Cooking & Fishing 1-300

World of Warcraft Guide: How To Level Fishing and Cooking To 300

If you are like me you have neglected the possibility of leveling up your fishing and cooking skills to level 300. I have recently followed this guide and it has helped me out greatly! I leveled up my fishing and cooking to level 300 together in under 20 hours time. Fishing and cooking are great money makers IF they are totally maxed out at 300.

You need to take these seriously if you really want to have MASSIVE amounts of gold available to you, or you could just go HERE if you don't have the time available to get the gold yourself. Ultimately, the choice is yours!

For fishing, there is no concern over which zone you are working. As long as you can fish that zone, you get the same skill points for catching whatever drops as you can just going for the Small Brilliant Smallfish of the newbie zone. The fact is you could get to fishing skill level 225 without leaving the n00b zone.
Cooking is a different matter. It is like all the other skills besides fishing, once you do so many of the little stuff, it turns gray to you and you no longer get skill-ups from cooking it.

Thus, while you could stay in the n00b zone to catch the 700+ fish to get your fishing skill to 225, you would not be able to follow it with cooking skill ups after lvl 120, which is where Longjaw Mud Snapper (the highest fish you can catch in the beginning zones) turns gray for you.

Now before I go any further, please understand that while it sounds like a fishing class, the cooking is, for me, a necessary adjunct! If you are going to fish, you are leaving serious money on the table by not cooking them up!

Each of the races has a local starting fish-pond (or sea, as the case may be).
Undead: It is the lake east of Brill.
Taurens: The lake just north of Bloodhoof Village.
Orcs, Trolls: The sea just south of Sen’jin Village.
Humans: Start fishing near Goldshire.
Dwarves, Gnomes: North of Brownall Village in western Dun Morogh Night Elves: Can choose the lake south of Dolenaar, the waters in and around Darnassus, or the sea near the boat dock in Rut’Theran Village.

Not surprisingly, each of these starting zones has a fishing trainer right there, directly beside the water in which you are going to fish. There are other fishing trainers scattered here and there, the most curious to me is the Goblin in Iron Forge, standing beside water which cannot be fished. However, since you must start in water’s you can fish, use the start zones as discussed above.

If you are starting late in life, so to speak, it doesn’t really matter where you start fishing. You could even go to the fishing n00b zones for the other faction if you were minded to piss people off just out of principle.

Alternatively, you could grow your fishing with your character by spreading the 20 hours across many levels. In fact, there is a strategy in the Guide that suggests that maxxing your fishing at 150 for level 10 would make you an UBER fighter using just your fishing pole as a weapon.
Now, there is a formula for how many fish you need to catch in order to get one skill point. It is N = 1 + (SkillLevel-75)/25. Roughly, 1 skill point per fish up to level 75 then adding another fish every 25 fish. The formula is approximate, there is an element of random distribution around the calculated number, but it means that you can expect to catch between 1300 and 1500 fish to reach skill level 300.

OK, how am I going to catch 1,500 fish in 20 hours? That is like 75 per hour! Actually, it is more like 100 per hour with an hour for moving from zone to zone, another 3 hours for doing the master fishing/cooking quests and an hour for cooking it all up. 100 fish per hour is very realistic, if you are in waters at or below your level and you use the right bait!

The only thing you have to remember is to use a lure! If you can fish a zone without a lure, you will start by getting a lot of “Your fish got away”. That ruins the 100/hour rate. Try the zone without a lure, if you can cast, then add nightcrawlers or better and you will loose very few fish.

Further, since you are leveling your cooking at the same time, when your bags are full of fish, cook up the most common fish until you get no more skill ups from it. You might, at this time, try mailing off full stacks of cooked fish to your AH mule to see if you can create a market for it.

Here is the program:

Lvl 1-75: fish the shit outta the n00b zone. You can do the whole thing in less than an hour. Just make sure you start by adding Shiny Baubles to your pole every 10 minutes for the first 30 minutes. Now, every n00b zone fishing trainer has a fishing supplies vendor or a Trade goods vendor very nearby who sells cooking recipes. You get the recipe for Brilliant Smallfish or Slitherskin Mackerel. Cooking just the fish you catch will get your cooking skill above 50, which is a necessity before moving on the the next zone.

Lvl 50-125 (yes, there is some overlap here) fish in the zone following your race’s transition zone. Horde go to Ratchet or the Silverpine coast, Alliance, fish Loch Moden, Darkshore or the Westfall coast. Make sure you buy the recipe for either Longjaw Mud Snapper or Rainbow fin Albacore, these are the lvl50 cooking recipes necessary for further skill-ups. Again, the recipes are always available in or near the town closest to the waters in which you can catch the fish. At some time, you will start to catch Bristle Whisker Catfish, which requires cooking lvl 100. If you are not to the right level yet, save the fish until your cooking catches up by cooking the Albacore/Mudsnappers you are also catching. This is the last time your fishing will be ahead of your cooking.
Further, in the second zones mentioned, you will start to catch Oily Blackmouth and Firefin Snapper, fish you can’t cook, but which are “money fish” meaning that you can sell them on AH for sometimes big profit. At one time, Oily’s were bringing 15s. each in IF. When I was learning the economy, way back when I was a n00b, I made my first (smallish) fortune just selling Oily Blackmouth and Firefin Snapper which I had caught using a fish-bot, which I have since abandoned.

Also, for you adventurous Allies, the Money fish of all money fish, Deviates can be caught at this level. If you wanna venture into The Barrens for fishing, go for it. My PvE server often has hated Alliance fishermen in the sacred Horde treasure fishing holes. Sometime, I have taken my NE hunter into Wailing Caverns just for the fishing. Inside the instance, Deviates drop twice as often as outside, however, there are no schools like you find in Lushwater Oasis.

One word parenthetically here. Darnassus, Stormwind, Thunder Bluff and Orgrimmar all have waters you can fish. These waters drop a few Smallfish, lots of Longjaws and some Bristle Whiskers. The spread on the fish levels is too great to rely on the city fishing to get too far cooking, but if you are in town with some time on your hands, you can always drop a line for some skill ups.

Lvl 100-175 Take your pick of zones. The rule of thumb I use is that the third fishing zone will give you the fish which you can eat when cooked which are appropriate for lvl 25-35 characters. Your cooking will be the BristleWhiskers and Tangy clam meat from the Small clams from the sea in the 20-something zones. Also, at this level, you should consider fishing the river in Hillsbrad Foothills., Decrepit Ferry in Silverpine, Mirkfallon Lake in Stonetalon Mts and Mystral Lake in Ashenvale for Sage Fish. You can cook these at skill lvl 80, from recipes sold by every cooking supply vendor and will get health and mana from eating them, plus a super buff for mana users of 3 mana per second for 15 minutes. The sagefish are only caught from the swirls which denote schools of fish. After catching 4-5 fish, the school dissipates and you have to move on the the next. This activity breaks up the monotony of fishing and provides you with a mess of food which your mana users will cherish.

Lvl 150-225 Any where you like, my dear, except Tanaris, Feralas and Azshara. You will be catching Mithril Head Trout and Rockscale Cod, which require a cooking skill level of 175, but which come in abundance now because you are catching 5-6 fish per skill point and don’t need to worry about having enough. Recipes are found here and there, keep an eye peeled whenever you are near a vendor along the seacoast. Also, at this level, you will want to be fishing the Lake in Stranglethorn and the south shore of Lake Loerderon for Greater Sagefish. Same benefits as the regular ones, but more of it and it takes a cooking level of 175 and the recipe is from the same vendor which sold you the junior Sagefish recipe. If you fish the coasts in zones from Dustwallow and Stranglethorn and higher, you will also be catching Spotted Yellowtail, which are the money fish after your master quest. You need skill level 225 to begin cooking them and you will get skillups all the way to 300 from them.

Quest time:

Look it up. The fishing quest takes you all over the world and is time consuming because of the travel. The cooking quest is a gimme after you get the Large Eggs. The Clams you need for it will be falling among the fish you are catching.

Lvl 225+ Time for payback! Over half the fish you catch on your way to 300 will be caught after you become a Master Fisherperson. Your skill is high enough, with bait, to catch the granddaddy of money fish, the Stonescale Eel. It is only available in Tanaris, Feralas and Azshara. The drop rates average 10-15% and the rest of the time you will be catching mostly Yellowtail; Big Clams (10-15%), with their chance for Black, Lustrous or Golden Pearl drops; and some other fish thrown in. The cooking recipe for Yellowtail, btw, is from the goblin vendor in Steamwheedle Port, Tanaris. Also, I have found a small market for cooked Yellowtail. It gives 1335 health points on eating and sometimes fetches 40-50s. per stack on AH. The fish vendors charge 80s. for a stack and some players appreciate the discount, which is all profit to you, albeit not a big one because folks just do not go to AH to buy food. The only better food is the Lobster Stew which gives 2148 health, but the lobster is only caught off the shores of Azshara with a minimum fishing skill of 400! (your maxxed out 300 plus Aquadyamic Fish Attractors).

I have left out some of the more exotic fish. Poached Sunscale Salmon, for example, restores 6 health every 5 seconds for 10 min. You search what you want to cook. Go to Thottbot and knock yourself out.

Summary, fishing is not that difficult. If you are willing to spend almost 2 calendar days staring at the water, you can be the boss! Where does this lead? Why to the Essence of Water, of course. This wonderful commodity fetches 5-8g. each and is most reliably available in the Azshara waters at skill levels ABOVE 400. Once you are maxxed out fishing, your return will be awesome. After the swirls are fished out, you will be catching Stonescale eel, and thick shelled clam, all of which have dollar signs swirling around them.

And since you are fishing, the Cooking should be an automatic!

Be sure to bookmark this page and check out the other guides to get the most out of your playtime in this game.