Fishing Progression Guide: Levels 0 to 50

Asxent made this guide after maxing Fishing 50, so you don't waste time the way Asxent did. It's built for the fastest progression and gets you through the brutal early game with ease. It starts from zero, as if you've never fished.

How fishing works

Start by talking to Enid and fishing for a little. The quest is very simple and introduces the fishing skill. From there, this guide covers everything else you'll need.

Fishing has five stats: Fishing Speed, Sea Creature Chance, Double Hook Chance, Treasure Chance and Trophy Chance. Three matter for now:

Treasure Chance is explained in the optional Backwater Bayou section.

Before Fishing 20

Fishing minions

Fishing 20 needs about 522,425 fishing XP, so start with fishing minions:

• A tier 11 fishing minion makes roughly 3k fishing XP a day. With buffs (God Potion, Booster Cookie and a Squid pet), you can easily push that to 6k.
• Give them Large Storages, Super Compactors and Enchanted Lava Buckets, and let them work.
• With 10 tier 11 fishing minions, you'll reach Fishing 20 in about a week.
• You can buy minions from the SBZ or SBM server.

The minions guide covers minions in general.

Two things to get meanwhile

This takes about a week, so it lines up with the minions. If you already have both, still place the minions, but you can fish manually to speed things up.

Fishing 19 to 36: lava fishing in the Crystal Hollows

Skip all the super early fishing gear. Get Sponge armor and a Topaz Rod, both unlocked at Fishing 19, and head to the Crystal Hollows. This one spot takes you all the way to Fishing 36.

Worm fishing in the Precursor Remnants

When you fish in lava inside the Precursor Remnants, you can only catch Flaming Worms. They give an insane amount of fishing XP, and their only requirement is Fishing 19.

• Finding lava: look for a lobby where Khazad-dûm is inside the Precursor Remnants. It's full of lava.
• Heat: keep the Heat Resistance perk active.
• Mobs: they spawn around you, so box yourself in.

Squeezing out more stats

• Max the fishing perk in your HOTM tree if you can.
• Use an Ammonite pet for more sea creature chance.
• Use Worm Bait for a big boost to fishing speed.
• With spare coins, buy a high-level Legendary Squid pet. Swapping to it before you kill sea creatures gives extra fishing wisdom. Set your pet rules to swap to the Squid when you kill a sea creature, and to the Ammonite when you throw your rod.
• Equipment goes from Ichthyic to Finwave to Gillsplash.
• Buy the best Frozen Amulet you can afford.
• Drink Glowing Mush Mixin from Moby.
• Speedy Line is great if you have access to Roddy at the Bayou.

Fishing attribute shards give extra stats:

All of this together gives you a good base for lava fishing.

Upgrades up to Fishing 36

Get Bronze Trophy Hunter armor before Fishing 27

It's highly recommended to go to the Crimson Isle before Fishing 27 and get your first set of Bronze Trophy Hunter armor.

• The Crimson Isle unlocks at Combat 22. Grind your Bestiary milestones to get there.
• Start trophy fishing. Asxent has a separate trophy fishing guide.
• Head up to the volcano, right in front of you as you exit the fortress. Inside is Odger, the trophy fish NPC.

Optional: the Backwater Bayou and trophy frogs

This optional path unlocks trophy frogs. To keep progressing fishing instead, skip to Fishing 36 to 45.

Go to the fishing area in the Hub and talk to Captain Baha. He asks you to fish up a Rusty Ship Engine.

How Treasure Chance works

Treasure Chance is the chance that you fish up a treasure. You can only fish up a treasure when you don't catch a sea creature.

For example, with 10% Treasure Chance and 50% Sea Creature Chance, you have a 50% chance of not catching a sea creature and getting an item. Of that 50%, there's a 10% chance the item is a treasure.

Getting the Rusty Ship Engine

Once you fish up a treasure, there's a 1/4 chance it's the Rusty Ship Engine, so it takes 4 treasure catches on average.

• At this point there isn't much Treasure Chance available besides the Luck of the Sea enchant, Stereo Pants, Golden Bait and, if you can afford it, the Frozen Amulet.
• Get a near-max-level Flying Fish pet for some much-needed fishing speed.
• Keep your Sea Creature Chance as low as possible, so you don't catch sea creatures.

Hand the engine to Captain Baha to travel to the Backwater Bayou.

The Lotus Atoll

Don't spend long at the Bayou, because you can now unlock the Lotus Atoll. Hand a warp scroll to the Bayou to Researcher Gilbert to unlock it. The Lotus Atoll is where you catch trophy frogs: it's trophy fishing, but for frogs instead of trophy fish. It's another source of SkyBlock XP.

Fishing 36 to 45

Fishing 36 unlocks your final rod upgrade, the Hellfire Rod. You won't have the recipe yet, so buy one from the Auction House or ask someone to make one for you. Your next armor upgrade, Thunder armor and the Thunder Necklace, unlocks along with the Thunder sea creature.

You can now move to the Crimson Isle and kill its sea creatures with a Soul Whip or Hyperion. They have a ton of HP but also give a ton of fishing XP. Only move there if you have the stats to back it up, because the stat cutoff is definitely higher.

At Fishing 40 you unlock the Tiki Mask, dropped from hotspot fishing in the Bayou. It's great for hotspot fishing specifically, but it's fairly expensive and honestly optional.

Fishing 45 to 50

Fishing 45 unlocks Magma Lord armor, the best fishing armor in the game. If you also have Silver Trophy Hunter armor, you unlock Lord Jawbus, a new RNG sea creature with two insane drops worth a lot of coins.

At this point, Asxent recommends moving to the Crimson Isle. Bring at least a Hyperion, because the sea creatures there are incredibly strong.

Fishing 47 unlocks the Flaming Flay weapon and the Ragnarok sea creature, two very important unlocks that make even more money. The Flaming Flay shoots a flaming arc that deals 3x damage to sea creatures.

Hypermaxed fishing

This part is brief, but here's what a hypermaxed setup looks like:

• Armor: a fully recombobulated Magma Lord set with Bobbin' Time V, a Festive or Submerged reforge, and all Perfect gemstones.
• Equipment: a fully recombobulated Gillsplash set, with a Bloodshot reforge on the belt and Snowy on everything else, plus a Magma Lord Gauntlet.
• Rod: the Giant Rod is the best rod in the game, but it costs 5 billion coins. The Hellfire Rod is still solid; give it at least Quick Bite V and Flash V.
• Pet: a Mythic Flying Fish. It buffs Magma Lord armor and gives a ton of fishing speed, which you'll need because you'll want to run the Burnt Texts pet item.
• Magic find swaps: not covered in depth here, but at least have some good armor and a Golden Dragon pet to swap into before killing, while holding a weapon with Chimera V and Looting V.
• Party fishing: you can try a Frozen Blaze setup, but that's mainly for the Bestiary.

Asxent's own setup is Festive Magma Lord armor, Gillsplash equipment with a Magma Lord Gauntlet, and a Hellfire Rod.

Why the route looks odd

This guide is about getting through fishing as fast as possible, so if parts of it seem odd, that's just how fishing is. If you have questions, ask in Asxent's Discord.