El's Extreme Anglin' - World of Warcraft Fishing Guide // Fish Finder // Skill

This page lists zones/areas by the fishing skill required to fish open water without catching junk. Only skill 1 is needed to fish Pools effectively. The table shows the lowest skilled zone/area that each fish may be caught in open water. Not all fish can be caught in all zones, so read about the fish in detail before trying to catch it.

Open Water No-Junk Skill

Areas with unknown no-junk skill: Blackrock Mountain, Crusaders' Coliseum, Icecrown Citadel, Molten Core, Naxxramas and The Obsidian Sanctum.

Comments about Skill

Below are readers' comments about "Skill":

3.3--no trash in fishing pools?

1. GormanGhaste, October 2009:

   I haven't seen anyone mention this on this site yet, so I'll link the source:

   http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=11155811788&sid=1&pageNo=1#0

   "Don't forget, in patch 3.3.0 you never catch trash from fishing pools, regardless of skill. "

   What does this mean? And why would anyone need to skill up fishing, if pool fishing was always successful?

2. el, October 2009:

   I assume it means that with skill 1 you can successfully catch fish from any pool anywhere - even places like The Frozen Sea.

   Update: It's true. Skill 1-6: 5 Glassfin Minnow from a Glassfin Minnow School. 0 Trash. The next 5 casts into open water all yielded junk.

   This means the new Kalu'ak Fishing Derby requires fishing skill 1. Also opens up some interesting new options for leveling fishing - a direct choice between speed and gaining valuable fish.

3. Robodin, October 2009:

   There goes the fishing market, if any schmuck with 1 fishing skill can fish up mats for whatever food they need :/

1. Trigot, October 2009:

   This is horrible its just another easy button to lame out the game. Its no longer going to be anything to be proud of because its somthing a lvl 1 can go and do with no fishing skill.

2. DarkMime64, October 2009:

   So we level fishing now for... what purpose exactly?

   I'm assuming, then, that a character with 1 skill in Cooking can make a Fish Feast, too.
   And someone with 1 skill in First Aid can make Frostweave Bandages.

   No? Oh..

3. el, October 2009:

   DarkMime64 wrote:

   So we level fishing now for... what purpose exactly?

   To be able to equip that Arcanite Fishing Pole, which gives a +40 bonus to skill, which you need to... erm, hold on. There are still fish that cannot be caught from pools - the Dalaran fountain, Old Azeroth fish used to level cooking, etc. But it's hard to answer your question.

   I'd rephrase the question: Why have fishing skill at all?

4. Gizel, October 2009:

   el wrote:

   DarkMime64 wrote:

   So we level fishing now for... what purpose exactly?

   To be able to equip that Arcanite Fishing Pole, which gives a +40 bonus to skill, which you need to... erm, hold on. There are still fish that cannot be caught from pools - the Dalaran fountain, Old Azeroth fish used to level cooking, etc. But it's hard to answer your question.
   I'd rephrase the question: Why have fishing skill at all?

   Djakar.

5. mikado, October 2009:

   Was fishing very hard to begin with? Did it need all the past and future nerfs it's received? Don't get me wrong, I am excited about the tournament, but making it so that anyone can participate just by clicking "learn fishing"? I think that's a bit much. I don't see the point of this change.

   Next up: mine titanium with lvl1 mining skill and herb in Storm Peaks with lvl1 herbalism skill. But no, these are primary professions and too many folks would throw a fit if that happened. But fishing is just some trash secondary profession and noone will care, amirite?

6. averiy, October 2009:

   The three fish required for a fish feast can be pool caught, it's true, but the most efficient way to catch them is in Wintergrasp, where they are caught from open water in a near equal ratio, so that you don't have many fish of any one kind left over. This you cannot do without fishing skill.

7. Kamaria, October 2009:

   This is all so depressing
   :(

8. wyrmsmom, October 2009:

   /agree

9. Utopia, October 2009:

   Sadly it seems we anglers are becoming another victim of the dumbing-down in the name of accessibility which is sweeping through wow......

10. Feiwong, October 2009:

    Guys...

    I've opened a suggestion thread complaining about this change... so if anyone wants to support it, please do

    http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20677232908&postId=206753341510&sid=1#2

    Best regards,
    Gustavo

11. el, October 2009:

    Here are some more discussions on the official forums:

    http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20677230833
    http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=11155812409

    Pool fishing involves moving around, looking for specific things in the water. Pools are the closest we currently have to the Cataclysm method of fishing mentioned at BlizzCon (hooking specific fish you can see swimming). Encouraging pool fishing in this patch makes a lot of sense. In fact, it may be an attempt to demonstrate that a more interactive method of fishing can be popular. Although people here tend to mostly fish from pools, over all players open water is much more popular. So trying to make the least popular aspect of fishing more popular might be logical overall, even if we see things differently.

    Of course leveling fishing skill (and specifically leveling alongside cooking) appears (same source) to account for a significant proportion of fishing activity. There's a risk of simply making the whole cycle pointless: Nobody needs to level fishing skill, so nobody fishes. Rationally, you'd counter that by arguing that if people didn't want to fish, they would not have levelled fishing skill. However Joanna Average WoW player transpires to be surprisingly irrational. "That 1/450 bar needs to be filled!" "One day I'll want to farm Mr. Pinchy..." I'm sure we've all been there, even if we find a reason to justify our actions. A superficial (or worse, pure economist) understanding of that irrationality is a dangerous thing.

    Traditionally the role of fishing skill has been to test patience. Patience is the main requirement for fishing. And requiring 10 or 15 hours of fishing before an angler can catch the good stuff, is what separated "us from them". It's also classic EverQuest-style grinding, that used to be common in WoW: Do the same thing over-and-over, before you can do what you actually wanted to do.

    Patch 3.1 started to dilute the test of patience. 3.3 dilutes it so far we're struggling to see a purpose.

    The basic problem for fishing (and all WoW professions) is that there was never a hard part that followed the "pointless grind" of skilling-up. So removing the need for skill means that everyone can do it immediately. Consequently, there's nothing exclusive or special for anglers who are prepared to put a lot of work into the profession.

    Or is there? Ah, but there is! At least for fishing. Take a step back and look at this forum. Or perhaps earlier in the year, when things were busier: The most popular topics are about catching the Sea Turtle, Pinchy, One that Got Away. Listen to the furvor with which people defend (or are annoyed by) the Salty title. All things that are a serious test of patience, and provide the angler with something to care about, something exclusive that is valued among those they play with.

    Now, there are all kind of issues with this form of non-monetary, individualistic consumerism. And I suspect we'll eventually laugh at the paradox of how Blizzard's attempt to counter inequalities that exist outside of the game (by blocking Real Money Trading), has actually created one of the most unequal communities within the game (by trying to prevent the trade of anything perceived to have value). But that's a philosophical discussion for another time. We are where we are. And right now we're in a land where titles, mounts, and other apparently useless things have the greatest sense of value.

    Why not go further? No computer-incremented skills whatsoever. Instead (if fishing still is a test of human patience) add far more apparently useless, but rare, things that take patience to acquire. (Rare doesn't imply strictly random - rare but less variable - for example a Sea Turtle might take 4,000-5,000 casts, not 1-~25,000 casts - excessive variability causes frustration as the mind either can't understand the pattern, or feels the pattern is unfair.) Or perhaps associate fishing with something other than patience.

    There are lots of possibilities following this line of thought: But perhaps the value of fishing shouldn't be thought of in terms of the ability to catch buff food. Increasingly, the real prestige is a Turtle-mounted Salty with a Crawdad in tow. Or similar.

12. Durth, October 2009:

    Having paid for 2 epic flyers and a mechano hog just by selling food Im not to excited about this. On the other hand though its not like its really that easy to fish for this stuff without being attacked at lower levels. A level 1fishing glacial salmon pools is going to get hit by a bear or the opposing faction at the lumber mill. Lloot crazed divers are at the sculpin lake in Borean Tundra. Nettlefish ahve all sorts of animals runnnig around their pools. Im just not sure how this will all shake out. I dont like professions being easy. Going through the bs to get them leveled was the only thing keeping the market at a certain level. A lot of people just wouldnt bother but now its always getting easier and easier. Plus it makes me feel old and grumpy :p

13. Durth, October 2009:

    Oh I forgot to mention the 5 tab Guild bank and all the gold spent tipping other people for enchants and gemming and such. Some people laugh when you put cooking in trade but I think most os us here know better.

14. Gned, November 2009:

    I'm feeling pretty abused over the new fishing changes. Mostly because my invested time and efforts are at least partially meaningless now.

15. Leny, November 2009:

    I find this to be a horrible idea..... two things that kind of set me out in my guild was my habit for paying huge amounts for non-combat pets and fishing

16. Shreda, January 2010:

    THIS SUCKS! I SPENT WEEKS TRAINING THAT SKILL AND NOW WE DON'T NEED IT?! WHAT WAS THE POINT IN THIS! WHY DID I SPEND 2 GOLD ON LURES. I HATE YOU BLIZZARD!

    Sorry, I had to do something dramatic

17. Renetta, January 2010:

    I don't really have a strong attitude in many ways. Yes Salty is my preferred title because I like fishing and it's the perfect title for a squid (I mean draenei). But I actually disagree that fishing is becoming less patient driven. Getting fishing to 450 takes not a lot of patience. There is constant short-term reward (oh another tick, uh here is something funny I fished up, do old world pool achievement to break the monotony, visit nat pagle etc etc).

    Rather this is being replaced with things that for some, though not all requires a lot of patience. The one that didn't get away took me over 7.5k casts (I think the general believe is that the average is around 1k) if I remember correctly and made me vow to never fish for an extremely low drop achievement again. Well I didn't stick to it. Now I'm at way over 12k on the turtle without luck (here it seems that people converge on a believe that the average is 4-5k) and patient permitting I may fish indefinitely without any reward whatsoever. So yeah rare _is_ random, else I'd have both much earlier.

    I for one have never ever felt my patience tested so much as in the new system, not the old. But yeah, some may have been more lucky and hence don't even know that patience may be required. I certainly don't complain that I got my old ironjaw on my very first cast, that indeed didn't take any patience to do. That said, for many of us getting all fishing achievements is way harder than doing the old fishing skill leveling was. If someone doesn't understand that you simply got lucky.

    I like the BB contest. This is not a test of patience. It's a test of preparation, planning, swift decision making and some luck. But luck is but one factor and one can work to bend the odds one way and many who do the contest will see their fish counts go up with experience. Before I won I had two contests where I was 1 fish short - that's the margin of error the contest had when you are prepared and do all the right things. The new fishing contest is just Vegas though and I am only happy it's in the game because it at least doubles up on the chance to get a turtle as well.

    In fact the relationship is reversed now. If you are unlucky you need extreme patience with limited short-term reward. Yes if you are lucky you need no patience at all. So if the complaint is that fishing moves away from patience to luck I might actually agree. But from how it sounds there will be some skill added to the equation and frankly I'd rather work on things I can control than fish 10k pools for nothing at all (well except the ability to completely destroy the value of fish in the AH for a good while).

    So yes I hate the new system, nothing resembles disillusion more than weeks of solid fishing without any sign of reward or any promise that reward will ever come - but making skill leveling easier now and possibly removing it later doesn't move me at all. In fact I welcome it.

    Ultimately in terms of game design as a whole, the EQ model is dead. WoW has discovered that the time people have is constant, so if you add new stuff you have to obsolete old mechanisms to keep things to do in balance with people's time. Else the game becomes inaccessible for newcomers because they'd have to catch up 5 years worth of gaming to be where the original population got. A phenomenon not unfamiliar in EQ, and while relished by some, really a bad idea to keep a game community together. The WoW model is sustainable, but yes requires that people accept change and that old way to get to X will be replaced by a new way to get to X that may in fact be much faster.

    MMOs are about renewal. Yes we farmed 1 year of Molten Core 3 days a week for T1 sets. They are worthless now. One can focus on that and how unfair it is that people now get T9 for running heroics not requiring the wipes and patience and learning, or one can recognize that it was fun while doing it and look forward and appreciate the new content that comes ones way.

    On Cataclysm fishing I reserve judgment until I have seen it, but looking backwards won't be how I'll be judging it.

18. Reply to this topic »

No love for the fisherman (or fisherworman)

1. Torgon, February 2008:

   So a friend had asked me to start a new character with them, and having nothing better to do, I accepted. After the typical starting quests i found myself at lvl 12 in Ratchet with a fishing pole and some time to burn. I used some bait and quickly hit 75, few to Org and trained, flew back and got 150. Rather pleased with myself (and having a few gold from selling oily blackmouth's in the AH when i was in ORG) I hopped on the boat to Booty bay to grab my copy of "The Bass and you"...and was very sad to learn that apparently I could not read...

   Even though I could cook and bandage above 150 (both which require books to learn) and skin/mine/gather herbs above 150 at my level, I could not fish above 150. Anyone know the reasoning behind this?

   While i understand the higher the required level to fish, the more dangerous the location, this should be a risk/reward choice I should be able to make on my own.

   What's your opinion of being forced to level to increase your fishing level cap, while other "secondary" professions (and several primary ones) do not have this restriction?

2. el, February 2008:

   From memory (and we're going back years here), the level restriction on fishing skill was added to prevent level 1 alts fishing in high level areas like Azshara.

   Originally there were no pools of fish, so anyone that could travel to a zone could find a safe place to catch fish from open water. A level 1 character, that had simply spent a day (often semi-AFK) raising their fishing skill, could make the same money from selling high-level fish as the level 45+ characters the zone was designed for. But the level 45+ characters had invested a lot more time levelling.

   In contrast, herbs, mining and skinning almost always require a character that is close to the level the zone was designed for: Sure, you might be able to find the odd node or corpse you can reach without aggroing, but a level 1 alt has reduced choice, and so is not as efficient at resource gathering as higher-level characters.

3. Torgon, February 2008:

   Yes, but now that there are pools, I think it would make sense to take the restriction off of the book at least. Just my 2cp.

4. Hockeyhacker97, January 2009:

   Well the level rest on it was only for a short time till they took it back off... If you look at all the professions youll see the following

   The 3 gathering skills had no restriction, if you could get to an item to farm you could know it, the reason for this was because if your level 1 you arnt going to be able to get to anything that requires 300+ to do, your not going to be able to solo level 60 mobs to skin, all the herbs and ores are also protected by these same mobs, so unless your raiding with an AoE party to keep you alive you arn't going to be able to farm things higher then normal levels anyways.

   All skills that are not the 3 gathering skills (skin/mine/herb) have a required level 5 for 1-75... level 10 for 76-150... and then theres some variation on 151-225, then 35 for 226-300 and some variation on 301-375

   Cooking/Fishing/First Aid - no requirement for 151-225 (fishing got changed back to this)
   The main reson Fishing temporarily had a level restriction was to try to detour level 19 twinks from farming the fishing hat on Sundays by making it so that they had to use a lure to not miss the fish... they then found out this didn't detour them at all since the lures are only a few silver while they are spending tons of gold on enchants and gear so the silver made no difference.

   All main proffesions - level 20 for 151-225 (proffesions not gatherings)

   226-300- 35 for all main proffesions and 35+quest at 35 for all secondary proffesions

   301-375 for all main proffesions level 50, for all secondary level 45.

   But as for why it was temporarily different it was just to detour people from farming the fishing hat for a 19 twink, which if they really wanted to do that they should just put a level 20 req on the quests to get the fishing gear.

5. Reply to this topic »

Fishing skill req for great sea?

1. matty555, February 2008:

   Hi im level 12 and my fishing skill is 112 and im fishing at longshore at the moment next to the great sea and i was wondering at what skill level can i fidh there?

   Thanks.

2. el, February 2008:

   The skill required and fish caught from the seas are the same as the zone you are closest to (source). There was a long-standing bug with the ocean west of Silithus. Technically this has no coastal water, so no coastal fish. The ocean there contained freshwater fish.

   Oh, and so to answer the question: the area is like Westfall, so should require 75 skill to stop fish getting away.

3. matty555, February 2008:

   Oh so i need 75 skill to fish in the great sea? i now have 126 and i cant.

4. el, February 2008:

   That's interesting. Perhaps your part of the Great Sea is linked to Stranglethorn Vale to the south? Most of that area requires 130 to cast, 225 to stop get-aways. Gain a few points more of skill and let us know!

5. Reply to this topic »

Zangarmarsh

1. Fiamma, May 2008:

   On the info page for Zangarmarsh, it states that the skill required to cast is 305... I cast there with 300 base fishing skill, with 95 fishing worth of lures (so 395 fishing) but it can't be the lures enabling me as with this same skill I cannot fish in Terokkar Forest (Requires 355 to cast) Is the page incorrect or is there something I am not taking into account?

   - Fia

2. el, May 2008:

   Parts of Terokkar Forest require 405 to cast. At a guess, you're trying to fish Silmyr Lake.

3. Fiamma, May 2008:

   Yep, that's right, I'm a nub. Lol, thanks a bunch El, does this mean that with my skill and lures, I can FINALLY cast in Bay of Storms?

4. Oberweiss, May 2008:

   On the Azshara page, this is what it says of Bay of Storms:

   Skill Required: 330 to cast, 425 to stop fish getting away.

5. Reply to this topic »

Maximized Fishing Skill

1. Noodleguitar, December 2008:

   I just got my Eternium Line the last Extravaganza, which was the last thing I needed to max out my fishing skill :D. It's now, with only gear and base skill, 502. I think this is the max that can be achieved with current available gear.

   To get it I have equipped:
   - Arcanite Fishing Pole (+35)
   |
   ----> Eternium Line (+5)
   - Lucky Fishing Hat (+5)
   - Nat Pagle's Extreme Anglin' Boots (+5)
   - Gloves Enchanted (+2)

   + 450 Base Skill.

   If you count in buffs, you can get to a max of 662:
   - Underbelly Elixer -> Tuskarr (+50)
   - Captain Rumsey's Lager (+10)
   - One of the best lures (+100)

2. Shreda, January 2010:

   Given that it is now impossible to catch junk, i see no point in lures even existing.

3. Gummo, January 2010:

   Arcanite Fishing Pole has been +40 fishing for a while, and there is now a +5 fishing enchant.

   Lures are still useful for non-pool fishing, but, yeah...

4. Tarqq, January 2010:

   This Sunday I'm going for the total max @ fishing, I only need to catch the
   Dezian Queenfish, to put the Eternium line to my pole.
   Since 1st post was outdated bij the Kalu'ak derby (& other changes),
   here are the new max stats.

   Here is what I (almost***) got equipped :

   - Arcanite Fishing Pole (+40)
   - Eternium line *** (+5)
   - Weather beaten fishing hat ( +5)
   - Boots of the bay (+15)
   - Gloves Enchanted (+5)
   - Captain Rumsey's Lager (10min) (+10)
   - Glowworm (1hr) (+100)
   - Base skill (+450) +
   ---------------
   630

   Happy fishing,
   Tarqq (Terokkar/EU)

   Ps. With the Tuskarr buff you could gain 680, but I think its a hassle.

5. Reply to this topic »

new 2.4 change, no level requirement for The Bass And You

1. Gummo, March 2008:

   The latest PTR patch notes have removed the level 20 requirement to read The Bass And You to raise your maximum fishing to 225.

   PS: El, I tried to later add the tag "fishing level limits restrictions" to match the tag in an earlier thread about level 20 and The Bass And You, but using the "add tag" field truncated my tag, so it didn't match. I think the field width should be wider, it's about 30 or so right now.

2. el, March 2008:

   Those level 19 twinks-to-be will be saving on lures now...

   It is interesting to see how people use tags. As coded, they were designed for words or short phrases, but I'm inclined to agree that 30 characters isn't enough. When I get a chance I'll see if it can be easily increased (without breaking the underlying BBPress code).

3. Torgon, March 2008:

   Hmmmm, makes me think maybe the Dev's are reading the forums here (or maybe it's just a coincidence).

   http://www.elsanglin.com/forums/topic/no-love-for-the-fisherman-or-fisherworman

4. Reply to this topic »

Get Aways

1. Talathan, March 2009:

   I've heard that Blizz will be changing the way fishing works in 3.1. This change is supposedly going to change the calculation used to determine get aways.

   Now, I'm aware that currently it's necessary to have a skill that's 95 higher than the minimum skill required to cast in order to assure that there are no get aways.

   As I said in a previous post, I spent some time fishing in Grizzly Hills. It has a required skill of 380, and with pole and line I have 473. Granted, it's not the 475 necessary - but awful close. What surprised me was that in about 200 casts I got 18 get aways. That's just under 10%! And I was just 2 skill points away from a guaranteed ZERO.

   It's not so much that this bothered me (ok, it does... but...), it made me wonder what the current formula that Blizz uses to figure the odds of losing a fish. Does anyone know?

2. el, March 2009:

   Before 3.1. After 3.1.

3. Talathan, March 2009:

   Thank you for the info. I haven't had enough coffee yet today to tell whether the catch rate with 473 is going to improve or get worse under the new system.

4. Reply to this topic »

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