Guide last updated: April 25th, 2022 for Patch 1.5 - Bugs and Balance Update
This Guide includes the following:
Introduction to Fishing in New World
Different Types of Fishing Locations and Bait
Where to find Fishing Locations
Fishing Gear
How to level Fishing Fishing Quest Chain
Enhancing your Fishing
Fishing Experience Table
Introduction to Fishing in New World
Fishing is a gathering Trade Skill in New World that allows players to gather fish from Fishing nodes that will be used in crafting Trade Skill, Cooking.
When first starting out you will need a Wooden Fishing Fishing Pole to start gathering nodes. This requires Engineering level 0 along with 1 Fiber and 1 Green Wood to craft it. You are able to pick up Green Wood without the need of a gathering tool by walking up to a bush and pressing your interact key. (Default “E). Fiber will need a flint sickle and a hemp plant. Once all obtained a Tier 1 Camp Fire or Workshop is required to craft the Wooden Fishing Pole. Once crafted you will need to equip it and you can start gathering!
There is also a quest line that will reward you with a Wooden Fishing Pole. We go over that in the Fishing Gear section.
Higher character levels are able to use better tiers of Fishing Fishing Poles:
It is advised to use the highest fishing pole tier possible followed by the best gear score possible to best increase your casting distance.
Different Types of Fishing Locations and Bait
Fishing locations are broken down into two categories Standard Locations and Hotspots. As you fish in these locations you will get fish appropriate to their real life locations. So for example Trout will come from freshwater and not from saltwater, or squids would be saltwater not freshwater.
Standard Fishing Locations and Bait:
Freshwater - Rivers and Lakes (Can loot buckets of water from it)
Bread Bait - small boost to chance to catch rare fish in freshwater
Found in provision containers
Meat Bait - small boost to chance to catch bigger fish in freshwater
Crafted with cooking
Woodlouse Bait - medium boost to chance to catch rare fish in freshwater
Obtained by harvesting bushes
Clam Bait - medium boost to chance to catch bigger fish in freshwater
Obtained by salvaging clams
Firefly Bait - large boost to chance to catch rare fish in freshwater
Obtained by harvesting bulrush
Oyster Bait - large boost to chance to catch bigger fish in freshwater
Obtained by salvaging oysters
Saltwater - Oceans and Swamps
Cheese Bait - small boost to chance to catch rare fish in saltwater
Found in provision containers
Fish Bait - small boost to chance to catch larger fish in saltwater
Crafted with cooking
Nightcrawler Bait - medium boost to chance to catch rare fish in saltwater
Obtained by picking up flints during the day
Snail Bait - medium boost to chance to catch larger fish in saltwater
Obtained by salvaging aquatic snails
Glowworm Bait - large boost to chance to catch rare fish in saltwater
Obtained by picking up flints at night
Electric Eel Bait - large boost to chance to catch larger fish in saltwater
Obtained by salvaging electric eels
Hotspots:
Broad Hotspots 30 fish, 20-30 minute respawn
Common Fish 45% chance
Uncommon Fish 40% chance
Rare Fish 10% chance
Legendary Fish less than 5% chance
Rare Hotspots 20 fish, 30-45 minute respawn
Common Fish 0% chance
Uncommon Fish 65% chance
Rare Fish 30% chance
Legendary Fish about 5% chance
Secret Hotspots 10 fish, 45-90 minute respawn
Common Fish 0% chance
Uncommon Fish 20% chance
Rare Fish 70% chance
Legendary Fish about 10% chance
TIP: There are over 75+ hotspot pools and each one has fixed locations in the designated hotspots. Hotspots are tracked with higher levels of fishing and are confined to the shaded areas on the map. If you are unable to discover one after being in proper the area for it, chances are your level in fishing is too low.
These two hotspots are located East of Windsward. You can see the area in the dotted lines which designates the area of the hotspot.
In those designated areas you will find circles of fish which you will need to land your line in to get the hotspot bonus. If successful you will get a “Landed in Hotspot!” text on the screen indicating you are getting said bonuses.
How to level Fishing
The information contained in this section will assist you in leveling your Fishing Trade Skill. When leveling fishing if you want to be efficient it's a little more complicated than just grab a pole and fish. We will cover the basics first and then some suggestions.
In order to reach level 200 you will need a total of 452,050 experience. Starting out after either crafting your T1 Pole or doing the first quest in “Fishing with Shields” you will need to gather or buy some bait. In conjunction with doing the fishing quest line we are looking to use bait that will increase the rarity of our fish.
Let's break down the basic action of fishing into parts to better understand the best way to gain experience.
Fishing Action:
Equipping Bait
Casting
Hooking
Reeling In
Equipping Bait
To equip the bait go to the water's edge and hit F3 to pull out your fishing pole then hit R to bring up the bait menu.
Now you will want to select the type of bait for the type of water we are fishing in as well as if we want bigger or rarer fish. Refer to the Standard Fishing Locations and Bait section of this guide for more information.
Casting
After you equip your bait it's time to cast your line. To cast, hold left click and this will start the casting mini-game. A gauge will pop up on screen.
Here we are trying to get to max so when the diamond gets to the top let go of left click. If you manage to stop at the top you will see it say MAX and a chime will sound.
Note: The further you cast, the easier it will be to reel in the fish during the reel-in mini-game.
Hooking
This is where we hold our breath for the bite mini-game. The factor to the time delay between casting and fish biting is depth of the water.
Time Delay
Freshwater
Deep Water 5-15 seconds
Shallow Water 10-25 seconds
Very Shallow Water 20-30 seconds
Saltwater
Deep Water 5-15 seconds
Shallow Water 10-20 seconds
Very Shallow Water 15-25 seconds
Fishing in deeper water and getting a longer cast will cut down on the fishing time and help you level up faster.
After your line is in the water we are waiting for the bite mini-game. The bobber will start shaking and it will say “Get ready!” don’t let this throw you off. Wait for the icon of a fish and hook with a timer. This is when you should click to hook your fish. If you don’t click before the timer runs out you will miss your fish and have to recast your line.
Reeling In
Next up is the tension mini-game. Let’s also break this up into smaller bits. First is understanding the icon(s).
This icon shows the tension meter in the center and is color coded.
Green - Low Tension
Orange - Medium Tension
Red - High Tension (About to break)
The outer circle indicates how close the fish is to being reeled in. The more complete the circle is, the closer the fish is.
Now that we know what the icon means when the fish bites we want to hold left click to reel in the fish, as we do so the tension will go up. If the fish is fighting back the tension will go up faster. As the tension gets to the orange level we will want to stop holding left click to stop reeling in and let the tension drop back down to a lower level.
Once the tension has dropped back down you can left click again to start reeling in again. If the tension gets into the red and touches the two curved lines the line will break and you will lose the fish.
The level of your fishing, size, and rarity of the fish as well as your cast distance will all determine how difficult it will be to reel in the fish. You will find that some times you can just hold down the reel in and other times you will have to be patient and tap the button just to keep the fish from breaking the line.
Experience
Experience is gained off two factors one being fish size and the other fish rarity.
Rarity
Common Fish 100-120 experience
Uncommon Fish 150-163 experience
Rare Fish 175-200 experience
Legendary Fish 550 experience
Note: The range for each quality is influenced by the size of the fish.
Now that we know how to fish, where do we actually fish? The short answer is any hotspot with the two star Rare Hotspots while using the appropriate bait based upon the fresh/salt water location. To maximize your experience gain when fishing you will want to be using bait that increases the rarity chance and fish in a hotspot as often as possible. Specifically the pools of jumping fish. You will want to have perks for your preferred fishing spot such as the Lucky Waters perk to boost the chance of catching rare fish or Freshwater Colossus for catching bigger fish in freshwater if that is where you are fishing. We will break down the perks in the Perks section of this guide.
Focus at 250 points is ideal while leveling. Having 250 points will give you 20% fishing line tension, a 10% weight reduction to fish, and 10% increase to caught fish size. The 100 point bonus doesn’t help leveling directly but can get you some extra bait from the salvaged fish, while the 300 point bonus can be helpful if you are fishing in the same area as your set Inn.
TRAPS: There are things in the game that may seem like they will help you level, but will not. Territory XP Gain bonus is one of these things. That buff does not apply to trade skills. Luck doesn’t affect your experience rates. Yield is the same as luck. Earning more of an item doesn’t increase the amount of experience you earn.
Buffs and perks are the 2 main ways to enhance your Fishing. Both have ways to stack them, but with all good things there are limitations.
Fishing Perks are unique and can only be applied to Fishing Poles as we can’t craft fishing gear. The rarity of the pole determines how many perks it can have just like any other tool. Fishing Poles are special as well as they are the only Trade Skill Tool that can be legendary.
Buffs can stack if they come from different sources. For example I can stack yield increase buff from a Proficiency potion and territory control. If you attempt to stack buffs from the same source it will just refresh your buff timer.
There is a Fisherman’s armor set that is ideal for players to use while Fishing as it should always come with Fishing Perks. These are obtained from the fishing quest line and from the T5 Supply Chests in the high level Elite zones.
Each Perk has a related Crafting Mod that can be used in crafting to guarantee the perk in crafting and has been listed within the Perks section in the chance that you may want a crafted Fishing Pole with the given perk.
Perks
Fishing Pole:
Daytime Colossus I Small boost to chance of catching larger fish during daytime
Daytime Colossus II Medium boost to chance of catching larger fish during daytime
Daytime Colossus III Large boost to chance of catching larger fish during daytime
Freshwater Colossus I Small boost to chance of catching larger fish in freshwater
Freshwater Colossus II Medium boost to chance of catching larger fish in freshwater
Freshwater Colossus III Large boost to chance of catching larger fish in freshwater
Freshwater Brawn I 10% Line Strength in freshwater
Freshwater Brawn II 15% Line Strength in freshwater
Freshwater Brawn III 20% Line Strength in freshwater
Lucky Day I Small boost to chance of catching better fish during daytime
Lucky Day II Medium boost to chance of catching better fish during daytime
Lucky Day III Large boost to chance of catching better fish during daytime
Lucky Night I Small boost to chance of catching better fish during nighttime
Lucky Night II Medium boost to chance of catching better fish during nighttime
Lucky Night III Large boost to chance of catching better fish during nighttime
Lucky Waters I Small boost to chance of catching bigger fish
Lucky Waters II Medium boost to chance of catching bigger fish
Lucky Waters III Large boost to chance of catching bigger fish
Moons Reach I 5% Cast Distance during nighttime
Moons Reach II 15% Cast Distance during nighttime
Moons Reach III 20% Cast Distance during nighttime
Nighttime Colossus I Small boost to chance of catching larger fish during nighttime
Nighttime Colossus II Medium boost to chance of catching larger fish during nighttime
Nighttime Colossus III Large boost to chance of catching larger fish during nighttime
Saltwater Colossus I Small boost to chance of catching larger fish in saltwater
Saltwater Colossus II Medium boost to chance of catching larger fish in saltwater
Saltwater Colossus III Large boost to chance of catching larger fish in saltwater
Saltwater Brawn I 10% Line Strength in saltwater
Saltwater Brawn II 15% Line Strength in saltwater
Saltwater Brawn III 20% Line Strength in saltwater
300 Points -10% cooldown reduction for Inn fast travel
Fishing Experience Table
A basic breakdown of the Fishing Experience table. Aptitude experience values can be found in this guide. Character XP is the amount of experience your character earns when your Fishing level increases.