Fishing guide – Equipment

This chapter describes all of the fishing equipment that can be used to increase your fishing skills in Classic World of Warcraft.

In this chapter:

“Dwarves aren’t known for their subtlety.” – Inscription on the “Dwarven Fishing Pole”… a gun

Lures

Lures (bait) add a temporary skill bonus to your fishing pole, which is expended after 5 or 10 minutes. They increase your effective fishing skill, without altering your personal skill.

Lures are commonly purchased from vendors such as Fishing Suppliers. Some may be manufactured by engineers or recovered from the corpses of monsters. To use a lure apply it to your fishing pole. ((In your inventory, left click on the lure, and then click once on the pole. The lure will take five seconds to be applied – wait for the progress bar to complete before starting to fish. An icon will be displayed while the lure is active – by default in the top-right of the screen.)) Lures add to your fishing skill at the time you cast the line. If the lure fades between casting and catching, that catch will still benefit from the lure skill bonus. Only one lure can be active at one time. Lures do not “stack” with other lures, however lures do stack with bonuses from fishing gear.

The table below lists all types of lure.

LureSkill BonusDuration (minutes)Minimum Fishing Skill RequiredCost (each)Availability
Shiny Bauble+2510150cFishing, trade, and some general goods suppliers. Completing the alliance-only quest “The Family and the Fishing Pole” gives some these (in the mail, sometime after finishing the quest).
Nightcrawlers+5010501sFishing, trade, and some general goods suppliers. Occasionally found on the corpses of Undead monsters (ghouls, zombies).
Aquadynamic Fish Lens+501050–Reward for alliance-only quest “Electropellers“, available from Wizbang Cranktoggle, who can be found near Auberdine, Darkshore.
Bright Baubles+75101002s 50cFishing and trade goods suppliers.
Flesh Eating Worm+7510100–Occasionally found on the corpses of Rotted One monsters in Duskwood.
Aquadynamic Fish Attractor+10051002s 50cLimited supply from fishing suppliers. Manufactured by engineers ((using a trained 150 skill recipe)), so may available via the Auction House.

Costs assume no reputation or rank-related reductions. All lures stack in 20s.

Aquadynamic Fish Attractors may be rare. Vendors have limited supplies. This typically means one or two, and only if someone else hasn’t purchased them recently. Engineers can make these, so you may find them sold via the Auction House. You will not always find as many as you need. You might pay more than the standard vendor price for them – perhaps as much as 5 silver each (1 gold for a stack of 20). Note that Aquadynamic Fish Attractors only last 5 minutes, instead of 10, so you will need twice as many for continuous fishing.

For the casual fisherman or woman, lures provide a way to fish more effectively in areas where their personal skill is not sufficient to stop fish getting away (or even to catch any fish at all). You should balance the cost of the lures against the “value” of the fish gained. To fish in the most difficult areas (such as Winterspring and the Bay of Storms in Azshara) without fish getting away, you will need an effective skill of about 425. That can’t be achieved with personal skill and lures alone, which is why people that are anglin’ for the best fish should try and gain some fishing gear.

Fishing Gear

Certain items of fishing gear give bonuses to fishing skill. Equipping the item increases your fishing skill until the item is unequipped. Bonuses from fishing gear all stack. For example, a bonus from a pole will stack with a bonus from a hat. Of course, you can only equip one pole at a time. The table below summarises all items that give an “equipable” bonus to fishing skill.

ItemSkill BonusMinimum Fishing Skill RequiredTypeAvailability
Blump Family Fishing Pole+31PoleReward from alliance-only quest “The Family and the Fishing Pole“, from Gubber Blump, found on Auberdine beach in Darkshore. The quest requires you to fish 6 Darkshore Groupers, which can be caught off the coast of Darkshore. The pole is bound to you, so there is no way for Horde to gain it (not that they should want to).
Strong Fishing Pole+510PoleAlso requires character level 5. Limited supply from fishing suppliers, but most carry one. Costs 9s 1c.
Big Iron Fishing Pole+20100PoleAlso requires character level 25. Rarely found in the Shellfish Traps on the floor of the ocean off the coast of Desolace, in the bay immediately south-west of Shadowprey Village. ((For those that use co-ordinates, around 20,80.))

Swim round opening all the traps you can find until one contains the pole. You are not looking for one particular trap – there is a chance of about 1 in 100 of any one trap containing a pole. Those odds are very variable – you may need to investigate hundreds of traps before finding a pole. Some of the traps contain a single ((level 34+)) monster, which you need to be able to fight. I recommend that you use underwater breathing potions, enlist the help of a special mage (I prefer that term to “warlock”) or Shaman who can cast underwater breathing, or acquire an item that allows you to breath underwater. From Fin, “You can actually stay underwater by positioning yourself over one of the scattered bubble points ((which resets your Breath meter)).” This will remove the need to return to the surface after investigating each trap, saving a lot of time.

The Shellfish found in most of the traps are for the Horde-only quest “Fish in a Bucket“. The pole is not bound to its finder, so you may find this pole for sale at the Auction House – but expect to pay over 20 gold for it.
Nat Pagle’s Extreme Angler FC-5000+25100PoleReward for the Horde-only quest “Snapjaws, Mon!“, from Katoom the Angler, in Revantusk Village, the Hinterlands. The quest requires you to kill 15 Saltwater Snapjaws, which can be found along the coast of the Hinterlands. The pole is bound to its new owner, so there is no way for Alliance to gain it.
Arcanite Fishing Pole+35300PoleOne of two possible rewards for winning the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza. The pole is bound to the winner, so you will not find this for sale at the Auction House.
Lucky Fishing Hat+51HeadReward for turning in a rare Keefer’s Angelfish during the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza. The hat also gives a ((+15)) bonus to your Stamina. The hat is bound to its owner, so you will not find this for sale at the Auction House.
Nat Pagle’s Extreme Anglin’ Boots+51FeetReward for turning in a rare Brownell’s Blue Striped Racer during the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza. The boots also gives a ((+12)) Stamina bonus. The boots are bound to their owner, so you will not find them for sale at the Auction House.
High Test Eternium Fishing Line+5150–Reward for turning in a rare Dezian Queenfish during the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza. The line can be applied (once only) to any fishing pole, to increase the pole’s skill bonus by 5. This stacks with any original bonus the pole has. The line is bound to it owner, so you will not find it for sale at the Auction House. The line cannot be applied via the trade window, so you cannot use the line on a pole that is bound to someone else. However, you can apply the line to a non-bound pole, then trade that pole to another person. The second person will receive the pole with the bonus. This does not work when selling via the Auction House, only in direct one-to-one trade. The “best” non-bound pole is the Big Iron Fishing Pole (clarification from Kahless).
Enchant Gloves – Fishing+2–HandsEnchanters can enchant any pair of gloves with a minor bonus to fishing skill. The enchant requires a ((145-point enchanting skill)) formula which is rarely carried by Murlocs along the coast of the Hillsbrad Foothills. Odd that I’ve never seen any Murlocs with fishing poles, but they are a strange race. If you cannot enchant yourself, expect to pay about one gold for this enchant to be done.

((Two further items are rumoured to exist which give bonuses to fishing skill. Neither of these has been found in recent patches:

  • The +5 fishing skill enchant to gloves. This seems logical because +2 and +5 enchants are available for other gathering professions.
  • The Darkwood Fishing Pole, with +15 fishing skill bonus. This seems logical because there is currently such a large gap between the widely available +5 pole, and the hard-to-find +20 pole. The pole is even mentioned on the official site.))

At the time of writing, the absolute maximum achievable fishing skill – from personal skill, lures and fishing gear – is 452 if you have won the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza. Without winning the contest the maximum skill is 442 for Horde and 437 for Alliance.

Addons and Utilities

You do not need any extra equipment ((“addons”)) to fish, however there is some that you may find useful.

Most of the functionality of a series of fishing utilities has now been integrated into a single package called Fishing Buddy, manufactured by Sutorix. ((It can be downloaded at WorldofWar.net or Curse Gaming.)) Fishing Buddy eases the process of casting ((by using the same mouse button as you loot and cast)), records statistics such as fishing skill and catches, and can quickly lure poles for you. Gatherer integrates with Fishing Buddy to record the location of fish pools.

((Fishing Buddy could originally be used to automatically re-cast a line after catching fish. This functionality was intentionally broken (by Blizzard) in patch 1.10.1.))

TackleBox is similar to Fishing Buddy, but does not record statistics on your catches. Impp’s Fishing Info does record this information ((but is no longer being developed)).

A utility called FishPing attached a large bell to the end of the bobber, to make it easier to hear. Unfortunately the proximity of the bell to the water made it go rusty and stop working. ((This modification was broken by patch 1.11, which prevents World of Warcraft’s media files being changed. The best alternative is Fishing Buddy, which disables all other ambient sounds, making the bobber splash slightly easier to hear.))

((Fishing ‘bots are utilities that automatically catch fish and recast without human interaction. Most identify the location and movement of the bobber by analysing the colour of pixels on the screen. Fishing ‘bots are commonly either scripted within in-game addons or run within 3rd-party scripting utilities. The use of these fishing ‘bots is an exploit and may result in a ban if detected. They also distort the economy, making it harder for legitimate fishermen and women to profit. For these reasons, you will not find any further details here.))

Further Reading