Fishing in Black Desert Online can be a highly lucrative activity if done correctly. To fish in BDO, you only need a fishing rod. You can get your first fishing rod from vendors that sell fishing rods (fisher merchants and material vendors), the central market, or as a quest reward.
To start fishing you only need to stand near open water or a river, equip your fishing rod, and press space. This starts the fishing timer and when you catch a fish you need to press space again to reel it in. At this point a mini-game starts, which has two parts. First, you need to press the space button when the moving bar is in the “good” part and then you need to press the WASD buttons in the correct order to get the fish. If you auto-fish you skip this step but need to wait for up to 3 extra minutes.
Despite the simplicity of basic fishing, there are many more things to consider to maximize your profit. In this Black Desert Online fishing guide, I will go over every aspect of active fishing and fishing in general. When you’re done reading this guide I would also recommend reading this auto fishing guide.
The Fishing Rods
The first thing you need to be familiar with is the different fishing rods. Below is a list with all the rods in Black Desert Online, the required skill levels to use them, and the bonuses you get from each rod.
The artisan rods (the ones with a national name, e.g. Balenos ) on this list are special as they are repairable and can be enhanced using black stones (see this enhancement guide on how to do that). Their highest enhancement level is +10, but that level is hard to reach. You can fail at each step of the road and too top that off, a failure when enhancing above +7 could drop the enhancement level down one level. For example, if you fail with a +9 rod it could become a +8 rod again.
Because of the possibility of dropping a level, it is becoming common practice to simply force-enhance these rods to +10. It will cost you a decent amount of silver, but at the same time will seriously reduce the time needed to get max enhancement. Now, let’s look at each of the artisan rods.
The Epheria Fishing Rod
This rod is the very best rod you can get when you are starting your fishing career. First, it’s repairable, which means that you don’t need to constantly buy a new rod once your rod loses its durability. Secondly, you can enhance it with black stones. Each level of enhancement increases the total durability by 10 points.
I would recommend getting the Epheria rod as fast as you can, enhance it to +3 if you can, and restore its durability. This way you get a reusable rod with a durability of 80, which should be enough for a beginner. You can then later work on getting it to +7 as having a durability of 120 is almost certainly enough for active fishing. After you reach fishing skill artisan 1 you should consider switching to the Mediah rod.
The Mediah Fishing Rod
The Mediah fishing rod is the best rod you can have for active fishing (with a few specific exceptions). While you do not get extra durability points when you enhance the rod, you do get a bonus to your chance of getting rare fish (yellow grade). This bonus is additive and due to how the fishing loot tables work is really a big bonus. At +10 enhancement level, you get a +5% bonus to catching rare fish.
The Balenos Fishing Rod
The Balenos rod is best used for auto-fishing (afk-fishing) as it has a good reduction to the auto-fishing timer. At + 10 enhancement level the rod gets a -25% reduction to the auto-fishing timer. It also gets +5 to its durability per level so at +10 the Balenos rod has a durability of 100.
The Calpheon Fishing Rod.
In my opinion, this rod is the only one that is practically useless. It gives a bonus to catching “big fish” the same way the Mediah rod does, but “big fish” is essentially blue grade fish. So, unless you are working on a quest where you need a certain number of blue grade fish to complete, the Mediah rod will always be better when it comes to profit.
The Triple Float Fishing Rod.
The triple float fishing rod is not an artisan rod but it has the ability to catch up to three fishes in one haul, making it special. A recent test showed that using this rod was not worth it for general fishing. However, if used exclusively on yellow grade fish hotspots (see below) or Coelacanth spawns then it resulted in a greater net profit. So if you are all for going after yellow fish hotspots in the sea, then this is the rod for you.
Ash and Maple Floats
There are two types of floats that you can equip on your offhand while fishing. The ash float increases your chance of getting bigger fish and the maple float increases your chance of getting rare fish. Both floats can be enhanced by using black stones, increasing their benefits up to +5%. You can use the Ash float as you reach professional 1 fisher skill, but the maple float requires artisan 1 skill. To understand how the bonuses from these floats work we first need to know how the loot system for fishing works.
The Fishing Loot System
The loot system for fishing is most likely a layered RNG system. This is a theory, but it is based on several tests and trials. The RNG starts with determining which main group you get your loot from. The groups are prize catch, treasure, rare fish, big fish, and common.
Each of these groups has a percentage chance of success. Starting with the highest value group, if an RNG roll is successful then the system moves to the groups’ loot table. If the RNG roll is a failure for the group then the system goes down to the next group. This continues until the final group which is an auto success.
Each group’s loot table then has its own layered system that works the same way. Below is an image that shows how this might work. Note that the percentages are only for illustration. The actual percentages depend on player fishing skill level and location.
The rare fish group has yellow tiered fish and the big fish group has the blue tiered fish, with the type of fish in each group determined by the location you are fishing in.
The Effect of Mediah Rod and Maple Float on Catch Chances
The reason why it is useful to understand how the loot system works is due to the items that give bonuses to the base chance of getting the rare or big fish category through this RNG system. The Mediah rod and the maple float both give a bonus to your chance of getting the rare category. At enhancement level +10 this bonus is a total of 5% + 5% = +10%. And this is the important bit. This 10% is added to the base chance.
To put this into perspective, if the base chance of getting rare fish is 2%, the chance of getting rare fish with a +10 Mediah rod and a +10 maple float is now 12%. So, for every 100 catches, you will get 12 yellow fish with the +10 Mediah rod and +10 maple float instead of only 2. This is something I have tested myself and confirmed. Below is a screenshot of this test.
The number of fish is not very high, and this test is not extensive enough to nail down precise percentages, but it is clear how the bonus from the maple float and Mediah rod is added on top of the base chance. This means that regardless of what you are fishing, you should always have a maple float in your secondary slot with the highest enhancement level you can manage to increase your fishing profits.
The same should hold for the bonus to catching big fish from the Calpheon rod and the ash float, but I cannot see how anyone would prefer going after blue grade fish instead of yellow grade fish unless it is connected to a quest.
Effect of Fishing Skill and Fishing Ranks
The ability scores that affect fishing are two, your fishing skill, which goes from beginner to guru, and your fishing rank which goes from 0 to 5.
The Fishing Skill
The effect of the fishing skill is somewhat unclear. There are however three things that are believed to be affected by your fishing skill.
First, a higher fishing skill seems to increase the percentage chance of the higher tiered groups (Treasure, Rare, Big). Secondly, it is theorized that a high fishing skill also reduces, on average, the number of buttons that appear during the mini-game. The first point is most likely correct, while the second point is more contested. The fishing skill does not appear to affect the time from throw to bite.
Finally, a higher fishing skill increases the chance of your fishing rod not losing durability for a throw. At Master fishing levels, about 30% of throws do not result in reduced durability.
The Fishing Rank.
Your fishing rank ranges from 0 to 5 and its sole purpose is to reduce the average time spent from throwing the line until a fish bites. I believe the time reduction is around 7% per level for a max of about 35% at fishing rank 5. What makes this hard to pin down is the fact that there seems to be a system in place that depends on time brackets. For example, at rank 0 the time from throw to bite might never be lower than 40 and never higher than 80. This is due to what I call a timescale bracket.
What happens as you gain rank is that you move to a faster timescale bracket. So at rank 5, you might have a timescale ranging from 24 to 47 seconds. Now what is interesting about that is that there are at least three sets of time brackets. For example, at fishing rank 3, the Randis sea node has a timescale bracket ranging from 29 to 57 seconds. The same rank at the Coastal Caves and Epheria has a timescale bracket ranging from 21 to 39 seconds (the latter number might be a little higher) and Tarif (inland) has a bracket from about 41 to 63 seconds.
Finally, at fishing rank 5 you also get a 5% reduction to the auto-fishing timer.
How to Increase Your Fishing Rank
The easiest way to increase your fishing rank is to join a guild that has invested in the fishing skill line. This can increase your fishing rank by +3.
Next, you can invest in silver embroidered fishing clothes. You should be able to get these clothes to a +2 enhancement with relative ease and even +3 with a little luck. +2 is enough if you are in a guild that has a +3 fishing rank bonus.
You can also use the steel rod, but you really should only use an artisan rod as soon as you have the silver to buy one.
There are also foods and drinks that can increase your fishing rank. I would recommend the Balenos Special as it gives a +2 to fishing rank over 90 minutes.
Finally, you can use an alchemy stone of life. A blue grade alchemy stone of life gives a bonus to your fishing rank, with the sturdy type and higher giving a +2 bonus. A life spirit stone also gives +2 to your fishing rank.
Remember that you only get benefits for up to 5 ranks in fishing, so any combination that gets you there is enough.
Fishing Clothes.
The main fishing clothes you should get is silver embroidered fishing clothes. These clothes give you a boost to movement speed, increase your fishing rank and when enhanced, give extra experience to your fishing skill. Basic fishing clothes give you a +1 to the fishing rank and +1 to movement speed. A +2 silver embroidered fisher’s clothes (which every fisherman should have) give you +2 to your fishing rank, +2 to movement speed, and +10% to fishing experience earned.
You can also choose to buy a fishing costume from the pearl store. This is the Splat Fisher’s Clothes set. It increases your fishing rank by +1, increases your swim speed, and reduces endurance cost while swimming.
Finally, there is the professional fisher uniform you get as a reward when you hit fishing skill artisan 1. This set of clothes is worse than the silver embroidered ones as they cannot be enhanced. However, with an equipment tailoring coupon, you can change it into an outfit and wear it as well as the silver embroidered clothes.
Foods and Drinks That Buff Fishing Ability
As mentioned, there are several foods and drinks that can buff your fishing ability by increasing your fishing rank or reducing the auto fishing time. Below is a table that shows these items, their bonuses, and effect duration. Of these, the Special Balenos Meal is the best for fishing rank and the Arehaza special is best for auto fishing.
There are also a couple of elixirs that increase your fishing rank. These are called Fisher’s Elixir and Skilled Fisher’s Elixir. They increase your fishing rank by +2 and 3 respectively but only last 5 and 8 minutes.
Fishbait
There are two versions of bait in the game. Paste bait and high-quality paste bait. Both increase fishing rank, with the regular paste increasing it by +2 and the high-quality one increasing it by +3. You can get fish bait from the market, by completing quests from otter fishers or by exchanging them for fishing tokens. You can use bait at the same time as food.
Where is the Best Place to Fish?
This is a hard question as there are so many variables that matter. But I can give you a few tips.
A good place to active fish when you are beginning is located just outside Velia, seen in the image below. Just go west from Velia and find the crowd of fishers. This is a static blue spot which means you have a higher chance of getting blue quality fish. The offset to this spot is that it is always crowded, meaning that much more time passes between a throw and a haul.
Later, you want to find a spot that is either safe or remote, has ancient relic crystal shards, and is not crowded. This can be found in some of the towns and the outer parts of the map.
Secondly, you must have the node connected to the area you are fishing in connected all the way to a town with an imperial fish trader to maximize your fishing profit. So, if you are sea fishing you must invest in the nodes where you fish. This is no longer the case. You do not need to have your nodes connected anymore.
Thirdly, you should keep in mind the different time brackets between sea, coast, and inland fishing spots.
Active Fishing on Sea versus Land
Personally, I would recommend sea fishing over land fishing if you are active fishing. At sea, you have a far better chance to get yellow and blue grade fish than you have on land. You can also search for yellow grade fish hotspots (seagulls and jumping fish) where you get a yellow grade fish every catch. In the video below I show you how to find and spot the location of yellow fishing spots. Note that I forgot to mention in the video that higher fishing skill results in more seagull spots being visible.
Sea fishing is also on average faster than inland fishing. That being said, it appears that coastal fishing might be fastest such as at the Coastal Caves, but you still get a lot of common fish and junk.
Now, some will say that you get fewer ancient crystal shads out in the sea than on land. Personally, I don’t think there is a difference on a per throw basis. What happens is that when auto fishing on land (which is, in my opinion, better for auto fishing) players normally select to throw away junk and green fish. Now since there is no junk out at sea and you get fewer green fish, you end up with fewer crystal shards, more high-quality fish in your full inventory, and less durability loss on your rod when auto fishing on the sea rather than on land.
To get into the sea you need a boat or a ship. You can always build your own, but I recommend reading my beginners’ sailing guide which shows you how to get a Bartali sailboat for free!
Where to Sell Your Fish?
You should always aim to sell your blue and yellow grade fish to an imperial fish trader as they give you a fixed 250% price on the fish they buy, which are most of the yellow and blue grade fish.
You also might want to have some distance between the node you sell your green fish and the node you catch them as you get a distance bonus from the trade managers. You can read a more detailed explanation of how to sell fish here.
Harpoon Fishing in BDO
Harpoon fishing is a subset of fishing that can only be performed at sea. To do so you need a boat and a harpoon, both of which you can buy from the market or build yourself.
The harpoons available are thin harpoons and thick harpoons. The thin harpoon has a durability of 30 and no skill requirement. The thick harpoon has a durability of 40 and you need fishing skill at professional 5 to use it.
When you have a harpoon and a boat or ship you need to sail to a sea location to which you have a node connected. When you have a spot, equip the harpoon and press space. You then need to wait a bit before detecting a fish. When you have detected the fish, you need to press space again and complete the mini-game. If you win the mini-game you get a fish. You can also watch the video on the side to see how to harpoon fish and win the mini-game.
Now if you liked this guide then be sure to share it with your friends and allies and feel free to check out my other Black Desert Online guides. Oh, and here is another link to the auto-fishing guide if you think that’s your thing.