Fishing for Dummies door @Metalharpey#7947

Even though Fishing is by far the easiest profession to level, there's alot more that comes to it then it may seem.

Most people who fish are AFK fishers. Equip a rod, start fishing and when you come back your bag is probably full or your rod is broken.

Sell fish to a trading merchant and tadah~! Profit! Well, did you know you can do alot more than that?

Fishing for Dummies

To get started just head over to any fisher in your city and purchase a normal rod. These NPCs can be found by searching for them using the NPC finder utility close to your minimap. Just select on the fish icon and your character will be directed towards the location of the NPC. You can also find them on your map (M) by clicking on the fish icon.

Once you have a fishing rod, approach any source of water and while you have the rod equipped press space to cast your bait.

After that, wait until you have a bite and when your ready press space to start reeling. The game should tell you when you have a bite (your character will grab the rod with 2 hands and bend down a bit).

Now comes the first phase of the minigame. In this phase you have to press space when the bar is within the blue region. The bar will fill and empty 3 times so you can take your time to get it right. If you succeed then you reach the last phase of the minigame. If you fail you have to re-cast your line and wait for another bite. You can obtain a perfect reel if you manage to press spacebar at the exact time that the bar is completely full. On a perfect reel, you get to skip the last part of the minigame and get your fish instantly.

The second part of the minigame is when you just have to push the right buttons within the time given. The longer the sequence the better the fish you are reeling in! After you have successfully completed all phases of the minigame you will receive a window with the fish you have just caught.

This is basically the essence of fishing with a rod. When you fish with a harpoon, a different minigame will be played.

Once you have caught and received your fish, head over to a Trade Manager to sell your fish! These trade managers can be found by searching them with your NPC finder utility, much like how you found the fisher. You can also find them on your map (M) by clicking on the wagon wheel.

To AFK fish, you have the option to select the box where it says “Do not board other adventurers' mount” when you have your line out. This means you won't get scooped up by trolling players that like to dump you in the Margoria Seas.

When AFK fishing, your character will automatically reel the catch in after 3 minutes of a bite. It will stop fishing when the rod breaks or your bag is full.

You'll see you get several "trash" items while fishing. All of these can be exchanged for something better, such as silver, fishing exp, a chair to give you extra fishing mastery or even Dream (T9 horse) materials!

Fishing Rods

In the BDO world, there are alot of different Fishing Rods available. Some can be repaired and enhanced, some can't.

You'll have to decide what rods you will be using when Fishing. You can craft most of them with your workers in a tool workshop.

Old Fishing Rod

Durability: 10
Crafting Materials: Log x1

Fishing Rod

Durability: 30
Crafting Materials: Ash Timber x1

Thick Fishing Rod

Durability: 40
Crafting Materials: Ash Timber x1, Copper Ingot x1, Black Stone Powder x3
Level Required: Beginner Lv.10
Item Effect: Fishing Speed +1

Steel Fishing Rod

Durability: 65
Crafting Materials: Ash Timber x1, Steel x2, Black Stone Powder x4
Level Required: Skilled Lv.5
Item Effect: Fishing Speed +2

Balenos Fishing Rod

Durability: 50 (100 at +10)
Can be repaired
Crafting Materials: Ash Timber x1, Steel x2, Pure Copper Crystal x5, Monk’s Branch x9, Black Stone Powder x15
Can be enhanced with Black Stone (Weapon)
Enhancement Effect: Auto-Fishing Speed +10%

Epheria Fishing Rod

Durability: 50 (150 at +10)
Can be repaired
Crafting Materials: Birch Timber x1, Steel x2, Pure Iron Crystal x5, Monk’s Branch x9, Black Stone Powder x15
Can be enhanced with Black Stone (Weapon)
Enhancement Effect: Increase maximum durability

Mediah Fishing Rod

Durability: 50
Can be repaired
Crafting Materials: White Cedar Timber x1, Steel x2, Pure Zinc Crystal x5, Monk’s Branch x9, Black Stone Powder x15
Level Required: Artisan Lv.1
Can be enhanced with Black Stone (Weapon)
Enhancement Effect: Increase chances of catching a rare fish

Calpheon Fishing Rod

Durability: 50
Can be repaired
Crafting Materials: Fir Timber x1, Steel x2, Pure Lead Crystal x5, Monk’s Branch x9, Black Stone Powder x15
Level Required: Professional Lv.1
Can be enhanced with Black Stone (Weapon)
Enhancement Effect: Increase chances of catching larger fish

Golden Fishing Rod

Durability: 100
Crafting Materials: Ash Timber x1, Steel x2, Gold Ingot x2, Black Stone Powder x5
Level Required: Artisan Lv.1
Item Effect: Fishing Speed +3

Triple-Float Fishing Rod

Durability: 30
Acquisition: Quest Item
Level Required: Skilled Lv.5
Enhancement Effect: Have a chance to catch up to 4 fish

Note that the Triple-Float Fishing Rod can only be obtained via quest reward in Velia (Abelin).

Fishing Floats

Right now there are only 2 types of fishing floats in the game. These floats are equipped in your secondary weapon slot and can be repaired and enchanted with weapon blackstones. The higher the enchant level the more effect their respective special abilities get. These floats have to be crafted using your workers in a tool workshop, very similar to how you craft your rods.

Ash Tree Float

Durability: 50
Can be repaired
Crafting Materials: Ash Timber x1, Oil of Tranquillity x3, Translucent Crystal x2, Pure Lead Crystal x2
Level Required: Professional Lv.1
Can be enhanced with Black Stone (Weapon)
Enhancement Effect: Increase chances of catching larger fish

Maple Float

Durability: 50
Can be repaired
Crafting Materials: Maple Timber x1, Oil of Tranquillity x3, Red Crystal x2, Pure Lead Crystal x2
Level Required: Artesian Lv.1
Can be enhanced with Black Stone (Weapon)
Enhancement Effect: Increase the chance to catch rarer fish

Harpoons

Harpoons can only be made in a tool workshop on Iliya Island.

Thin Harpoon

Durability: 30
Crafting Materials: Cedar Timber x1, Copper Ingot x4, Black Stone Powder x1
Level Required: Professional Lv.1

Thick Harpoon

Durability: 40
Crafting Materials: Cedar Timber x2, Iron Ingot x7, Black Stone Powder x3
Level Required: Professional Lv.1

The minigame for the harpoon takes more time and is more challenging than fishing with a rod. The aim of the game is to shoot the fish that swims around with your gun before you run out of harpoons and time.

Loot!

Once you catch a fish, it will have a 24 hour expiry date on them. The longer you leave them out the lower the price will get until you reach 0% of the price (24 hours exposure in total). It’s best to sell your fish within 1 hour of catching it or the price will gradually go down. If you’re out on a long trip and your fish will expire its best to dry them using processing. This way, the dry fish will retain its value indefinitely. The only problem is dried fish’s value is not much but at least it’s something where as if you let your fish expire you will get no return in price.

The ocean north of the map consists of several seas. Each sea generally preferred fish just like our oceans in real life. Some fish you can catch more of in some areas and less in others.

When harpoon fishing you have the opportunity to catch fish that cannot be caught with a fishing rod. These fish include whales, sharks and large fish. If you are lucky enough to catch one of these giants they can sell up to 100m silver.

Fish Rarity

"Trash" (exchange for better stuff)
White fish
Green Fish
Blue Fisr
Yellow Fish
Orange Fish

If you're also into Cooking you might want to dry your fish for dishes that you can use later on.

You can also catch items that have value and are not fish (rods only).

Ancient Relic Fragment

You need to combine 5 of these to create a Lv.50 Ancient Relic Summon Scroll (expires in 7 days).

Silver Key

You need 100 of these to exchange for a Golden Key. Find a treasure box in the BDO world and you can get some awesome loot!
You can also use the Silver Keys in the Margoria seas. Sometimes there's a shiny thingy on a float. Jump in and go get it!

Fishing Levels

The higher the fishing skill, the faster and more likely you are to catch higher quality fish.

You will have the ability to use better rods.

You can do certain skill requirement quests.

You can see more “Seagull Hotspots” out in the ocean.

Fishing levels can be obtained by catching fish and getting experience. The higher rarity the fish, the more experience it will give. A good source of xp is also completing the fishing quests around the game. Although these quests can be quite tedious and is not recommended unless you know exactly where to catch the fish they require.

Where to fish

There's fish to catch in almost every water body you can find in the world of Black Desert.

Looking for something specific? Try somethinglovely or one of the links below

Pretty much every fish has its own title when you catch them. There's actually 3 while you catch more and more of them.

There's no proof that titles do anything, however some people stated that if they used a specific title they had a better chance on catching that specific fish.

I guess you should see for yourself what works, and what doesn't.

Buffs

You can also consume food to get buffs concerning fishing.

Of course there are also pets that can increase your fishing skill and/or exp.

Paste Bait

Fishing Ability +2
Duration: 5 minutes

High Quality Paste Bait

Fishing Ability +3
Duration: 5 minutes

Aquired through Cooking

Exotic Herbal Wine

Cooking Ingredients: Essence of Liquor x1, Dough x3, Mineral Water x5, Leavening Agent x2
Item Effects: Fishing Speed +1 for 30 minutes

Aloe Yogurt

Cooking Ingredients: Aloe x5, Milk x2, Sugar x3, Leavening Agent x3
Item Effects: Fishing Speed +1 for 30 minutes

Fruit Wine

Cooking Ingredients: Exotic Herbal Wine x1, (Apple/Grape/Strawberry) x5, Essence of Liquor x3, Mineral Water x2
Item Effects: Fishing Speed +1 for 60 minutes

Aquired through Alchemy

Elixer of Fisher

Alchemy Ingredients: Wise Man's Blood x1, Sunrise Herb x6, Fir Sap x3, Powder of Flame x2
Item Effects: Fishing Speed +2

Experienced Elixir of Fisher

Alchemy Ingredients: Elixir of Fisher x3, Blue Regent x1
Item Effects: Fishing Speed +3

Combining any 2 of an elixer with Aal's Tear will convert it into a party buff, which covers up to 5 people.

Aquired through Crafting (by workers)

Silver Embroidered Fisher's Clothes

Crafting Ingredients: Flax Fabric x10, Powder of Time x10, Black Stone Powder x15
Item Effects: Fishing level +1 & Movement Speed level +1

Combining 2 of these can result into a +1. If you fail you lose both. If you succeed, your +1 Silver Embroidered Fisher's Clothes will give you item effects:

Fishing Level +1 & Movement Speed +1 & Fishing EXP +10%

Enchants after that increase Movement Speed and Fishing EXP even more.

Aquired through Questing/Rewards

Dim Magical Crystal: Fishing

Can be transfused with Armor
This does NOT work with Silver Embroidered Fisher's Clothes, because it has no sockets!
Item Effects: Fishing EXP +3%

Hotspots

Hotspot fishing is one of the ways you can approach fishing in Black Desert. Hotspot fishing requires you to have a boat. Boats are essential as these hotspots are dynamic and move every 30 minutes. To get a boat you can either buy it off the player marketplace or craft it yourself.

The Epheria Sailboat and Frigate are very fast, however their mounting/boarding speed is far slower so if you're really going out for hotspot hunts you might prefer the Fishing Boat instead.

These hotspots are indicated by a school of fish jumping out of the water with seagulls surrounding it. If you are fishing inland on a river or lake you will only see the school of fish jumping out of the water.

These hotspots will only give you yellow and depending on the type of hotspot orange fish, making the Mediah Fising Rod rather useless. If correctly executed, these spots can be highly profitable. There is also a chance you can catch multiple fish with one cast on a standard fishing rod. If you hold down “spacebar” and invest energy into your cast. With a maximum of 10 energy points you can roll for a chance to catch multiple fish. If you combined this method with a Triple-Float Fishing Rod you have a chance to obtain 5 fish in one cast!

AFK Fishing

Away from keyboard fishing is quite useful when you don’t have much time and can only come back every so often to play Black Desert. To activate this feature just select put your character to fish and that's it. Once there is a bite your character will automatically reel in the fish after 3 minutes and recast once the fish has been collected.

There is not much to AFK fishing, but there are some important things to consider.

The quality of the spot you are fishing at.
The distance to the nearest warehouse, trader and/or repair facility.
Wether it is a safe spot or not (pvp happens after lv50 so you can use a lower alt to avoid it).

Depending on how much time you want to spend between AFK sessions selling fish and repairing then you may or may not need to be close to a town.

Keep in mind that you have plenty of rods to choose from. Pick a rod that is most suitable for your AFK fishing method.

Most people go for a +10 Balenos or +8 Balenos with Brand (reduces repair cost by 33% and durability consumption by 50%).

The Epheria Rod seems to also be a common choice to avoid having to brand it if you have a large inventory.

Both rods should keep you going all night! As long as you have enough inventory slots of course..

This is not very good for active fishing though, then the Mediah, Calpheon or Balenos are a better option. With perhaps a float ^^

To reduce your system load due to having Black Desert running all the time you can close the game to tray. This is when the game runs as a background process but does not load your graphics card. Useful if you like to have your power bills under control. You can do this by pressing “Esc (default)” > “Disconnect” > “Tray” . This only works when the game is in windowed or windowed fullscreen mode.