((Advertisement))

User Interface Modifications

You do not need any "addons" to fish, however there are some popular add-ons that you may find particularly useful:

There are many other fishing addons, some with special features, such as displaying helpful information. Browse at: Curse, WoW Interface or WowAce.

Installing Addons

To install add-ons:

  1. Close World of Warcraft.
  2. Download the addon, and open the file (normally a .zip file).
  3. Extract the contents of the file to the World of Warcraft/Interface/AddOns directory.
  4. Start World of Warcraft. At the character selection screen, click "AddOns", and tick the new addon to enable it.

Sound

To change the sound of the bobber splashing, follow these steps:

  1. Convert the sound file you want into .wav format. If you need software to do that, try Audacity.
  2. Create directories within the WoW directory: World of Warcraft/Data/Sound/Spells/ .
  3. Copy the .wav file into the new Spells directory 3 times, and rename to: FishingBobber_ver2_1.wav, FishingBobber_ver2_2.wav, and FishingBobber_ver2_3.wav .

You can also use FishPing or SilentFish.

User interface modifications are not the only tools available.

Learn More

Comments about Addons and Utilities

Below are readers' comments about "Addons and Utilities":

Looking for feedback on an addon I wrote

  1. Age, April 2008:

    Hi, a while back (way back when fishing buddy's ability to recast when catching was removed in fact) I wrote an addon to help streamline my fishing experience.

    I was poking about with it yesterday fixing a few things and I decided I might as well release it into the wild and see if anyone else finds it useful.

    It adds a button to the minimap which toggles "fishing mode" - when active, buttons are shown for creating a campfire, cooking, attaching a lure (automatically selects your best lure) and casting your line (though this is rebound to middle mouse while the menu is open).

    Also, activating fishing mode sets your tracking mode to fish (if available) and equips your best rod, fishing hat and boots (if available) - when leaving fishing mode your original gear and tracking options are restored (and if you get attacked while fishing, it'll automatically re-equip your weapons).

    You can get it from http://www.curse.com/downloads/details/12079/ and if anyone could test it with the fishing boots and the new hat (neither of which i have) I'd really appreciate it.

    Thanks for reading =]

  2. Longhunter, April 2008:

    you know i saw this Last night while up dating my addons and i was thinking it was nice. But i did not want to mess up fishing buddy. I do like the idea about the cooking and fire making it would save a few secs. Do you have to have it open to get the icons.

    does it work with the new fishing hooks to? and does it would like fishing buddy and drop all your aromr you want and equipt. your fishing gear? like my blue overalls and fingerless gloves?

    one other suggestion, i would rename it. sometime fishing net or tackle box exp. Give a bit more info, i was unsure what it did. Or i would have picked it up.

  3. Longhunter, April 2008:

    ok i went and Down loaded the file but it is not in the normal file type so i dont know where to go with this now so.............

  1. Age, April 2008:

    Thanks for the feedback =]

    At present, yes, you do have to have the fishing mode open to get the cooking icons, but I'm changing that cause it bugs me too.

    It does work with the new fishing hooks (and it should choose the new hat's on use ability if you have no +100 lures on you) but no, it doesn't change you into a fishing outfit - it only changes hat and boots (if you've got a fishing hat or nat pagle's boots). I do like the full fishing costume feature in fishing buddy but I opted for a more "combat ready" approach, as befits some of the fishing I do in outland =]

    I'm not sure what you mean about the file type, it should just be a folder you extract to your interface\addons folder like usual.

    Oh and as for the name: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abt6wGtWVX8

  2. el, April 2008:

    I think Longhunter is referring to the RAR format, which probably means he doesn't have any software that can open it (Try WinRAR, IZArc, or 7-Zip).

    I'd suggest, Age, you stick with zip. It's the only thing you can be reasonably sure everyone can open. And efficiency of compression is irrelevant on a 10KB of data.

    (And, um, yes - I need to write a proper tutorial on the addons page.)

    I've only had a brief look, but my first reaction was "what do the buttons do?" Ergo, it needs tooltips.

  3. Age, April 2008:

    Ahh, my apologies - I tend to do everything in rar cause that's what winrar defaults to when I create an archive, I'll switch to .zip for future versions.

    And yes, tooltips - can't believe I forgot those.

    Thanks again for the feedback =]

  4. Longhunter, April 2008:

    OH i get it Now! Sry, i did not know what that ment but know i do. now if you said Bill Dance.....

    thanks, Sounds good. could you make it so you could do a quick change button on the titin panel or make an option so you can do i full change?

    Sounds sweet i will be glad to test and give a review.

    Oh one last thing could you make a button for the Fishing chair and Mr. P.

  5. Age, April 2008:

    Ok, there's a newer version up on curse (in zip format) which has tooltips, a cooking only mode (accessed by right clicking the icon) and should manage to replace your gear ok if you log out while fishing.

    As far as swapping all your gear for a fishing outfit, I could add that but I'm not really keen to because it drastically increases the complexity of the mod for something that's not really needed. As it stands the mod achieves it's aims without you needing to configure it in any way, which is something I'd like to keep as much as possible.

    The fishing chair however, is something that I *will* add - how does it work exactly? Does it just appear next to you when you cast it or do you have to choose where to place it?

    And as for Mr Pinchy, I'm assuming you mean add a button for casting his wishes? I'll likely add that to the chair button as a right-click option.

  6. Petre, April 2008:

    the fishing chair is an item in your inventory. When you use it the chair appears next to you after a 3 second cast. The owner can then right click on it to sit.

  7. Longhunter, April 2008:

    First i would like to say Thank you thank you thank you!!!

    the Fishing Chair is an item you click in you bag and it shows up in front of you like the fire Mr.P "pet" is the same way but the Chair has a cool down.

    I understand your point about felling a bit naked when Fishing, With out being Combat ready i have come under attack from mages and rouges many times.I have died becuse of there 12 year old games, but i tend to turn the check. Rez get some freinds and then camp them for the nexts 48 hrs.

    i feel better in the morning

    the cooking button will be Great i plan on opening a Food supply chain for other ppl and farm the meat and cook for them so that will be very helpful

    It would be nice if Blizz would come out with a fish Bag or something

    Thanks for your help i plan on down loading it tonight and take it for a spin and see how it goes look for my review Saturday

    Longhunter
    korgath, if you are on pst me and i will do some fishing with you

  8. Longhunter, April 2008:

    ok after 2 days of fishing the only thing i would like to see if a Double click cast.

    Mainly becuse i am to lazy to move the mouse and click the button other then that i like it, Fishing buddy's Fish tracker is nice but i can live with out it i do like the idea of being combat ready the 12 year olds seem to really like the gank fisherman.

    Longhunter

  9. Reply to this topic »

Ultimate Fishing Macro

  1. cactuar, June 2009:

    Here's a pretty nifty macro I cooked up.

    When you click it, it will first attempt to equip your fishing gear (Hat and Kalu'ak pole in my case).
    The next click will use your Weather Beaten Fishing Hat to put the +75 lure on your Fishing Pole.
    Any subsequent clicks will simply cast your fishing line as normal (until your fishing lure runs out, then it will refresh it!)

    #showtooltip Fishing
/script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/equip Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole
/equip Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat
/use Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat
/script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
/use Fishing

    Enjoy!!

  2. Keirelle, June 2009:

    Thanks mate!

  3. Keirelle, June 2009:

    What did I do wrong? Each time I click on it it will make her say "that item is not ready yet". Is there anyway to make that stop? I know it is because essentially the hat is being equipped each time and it doesn't need to reuse the lure each time, but can you make it so it doesn't say so?

  1. cactuar, June 2009:

    Actually, the error is not from equipping an already equipped item. That action won't cause an error, it'll just ignore it.

    The error message comes from the multiple attempts to use the hat.
    If you're talking about the error text that appears on the screen, that's what the
    /script UIErrorsFrame:UnregisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
    and the
    /script UIErrorsFrame:RegisterEvent("UI_ERROR_MESSAGE");
    are for.
    They temporarily turn off the error messages during the macro.

    The actual speaking from your character can be turned off in the "Sound" menu. Uncheck the "Error Speech" option.

    Sorry, I forgot to mention that because I always have it turned off by default.

  2. Keirelle, June 2009:

    Yeah that's what I meant, not re equipping but just using it each time. Otherwise I really like the macro, guess I will just turn error messages off then! :)

  3. weregamer, January 2010:

    While a macro like this will work, I am much happier since I found an option in the Outfitter addon that I already use. I play a lot of hybrid classes (Druid, Shaman, Paladin) and love this addon to manage my equipment sets. Even though Blizzard has added an equipment manager to the default UI in 3.3, I like the UI for this addon.

    Anyway, if you make an outfit called "Fishing", you can not only easily change it as you upgrade your equipment, you can also use the advanced settings to turn on a script that does the following:
    * Unequips your pole (switching back to the weapon you had before you started fishing) when you enter combat, and reequips it after combat
    * Changes your minimap tracking to track fishing pools when you switch to the Fishing outfit, and switches it back to what you had before when you turn off the Fishing outfit.

    I've never seen much value in the Fishing-specific addons like Fishing Buddy, since Blizzard outlawed botlike behaviors. But this tweak to Outfitter suits me perfectly.

    Outfitter is listed with WoWMatrix, or you can get it from the usual suspects, http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/outfitter.aspx, http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info5467-Outfitter.html, etc.

  4. Mareak, January 2010:

    weregamer wrote:

    "...I've never seen much value in the Fishing-specific addons like Fishing Buddy, since Blizzard outlawed botlike behaviors..."

    I read this and was like...WHAT are they saying here? Fishing Buddy a Bot-Addon? What?
    I asked several of the people I know that know way more about W0W than I do, and they agreed with me, Fishing buddy is no where near a Bot
    I also did a little bit of research and found these supporting threads:

    http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=4272418271&sid=1

    http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3773327746&sid=1

    http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16102301679&sid=1
    Fishing Buddy follows all of these guidelines, and is (as of my last logon) Still useable in game.

    Not a Bot.

    or a cool macro like the OP put out here for the rest of us, "Thank You cactuar"

  5. el, January 2010:

    I think weregamer is referring to the old automatic re-cast after catch, which used to be possible before Blizzard tightened things up. That's going back 3 or 4 years.

  6. Schema, January 2010:

    weregamer wrote:

    ... Outfitter addon ...
    * Unequips your pole (switching back to the weapon you had before you started fishing) when you enter combat, and reequips it after combat

    I love Outfitter, but lately I've been having problems with it and Fishing. If I'm in my Fishing outfit and enter combat, my weapons do swap back in -- but if I'm actually fishing and get jumped by some Mob, my fishing pole remains equipped. And it does less damage than my two daggers. :-)

    Has anyone else noticed this, and perhaps have a fix?

    Aditional: Just read that 3.3 removed the ability for add-ons to equip weapons during combat. So I guess this is just the way it is for now. :-(

  7. Shalura, January 2010:

    You know you can just use the built-in equipment manager to make a fishing set, right? Just ignore all the slots except the ones that have your items. This is what I use for a fishing macro:

    #showtooltip Fishing
    /equip [nocombat, nomod:alt, noequipped:Fishing Pole] 3 1
    /equip [combat] [mod:alt] 3 1
    /cast [equipped:Fishing Pole, nomod] Fishing
    /use [mod:ctrl] 3 2
    /use [mod:ctrl] 16

    Just keep your pole in bag 3 slot 1 and your lures bag 3 slot 2. Macros that switch weapons in combat still work, just a couple days ago I accidently hit my spec switch macro on my paladin in the middle of a combat and the only thing that changed was the weapons.

  8. tcomputerchip, June 2010:

    In this macro, I have two sets made in the Equipment Manager, one called Fish and one called Raid.

    The script UI line disables errors and console line turns off the warning sounds. I do this because slot "1" is the Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat. Because blizzards has a limit of 255 chars per macro, I chose to /use 1 instead of spelling out the name of the item.

    Click the Macro: to Equipt, Use the Fishing Hat, and Cast Fishing
    Right Click: to equipt Raid gear (or PVP gear or default gear of choosing)

    If you don't know about the equipment manager, its a great thing :) Read up about it.

    #showtooltip Fishing
    /equipset [btn:1] Fish
    /equipset [btn:3] Raid
    /script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
    /console Sound_EnableSFX 0
    /use [btn:1] 1
    /script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()
    /console Sound_EnableSFX 1
    /cast [btn:1] Fishing

  9. Reply to this topic »

Addon Question

  1. Dinde, July 2008:

    I was wondering if there is an addon that records the location of a pool of fish for later referances such as the Gatherer addon if anyone has any info on this please post a reply

    Thanks, Dinde

  2. el, July 2008:

    From memory, this was a feature within Gatherer at one time, but did not work terribly well.

    The problem is technical: When you catch a fish from a pool, only the game server (realm) knows it came from a pool. Your game client (the part installed on your computer) only gets the information that you caught a fish - it doesn't know where the fish came from.

    An addon might be able to analyse the colour of pixels on the screen, but the differences between pools and the surrounding water are so subtle, that it would need to be exceptionally clever. So in practice the only pools that can be tracked are those that contain a completely unique fish, such as Zulian Mudskunk, since those always come from pools.

    I imagine the inability to spot and track pools automatically is partly historic accident (there were no pools for the first year of WoW's release), partly an anti-bot feature (since you cannot easily automate farming what you cannot record electronically).

  3. Oberweiss, July 2008:

    IIRC, I use the Gatherer plugin for Cartographer, which does track fishing schools. How it identifies schools is flawed, but it works fairly well for me. I think watches for pool names in your mouseover when you catch something via fishing. I have only had it mis-label open water as a pool once (I was curious as to how it worked, so I was actively trying to make it mis-label at the time), and it usually only takes one catch from the pool to record the school location.

    After installing this mod, you may have to manually enable the fishing part. Let me know if you're having trouble getting it to work. I'll be able to check into my mods and settings more once I get home, if that'll help you.

  1. Dinde, July 2008:

    Thank you very much for your information on this subject i will try out the Cartographer and see how it treats me.

    Thanks, Dinde

  2. Oberweiss, July 2008:

    I just checked, and the addon I use is Cartographer Fishing. Here's an example of what it looks like. You can filter the kind of nodes that show, as well as adjust the opacity and size of the symbols. There's also an option to show/hide the icons on your minimap.

  3. Barkeater, July 2008:

    Pools are in the same place every time!

  4. el, July 2008:

    There is a fixed list of possible pool locations, but in most cases not all those pools will be fishable. This explains the pattern (and this provides more evidence).

  5. Petre, July 2008:

    Between memorization, an epic flying mount, and the fish-tracking ability I found the tracking addon to be completely useless. The pools don't always spawn, so you have to fly the whole route and stare at your minimap or the water anyway.

  6. Reply to this topic »

Any WoW addon maker's out there?

  1. Banjai, July 2008:

    Greetings All,

    First post!

    I've thought of a great fishing addon, that would really appeal to the collectoholic in me...
    Called 'Aquarium' - it'd be a graphical checklist of all the fish in the game, which would be displayed in one big chart, with a small grayed-out pic of the fish. When you catch it, it would light-up and also add the time, date and location where you caught it. It would have to be all the fish, all the quest fish, STV fish and all the ??-pound fish. Obviously you wouldn't need to keep the fish afterwards, just catch it.

    Kinda like the old panini football sticker albums, lol!

    The only 'slight' flaw in the plan is I have no clue how to create addons...

    What d'you guys think? Is it something you'd like to see?

    Banjai
    70 Troll Hunter, Bronzebeard

  2. el, July 2008:

    This is something I would love to do. Indeed, to take it further and have the option of displaying your catches here on this site in public. Technically there is no way to get the game to give you a list of all fish. Fortunately I have a pretty good idea of what can be caught...

  3. Banjai, July 2008:

    I hadn't thought about displaying one's collection here - even better! :)

    Surely the game doesn't need to generate the list of fish, I would think that could all be done in the addon programming.

    So does anyone know how to create this addon...???

  4. Floyd, July 2008:

    I don't think it should have a list of all possible fish, then highlight the ones you grab. I don't want a list of all possible fish there are in the game (although I am sure most of us have caught them all). I think part of the excitement with new content is the possiblity of Blizzard throwing in a new fish or two without saying a word, and then making the discovery of these on our own.

    I do think the premise of this mod is outstanding. Maybe if there are seperate tabs under fishing in the new achievement system, this could be an in game type thing? Would be nice. That way it could be listed on the armory site for all to see and/or brag about.

  5. Reply to this topic »

LootFilter Addon

  1. Ho0ber, October 2008:

    While trying to get myself a rare for "One That Didn't Get Away" achievement I was very aware that I would be fishing for a very long time. In order to reduce the amount of downtime due to deleting the junk fish (aka, "throwing them back") from my already nearly-full bags, I sought out an addon to allow me to only keep certain items.

    I found LootFilter, which mostly works, but allows you to add items to a delete list so they are immediately deleted when looting (beware, deletes the whole stack(s), so don't use this once you have *enough* of something).

    Now I'm off to catch my 15 pound mud snapper (caught two 12-pounders in the first 37 catches)!

    Also, I can't believe this is the first time I've bothered posting here. I've been a long time user and fan of the site. Thanks for everything.

    Now what should I do with my second Old Crafty?

    EDIT: Caught the mud snapper! Amazingly, it only took 167 casts! Time to go see if my luck will carry over to catching Mr. Pinchy!

  2. x87bliss, March 2010:

    In case anyone else comes here to read this looking for a similar addon. I recommend you try "Fish Warden." You may have to google it, because Curse.com won't list it in their search DB for some reason.

    Fish Warden is a "selective auto looter." There's a number of "keep filters" that you can select to tell Fish Warden which fish you want to auto loot. The rest are left in the loot window for you to manually loot or discard.

    You can also have it "Automatically release unwanted fish." Fish Warden will automatically close the loot window after looting the keep fish - discarding the trash fish. Pair this with a 'double right click casting' addon for much faster fishing grinds.

    (El says - Fished this one out of the spam filter too... It appears to be upset for some reason.)

  3. x87bliss, March 2010:

    Lol, thanks El. Better to have false positives than false negatives though.

  4. Christhina, April 2010:

    This goes to prove I'm a hoarder - at least of sorts!

    I couldn't (personally) not loot fish I've caught - on any toon, no matter the level. I guess the reason for this is because, in the past, and recently, I've never had trouble to give away extra fish - even low level ones... there's always a hunter with a hungry cat, or someone has an alt that uses food for health replenishment and so on.

    I can see the point in these addons and functionality - but, if you've the bag space, maybe an idea to keep your fish - someone is bound to put them to good use somewhere! :)

  5. Reply to this topic »

Fishing Addon?

  1. Rokdar, April 2009:

    So, yeah, it's me again.

    I was just wondering, what kind of addon for fishing do you use, to keep track of fishes, etc..

    I tried using Fishing Buddy, but it didn't work for some reason, WoW wouldn't pass the loading screen. Do you guys have any tips you could give a newbie angler? =) Thanks for the help in advance.

    //Rokdar

  2. The Lich King, April 2009:

    Well Rokdar, I use Fishing Buddy, but if for some reason it broke down, after i stole the souls of Fishin Buddy's makers i would use a combination of http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/project-7755.aspx and http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/fishing-ace.aspx. Happy fishing my friend. If you attack me I'll still have to steal your soul. No hard feelings.

  3. Rokdar, April 2009:

    Hmm I see, well thanks alot for your tips, I'll try your combination out.

    Happy fishing for you too, and good luck stealing my soul... hope you can find it :D

    //Rokdar

  4. Sutorix, April 2009:

    What version of Fishing Buddy were you using and where did you download it from? I've had issues with both sites serving up bad files before, although it hasn't happened in a while.

    Did you try running with just FB? If that doesn't work either, let me know -- I'll do what I can to fix it. If it works fine by itself, send me a list of your add-ons and I'll try and figure out who's breaking things.

  5. Reply to this topic »

Different fishing sound

  1. Maklesh, July 2009:

    Ello o/

    I was wondering if there's an addon that changes the sound of the fishing bobber when catching a fish.

    I currently use FishermansFriend (don't need/want all the extra options from Fishing Buddy) and I love it. The thing I don't like is when fishing close to someone their sound goes just as loud as mine and I sometimes click the bobber at the wrong time because of it. Since I mostly fish and watch tv or do something else I'd like to prevent such confusion.

    Now I saw a Bert and Ernie thing in the addons section, but I'd rather not have them saying that stuff while watching a movie or something :P
    Second question would be; would any such addon change the sound of other ppl catching fish as well? Cause in that case it won't matter anyways :>

    Cheers,
    Maklesh

  2. el, July 2009:

    This should work, but I've not tested it:

    1. Convert the sound file you want into .wav format. If you need software to do that, try Audacity.
    2. Create directories within the WoW directory: /Data/Sound/Spells/
    3. Copy the .wav file into the new Spells directory 3 times, and rename to: FishingBobber_ver2_1.wav, FishingBobber_ver2_2.wav, and FishingBobber_ver2_3.wav

    Basically, you're replacing the game files normally found within the .mpq data packages. Most files can be changed this way, however some files are protected - the game checks for the original file. That generally happens where hacking the file would give you an in-game advantage. As far as I'm aware, the fishing bobber sound files are not checked (but the bobber model graphics are).

  3. Samago, July 2009:

    Where to put the sound file has recently changed. It's just one directory up: /Sound/Spells/

    This wont change the sound of your specific bobber, though. This will only replace the sound of the bobber splash entirely. Everyone else's bobber will still sound the same as yours does.

  4. Reply to this topic »

And More...

Comments are posted on the Fishing Forum or Contests Forum. To comment you can reply to one of the topics above, or start a new topic: Use the page's name (Addons and Utilities) as the topic title, or tag the topic with that name. To edit a commment, view the original forum thread (while logged in), and make changes there. New comments or changes take a few minutes to appear here.