Fishing and Master Angler Title Guide from the Wandering Fisherman

Overview

Stands-By-Water here. I know many people scoff at fishing in MMOs, but I also know there are those of you out there that enjoy watching the sunrise over a quiet river with a beer and some bait. Those are the special few who will relish and deserve the Master Angler title.The title Master Angler is a close second in rarity to the Emperor title strictly due to the shear amount of time that it takes to accomplish.

How to Fish

To fish, approach a fishing hole and you will see this prompt:

Press and hold the E key to reveal a quick access wheel for choosing which bait type to use:

Once you have selected a bait type, the prompt will change to show the selected bait type. To fish, simply press the E key. Your character will pull out a fishing pole and cast a line into the hole.

After a short time, you will hear a “reel” sound, see the bobber get pulled into the water, and see your character pull up the pole. You now have a few seconds to press the E key again to reel in your catch.

What can you fish up?

There is 5 different things you can catch while fishing

• Rare Trophy Fish – the Ultimate Goal
• Common Fish – for provisioning
• Special Bait – for water types
• Wet Gunny Sack – contains materials for crafting
• Used Bait – junk
• Fishing related home furnishings – Kelp, Coral, Fish, Seashell

There is 2 items you get from cleaning fish

• Fish meat – used for provisioning, all fish drop the same meat
• Perfect Roe – has a chance to drop when cleaning fish

Perfect Roe is used in Psijic-Ambrosia, which makes it very costly.

Water Type Defintions and Common fish

Most of the time fishing will yield common fish. Common fish can be cleaned for the fish meat that is used in provisioning and for Perfect Roe. No matter what the type of common fish, when cleaned they all yield the same fish meat.

Each pool can be one of 4 different water types. The different types of pools have different fish and when going after the rare trophy fish you need to know how to identify them. Using the wrong bait type on the wrong fishing hole has a small chance to net you a fish but a much bigger chance to net you worthless Used Bait. Some times the water type is not what you expected when you cast, so look sharp, paying attention to the water type will net you more catches and more chances for rare fish.

Water Type

Description

Common Fish Catches

Caught Bait Catches

Foul Water

Foul water fishing holes can be found in fetid, murky pools of water such as sewers, swamps and near decomposing corpses.

Slaughterfish and Troudh

Chub

River

River fishing holes can be found in moving bodies of fresh flowing water that drain into a lake or the ocean.

River Betty and Salmon

Fish Roe

Lake

Lake fishing holes can be found in still bodies of water with deep holes or overgrowth.

Silverside Perch and Spadetail

Shad

Ocean

Ocean fishing holes are almost anywhere on the coast. Coastal cities, such as Ebonheart and Skywatch, have docks with fishing holes.

Dhufish and Longfin

Minnow

Bait

To maximize catches you must use the correct type of bait with the correct water type. Specialized bait is either farmed or caught.

NOTE: Simple Bait – this can be purchased from any general vendor and is almost completely worthless. It is inferior to the four specialized bait types, with a “catch” rate of less than 50%.

Farming Bait

Fish Roe, Shad, Minnow and Chum are caught bait and cannot be farmed, they are only caught from fishing holes.

For the master angler achievement I highly recommend buying bait from guild stores. Bait is pretty cheap from guild stores ranging from 3g ea to 10 gold ea. I will list current market rate for bait as wells as farming locations if you want to go that route.

Insect Parts
As of the time of this post the current market rate for Insect Parts is about 3g ea.
Insect parts drop from flying bugs: torch bugs and butterflies.
The best place to farm these is in Shadowfen or Rivenspire. Wander near rivers and grassy areas and the flying bugs are plentiful.

Crawlers
As of the time of this post current market rate for crawlers is about 4g ea.
Picking alchemy and clothing mats can produce worms or crawlers. Crawlers can also be farmed by killing small spiders, centipedes, etc.

Daggerfall Covenant – Arlimahera’s Sanctum in East Bangkorai

Aldmeri Dominion – Scuttle Pit in East Grahtwood

Ebonheart Pact – Hrogar’s Hold in West Stonefalls

Guts
As of the time of this post the current market rate for guts is 8g ea.
Guts drop form any small animals, frogs, squirrels, rats, etc…

Daggerfal Covanent – Goat’s Head Oasis in Alik’r Desert

Ebonheart Pact – Narsis in western Deshaan.

Aldmeri Dominion – Sacred Leap Grotto in East Gratwood

Worms
As of this post the current market rate for worms is 10g ea.
Worms are by far the hardest bait to find. Picking alchemy and clothing mats can produce worms or crawlers. They also drop from zombies.

The best place to farm zombies is the Vile Laboratory in Cold Harbor, but you will have a bit of competition because this is also a popular xp grind area. For the Master Angler achievement, I strongly recommend buying worms from guildies and various guild stores. If you keep checking everyday eventually you will find a stack or two of worms for a decent price.

All Factions – Vile Laboratory in South Cold Harbor

Getting the Title

To get the Master Angler title you must fish up all the rare trophy fish in every vanilla zone in the game

Dominion Fisherman
Covenant Fisherman
Pact Fisherman
Coldharbour Angler
Khenarthi’s Roost Angler
Stros M’Kai Angler
Bleakrock Angler
Cyrodiil Angler

To increase you chances of getting rare fish it is best to fish in a group of up to 4 people. Although not officially confirmed it is believed that there is a 5% chance for one person, 10% with two, 15% with three, and 25% with four or more people fishing the hole.

It is highly recommended to enable auto-loot while fishing. When fishing with other people, a hole can be finished while you’re looking at what you’ve caught, causing you to lose your catch, so turn on auto-loot and you won’t lose that elusive Midget Salmon!

Once the Rare Trophy Fish goes in your inventory it will be marked off the list on your achievement, after you catch it, it may be vendored. The Trophy Fish is bound to your character and cannot be put in the bank or traded.

Rare Fish Water Types

Most zones, not all, will have all four water types, each type contains 3-4 different rares. In order to get all the rare fish you need to fish in all the water types across each zone.

Aldmeri Dominion

Ebonheart Pact

Daggerfall Covenant

Coldharbor (only foul water holes)

Cyrodiil

Fishing Hole Locations

Fishing hole maps can be found here: [link]

Add-ons

Rare Fish Tracker [www.esoui.com]– Rare Fish Tracker by katkat42 is the single most essential addon for the dedicated fisherman. It has a pop-up dialog, which you can keybind, that shows the water types in each zone, along with their associated fish. It also keeps track of which fish you’ve caught and allows you to see at a glance which water types you need to fish to clear a zone.

Votan’s Fisherman[www.esoui.com] – A close second in value is Votan’s Fisherman by Votan, which gives you several utilities that make fishing easier. It has a customizable visual and audio alert for when you catch a fish. Once you’ve caught a fish and identified the water type of the hole, Votan’s will show the water type on the casting prompt along with a list of what you’ve historically caught in this hole.

Votan’s Fish Fillet[www.esoui.com] – Auto fillets a stack of fish. Very helpful if you have fish to be cleaned piling up in your inventory