the Fishing ability icon. Drag that icon onto your action bar so you are not reopening the menu between every cast.
The splash animation is easy to miss on a busy screen. The sound cue is more reliable, so turn up effects volume and listen for it rather than staring at the water.
How to tell it worked
A successful catch produces two things in your chat log. You get a loot line naming the item, such as Raw Brilliant Smallfish, and directly under it a skill message reading “Your skill in Fishing increased to 2.” The counter in the Professions window ticks up to match.
If instead you see “Your fish got away!”, nothing enters your bags and you get no skill point for that cast. That is not a mistake on your part, it simply means your Fishing skill is low for the area you are standing in. Casting again is free, so the cost is only time.
Lures cut down on escaped fish
Bait is optional, but at skill 1 it is worth the copper. Applying a Shiny Bauble to your equipped pole temporarily raises your Fishing skill, which directly reduces how often a fish slips the hook. Since skill points only come from catches you actually land, fewer escapes means faster progress.
Lures wear off after a set time, so reapply between casts rather than waiting for a long dry spell. Later on, Bright Baubles serve the same purpose in higher-level zones where your skill is trailing behind the water you are fishing in.
Where to fish while your skill is low
Location changes what you pull up and whether you catch anything at all. Water in zones far above your skill level either refuses your cast outright or hands you a long run of escapes and junk items like driftwood. Starting zones are the safe place to grind out the first 75 points.
- Inland ponds, lakes and rivers in starting areas mainly yield Raw Brilliant Smallfish.
- Coastal water in the same zones yields Raw Slitherskin Mackerel.
- Capital cities are a good next stop, with no wandering enemies to interrupt you.
- Tirisfal Glades is the one early zone worth skipping, since it produces Sickly Looking Fish that you can neither cook nor sell.
Once you are comfortable with the rhythm, the easiest way to keep Fishing useful is to level it alongside your character rather than in one long session. Fish as you pass through each new zone, keep a lure on the pole, and the skill will stay high enough that the water in front of you always gives something back.
