Rolling Horde

Fishing to 300: Where to Fish

• Posted by Walkere on April 28th, 2008 filed in Professions

Yesterday, I started working on a fishing guide. I came up with a list of cooking recipes that you’ll need to get from 1 to 300 cooking using fish.

The next step is to work out where to go. What zones can you fish in to get these fish most easily? How do these zones line up with leveling?

After this is worked out, I’ll go back and look at approximately how many casts it will take to get these fish. From there, I should be able to work out what level fishing you should have - and where you should do a bit of extra grinding to ensure that you’re fishing is high enough at the end to fish the Raw Whitescale Salmon.

Getting Started: The Starting Zone

The first stop in any fishing guide is your local starting zone. It doesn’t really matter where you are - find the fishing trainer, look at the water, and start fishing.

After the starting zone, you’ll want to head to a major city (like Stormwind or Orgrimmar). You’ll need to have an effective fishing level 75 to fish in these zones - so it would be wise to grind out 50 points in the starting zone.

Once your fishing is 50, you can throw a Shiny Bauble on your fishing pole and fish in the major city with no problem.

Zones to Hit: What to Fish, and Where

The first set of fish you’ll need to catch is 25 x Raw Brilliant Smallfish and 60 x Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper. The best place to fish these would be in one of the major cities - Stormwind, Ironforge, or Darnassus for the Alliance or Orgrimmar or Thunder Bluff for the Horde.

In each of these zones, there’s approximately a 60% chance to catch Raw Longjaw Mud Snapper and a 18% chance to catch Raw Brilliant Smallfish. After about 100 casts, you should have enough of both fish (as well as the Raw Brilliant Smallfish or equivalent from the starting zone). You should also have about 20 x Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish.

Your next goal is to catch a bunch more Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish - about 75 to be exact. If you’re lucky enough to be Alliance, you can go to Redridge. This has the best drop rate for Catfish. Otherwise, head to Ashenvale, and you should have 75 x Catfish in about 200 casts.

At the next stop, you’ll get the rest of the Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish and all of the Raw Mithril Head Trout. You can fish in either Arathi Highlands or Thousand Needles - whichever you are currently leveling in - and keep fishing until you gather 35 x Catfish and 65 x Trout. This should take approximately 100 casts.

Probably sometime during your search for Bristle Whisker Catfish, you should hit 225 Fishing. Once you do, head over to Nat Pagle and grab the artisan fishing quest. You should definitely be sure to grab it before you head to Western Plaguelands, because you’ll need some time to level your fishing up to the point where you can complete the portion in Eastern Plaguelands.

The next major fishing stop is Western Plaguelands. Here, you’ll gather 25 x Raw Redgill and a combination of 25 x Raw Nightfin Snapper and Raw Sunscale Salmon. This should take roughly 100 casts - and you’ll probably have some extra Redgill and other fish.

The final stop in the Old World is Eastern Plaguelands. If you don’t go there for some strange reason, you could also fish in Burning Steppes. Your goal - 25 x Raw Whitescale Salmon. If you gathered some extra Redgill, Salmon, and Nightfin, your fishing may be a bit higher than 275 - so adjust the number of Whitescale Salmon accordingly.

The final stop is the really annoying one. Your fishing needs to be over 225 here. The minimum effective fishing level is 330 - so if you have a +120 or +125 bonus, you’ll just barely be able to fish there. You’ll want to aim for an effective fishing level of 380 or so - which means a base fishing skill of about 255 or 260.