I currently have 61 on my main for fishing, and fishing in open water only gets trash. I don’t know if this deliberate or a bug - if anyone else has noticed this or found a way to fix it, I’d appreciate knowing.
In the past once you get past around 30 you start fishing up actual fish, not sure why by this stage Im getting nothing (other than when I fish in pools).
I got Fishing up to over 150 skill and was still only getting trash from open water casts. Apparently school-less fishing is going to require a crafted rod, near-max skill, and that weird new stacking fishing line thingie.
Seems like way more trouble than it’s worth, if you ask me.
If thats true its very bad design. And I note my main is a tailor and I made the Algaria Weaverline for my main and its had zero effect for open water fishing.
At this point I may as well have just saved the mats.
On the other hand, there are seemingly more schools in these zones than previously. So much so that I had to turn off tracking on my hunter that just wanted to see herbs…because they were getting distracting.
Given how convoluted and terribad Cooking appears to be in TWW (it’s somehow even worse than DF, which shouldn’t be possible), I don’t think I’m going to waste any more time on either for the foreseeable future.
To fish for fish you need to fish in the fishy water pools, not open water.
And yet, in every other expansion of the game you could fish outside of pools and once you reached a certain level the trash would gradually change to actual fish.
So please, can you show me where it says anywhere in the information on fishing that we can only fish up fish from pools? Because that is why I am asking.
I noticed that the fishing skill goes up to 300, but someone was saying that they did the grind and are still getting grays in open water non-pool fishing so maybe it IS all just about pools now.
That’s what I’d like to know for sure. Because if it is I may not bother with fishing after I get whatever special items it might offer. It would seem a ridiculous change and I’m fast getting over ridiculous changes.
Some expansions encouraged way more fishing in pools, this seem to be one. Personally I prefer that choice as it’s more interesting than being able to sit at one point.
Is it still worth using the legion artifact for fishing or do we really need to upgrade to an engineering made rod?
First, nice to see fishing make it to the general forums. 
I have been fishing but only in pools, of which there are many!
Then there are all those fish that want you to throw them back in, which I have not tried.
Now cooking…haven’t even gone there yet.
Seems like they intend for you to use the new fishing rod and gear as it has perception and fishing skill specific to TWW. Also seems to have a system to buff it overtime with threads a bit like the remix cloak if you played that.
I fished my way to 300 in one sitting while watching a Twitch streamer on Monday and I got the mount drop for watching the stream and a lot of fish. I got a lot of junk too but it took less than 3 hours to do.
I know people keep saying: fish in pools.
Yes, I know that you get fish from pools. My main concern was whether this was intended or a bug and I wanted to know if anyone had noticed any comment on fishing in that regard in all the many and varied articles put up in months previous (both early on, on beta and now live) as to whether this was a bug or intended.
I guess my best bet is to treat it like a bug and put a post on that forum to see if anything will happen.
Certainly if its intended I think its the most stupid design choice since they decided archaeology wasn’t worth their time. We have a whole huge area of open water across the zones and limiting it to just pools is dumb. If I can cast my line out in the water I should have the chance to get fish. If they don’t want us to waste our time doing that, then make it only possible to fish in pools. That would make it absolutely clear of the intention.
Did you notice when fish started dropping?
I haven’t seen any open water fish so far, around 70 skill.
I am guessing that this is some kind of anti-botting approach by Blizzard. But for me if this expac is mostly about pool fishing with not much in the open water, I’ll pass on it like I’m passing on cooking this time (which is more messed up than fishing is, even if fishing is pools only).
I’ve enjoyed fishing since vanilla, but some expansions they really get it wrong and I’ve avoided it. Their philosophy on fishing seems to change radically from expansion to expansion in any case.
Professions in general circa DF.
It’s their revenge for our pushback against the war on flying.
I mostly caught junk but the occasional fish started coming pretty early. Also got two fishing line upgrades but I’m still using the pole I had from Shadowlands so that went into the bank for now. Several green and blue fish too. Will have to see what is special about them later.
I was mainly interested in getting my skill to 300. Will only fish pools now.
This sounds awful, I love sitting in the city fishing while I talk in trade and guild. Thought I just needed higher fishing :c
It’s been answered in this thread: fishing in TWW has a progression system where you gain a ton of perception through threads / items that you don’t have right now so you are not fishing up fish. threads cap at 100 fishing, 100 perception
the new rods are 150 perception, 8/18 skill
new hat has either 28 or 48 perception (i’ve seen both posted not sure which is which)
Not fishing up fish regularly is also dampening the amount you are catching via throwing them back in (10 fishing, 45 perception)
so, drumroll what is your fishing perception at that you have decided this must be a bug since you’re only getting greys. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say if it’s not 0 its definitely closer to 0 than ~350, right? right?
this is how misinformation starts: it’s not “only pools” it’s that the point of pools is that they don’t need as much perception.
But hey, I sure see a bunch of people only talking about their fishing skill up in hurr.
Also, what zones are you doing at what skill/perception. Did you bother reading the fishing guide? Dorn is recommended 1, Deeps 125, Hollowfall 225, Azh 375