Fishing is one of the more unique professions in New World, and it has the most involved gathering process with lots of different mechanics. Fishing is also one of the slowest professions to level. However you approach it, leveling up your fishing to 200 will take time. Luckily we can still make the process a bit faster and also way more profitable. Let’s dive into our New World Fishing Leveling Guide and get your fishing maxed out!
How Fishing Work in New World
To get started with fishing in New World, all you will need is a basic Fishing Pole. You can get a fishing pole from the first quest in the Fishing Quest Line, picked up from Michael Shields on the dock outside of Windsards.
You can also craft a simple fishing pole at the Engineering Workshop with Green Wood and Fibers. Of course, this is just some starter equipment, and you want to get upgrades as soon as you are able.
Fishing in New World consists of three minigames, Casting, Catching, and Reeling. Head to some water, press F3 to pull out your fishing pole, and let’s fish.
How Fishing Pole Casting Works – Cast Distance and Depths
To start casting, you hold down your left mouse button. You will see a slider start moving up on your screen. You want to let go right at the top for a long cast. If you hit it perfectly, you will see MAX flash on your screen. You always want to go for a MAX cast.
The further your cast distance, the easier the reeling portion of the minigames will be. If your cast distance is short, reeling fish in will take longer and require more work.
When your line hits the water, it will say the depth it landed in, Deep Water, Shallow Water, and Very Shallow Water. The depth determines how long you will have to wait for a catch, and the deeper, the better. If you land in Deep water, you can catch as soon as 5 seconds, and if you land in Very Shallow water, it can take as long as 30 seconds.
How Catching Works – The Fish Bite
Once your line hits the water, you wait. When a fish is about to bite the line, you will see “Get Ready!” flash on your screen. Wait for a second, and you will see an icon of a fish and hook. As soon as you see this icon, left click to hook the fish.
How Fishing Pole Reeling – The Tension Game
Ok, we cast our line and hooked a fish. Now it’s time to reel it in. Hold down the left mouse button, and you will see a green marker with a progression bar around it. The green marker represents the line tension, and the progression bar is how close you are to catching the fish. You want to keep the tension in the green. As you reel the fish in, the tension may go into the orange and then the red. If the tension is red for too long, your line will snap, and you will lose the fish along with the bait used to catch it.
To reduce the tension on the line, simply let go of your mouse button and let it return to green. You can also repeatedly click your mouse button to keep the tension low and still reel the fish in slowly.
That’s it, now we know the basics of fishing, but there is more to it than just throwing the line in and catching a fish. We want to be as efficient as possible when we fish and also catch the best fish. This is where bait, gear, trophies, and finally hotspots come in.
Bait
When you first pull out your fishing pole using F3, you will have the option to attach bait to the hook. You will have multiple types of bait, but they will all fall into two primary categories “Fresh Water Bait” and “Salt Water Bait.” If you are unsure what water type you are about to fish in, you can simply walk into the water and see if you can collect it. If you can, then you’re in Fresh Water. You can also look at your map; Fresh Water has a light blue color, and Saltwater is dark and stripped.
Different bait will give you small to large boosts in catching either better fish or larger fish within the two water types.
In Fresh Water, FireFly bait is the best for better fish, and Oyster bait is the best for larger fish. You can farm FireFlys easily by picking up Reeds around bodies of water, and Oyster bait is salvaged from catching oysters.
In Salt Water, Glowworm bait is the best for better fish, and Electric Eel bait is the best for larger fish. Glowworm bait can be farmed by picking up flint all over, and Electric Eel bait can be salvaged from catching Electric Eels.
You can catch fish without using any bait. But as a general rule, you should always use bait when fishing.
Gear
One of the most significant ways you can boost your fishing is with gear that has fishing perks. The easiest way to get fishing gear is to follow the main fishing questline, which starts with Michael Shields outside of Windsward. When you complete the “Hotspot Hunt” portion of the questline, you will acquire your first fishing gear. Keep going through the questline, and you will get more gear. You can also find the “Vengeful Fisherman” line of gear from drops or at the auction house, although it’s a bit rare.
One piece of gear we may want to carry two off is the Fishing Pole. The fishing pole will have different perks for day and night time. Ideally, we want to roll one fishing pole for daytime fishing and one for nighttime fishing.
Trophies
If you own a house, you can put a trophy in it to increase your catching luck. Trophies are furniture crafted at the engineering workshop. They are pretty simple to craft material-wise but will require your furnishing to be leveled up. You can always find a player who has their furnishing leveled and get them to make you a trophy for a small fee.
Bonus Buffs from Focus Attributes
If you run the life staff and put points into focus, you can gain extra fishing buffs upon reaching point milestones. Here are the bonuses you will receive.
- 50 Points: +10% Fishing Line Tension
- 100 Points: +10% Yield When Salvaging
- 150 Points: -10% Decrease Carry Weight of Fish
- 200 Points: +10% Fishing Line Tension
- 250 Points: +10% Increase to Caught Fish Size
Now that we are buffing our fishing with bait, gear, trophies, and even attribute points, we need to learn about hotspots—the most crucial fishing buff.
How Hotspots Work
Fishing hotspots are a critical part of fishing in New World. Hotspots are scattered all over the map and come in 3 different types, Broad (1 Star), Rare (2 Star), and Secret (3 Star). The higher the star hotspot you’re fishing in, the better chance you have of catching better fish. Each hotspot will also give you an instant bite on your line as soon as you throw it in.
Fishing hotspots don’t last forever, and you can only fish a certain amount out of them before they run dry. Much like other resources in the game, after a specific cooldown, they will respawn. Here are some stats on the different hotspots.
Broad Hotspot
- Total Fish: 30
- Respawn Time: 20 to 30 Minutes
- Legendary Catch Chance: <5%
Rare Hotspot
- Total Fish: 20
- Respawn Time: 30 to 45 Minutes
- Legendary Catch Chance: ~5%
Secret Hotspot
- Total Fish: 10
- Respawn Time: 45 to 90 minutes
- Legendary Catch Chance: ~10%
A hotspot will look like a small section of water with tons of fish swimming and jumping around while it’s active. When the hotspot is depleted, it will just look like white swirling water with no fish. To utilize the hotspot, simply cast your line into it. You should get a bit almost instantly.
Active Hotspot 
Depleted Hotspot
You won’t have access to all of the hotspots right away. Different spots will become available to you as you level up your fishing. We will go into more detail about some of the more important locations in our leveling guide below. You can see all of the hotspots in the game by using this interactive map.
New World Fishing Leveling Guide – How To Level Fishing Fast
Now that we know most of the important factors about fishing in New World we can talk about how to get fishing leveled up fast. When talking about leveling quickly, we need to focus on one major factor.
Catching the best quality fish as often as possible.
The quality and size of the fish will yield you more XP, so on every cast, we want to maximize the chance of catching a higher-tier fish. In order to accomplish this, we need to make sure that we buff our fishing as much as possible. This includes equipping any fishing gear available, using bait, and adding trophies to our house. We discussed all of these topics higher up in the guide. In regards to bait, consider buying your bait at the auction house if it’s cheap, you will save yourself time running around farming it. Always use Firefly bait in fresh water and Glowworm bait in salt water.
Here is a list of the XP breakdown for the type of fish we can catch. You can see that frequently catching large rare fish will net use some great fishing XP.
- Common Grey: 100 – 150 XP
- Uncommon Green: 150 -175 XP
- Rare Blue: 175 – 200 XP
- Rare Treasure Chest: 200 XP
- Orange Legendary: 550 XP
We have two strategies to level our fishing.
- Pick one 2 star hotspot and farm it
- Pick multiple hotspots and run between them when one runs out (Preferred Method)
Option 1: Farm a single Rare 2 Star hotspot
Option 1 is very straightforward and should level your fishing slightly faster than option two since you won’t be wasting time running between hotspots. In this strategy, you pick a hotspot and fish it until it gets exhausted, then switch to the regular water and back to the hotspots when it respawns. Our recommendation is to find a Rare 2 Star Hotspot. It will provide a decent amount of fish and a lot of rares.
Option 2: Run a predefined route of hotspots
Option 2 is our preferred method. In this method, you will run between hotspots after one gets exhausted. Depending on the area you are in and the distance between the fishing spots, this method may be slightly slower than Option 1, but the yields will be much better. In the end, you will still level your fishing quickly and also turn a nice profit.
One thing that can mess this strategy up is other players fishing the same spots. They will deplete quicker, making you go to the next area earlier. However, when you can, move up and farm routes in higher-level areas. There is less of a chance of players being there. That’s why we will include fish farming routes in a few different areas and the minimum level your fishing will need to be to complete the route.
Keep in mind; you can keep running the same route forever. You don’t have to move to a higher-level area to get better leveling XP. But some routes are more condensed and will have fewer players on them. So if you are able to deal with the mobs in that territory, it may be a better option for farming.
Windsward – Minimum Fishing Level 7
Everfall – Minimum Fishing Level 30
Weavers Fen – Minimum Fishing Level 60
Restless Shore – Minimum Fishing Level 78
You can always make more routes, but those four should carry you deep into your fish leveling. Remember, you can always refer to this map for all of the fishing spots.
That’s our fishing leveling guide. We hope you found it helpful. If you have any questions or think some critical information is missing from this guide, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We will also be periodically updating this guide as the game changes, and we discover more information. Happy fishing!
