Fishing

A fisherman can make a good amount of silver from the bountiful waters of Black Desert. There are plenty of areas to fish, inland and in the sea. There are also a variety of fish to discover in both fresh water and salt water. Fish have a variety of uses including cooking, alchemy and trading, provided the fish is rare enough.

The Basics

To fish, you must first obtain a Fishing Pole. You can get one from a Fishing merchant (some Otter at water sources sell them),Material Vendor or as quest rewards. You can also craft one via Workers in a tool workshop.

You can fish from any body of water as long as it's not shallow. Whenever you equip a fishing rod near a suitable water source it will show you the abundance of fish. If there are visible schools of fish they usually bite quickly. If the resources are exhausted, they will bite only rarely. Fish resources can be exhausted from a region due to popularity, so it's best to fish different areas from time to time. As time progresses and your skill gets better you will find it easier to catch rarer fish. While fishing you gain EXP for your fishing skill as well as your overall level! A higher fishing skill will give a chance to not use rod durability upon cast.

Fish, as in real life, will spoil if enough time has passed (usually 24h) and will become unusable. Their value will gradually decrease over time till they expire. To allow fish to last longer you must dry them out. A dried fish will have much less value than a fresh one, but will not expire. The higher your processing skill, the more dried fish you will obtain but the maximum is 3. Since you can use fish in cooking and one fresh fish equals 2 dried white ones as ingredient, that means that drying increases your yield. Another advantage is that dried fish stack while fresh ones don't. Dried fish can be converted into trade goods on a fishing workbench as well.

Besides using fish for cooking it can be sold for money to Trade Managers like trade goods or sold for higher profits to the Imperial Fishing NPC (see below).

Fishing Mini-Game

After equipping a fishing rod of your choice, approach a body of water and press the space bar to begin fishing. Once a fish has taken the bait you have to hit the space bar while the moving indicator is in the blue range. If you're successful you will next need to correctly enter a sequence of the "WASD" keys in the order shown within a limited timeframe to successfully catch the fish. Depending on the rarity of the fish, some may have longer sequence than others.

Fishing Rods

There's a multitude of rods to choose from, each have their own fishing skill level requirement and durability.

Rod Name	Level Requirement	Effect	Durability	Repairable
Old Fishing Rod	N/A		10	No
Fishing Rod	N/A		30	No
Triple-Float Fishing Rod	Skilled Lv. 5	Multiple Fish Per Catch	30	No
Thick Fishing Rod	Beginner Lv. 10	Fishing Speed +1 Lv.	40	No
Mediah Fishing Rod	Artisan Lv. 1	Increases chance to catch better fish in Freshwater.	50	Yes
Balenos Fishing Rod	N/A	Auto-fishing Time -10%	50	Yes
Epheria Fishing Rod	N/A	+5 more durability per enhancement (10 total)	50	Yes
Calpheon Fishing Rod	Professional Lv. 1	Increases chance to catch better fish in Saltwater.	50	Yes
Steel Fishing Rod	Skilled Lv. 5	Fishing Speed +2 Lv.	65	No
Golden Fishing Rod	Artisan Lv. 1	Fishing Speed +3 Lv.	100	No

Balenos, Calpheon, Epheria and Mediah fishing rods can be enhanced up to +10. Enhancing will increase their efficiency and increase their max durability by 5. They have no safe enhancement level and can degrade past +7, so it is recommended to force after this stage.

Other Fishing Equipment

You can use bait (Cooking or quest reward) to increase the speed of fish biting. Fishing clothes will increase your fishing skill and stops monster (except scout types) from attacking you while fishing or squatting. Boats and rafts can be used to fish away from the coast, extend your inventory and be equipped with items that increase the chance for certain fish types.

Fishing Reward

Species

Different locations provide different fish. If an area is "exhausted" it is very unlikely to catch any fish but one will usually instead catch useless (sell) loot or items like Silver Keys or Ancient Relic Crystal Shards.

Velia: Mudskipper, Starfish, Mackerel
Western Guard Camp: Mackerel, Catfish
Coastal Cave: Fourfinger Threadfin, Amberjack, Butterflyfish, Sandeel, Jellyfish
Heidel: Salmon, Soho Bitterling, Bluegill, Lenok, Graying, Steed, Yellowfin Sculptin, Bubble Eye

Bycatch

A lot of time you will receive items that are not any living water creatures but bycatch. Sometimes this is sell loot but sometimes those are quite valuable (keys for treasure chests, Ancient Relic Shards to make combine into scrolls for boss mobs etc.). Even the Bycatch that is marked as sell-loot can be useful since quests require it sometimes.

Velia: Seaweed
Heidel: Tattered Boots

Fishing Quests

There are quite a few fishing quests which either tell you to fish and bring certain fish or turtle or such - or items which contaminate lakes and oceans.

Holio (West of Heidel): Fertilzer Sack, Washed-Up Laundry, Tattered Boots
Baggio (stream near Western Guard Camp): Broken Hooks and Broken Bottles
There is a daily quest from the NPC near the Western Guard Camp bridge for a hook but she takes tattered nets.
Jiro (on the bridge close to Bradie Fortress): asks you to bring him 5 tattered boots - if you have finished the quest "special fish" and the Apprentice Fisher uniform in your inventory.

Imperial Fishing

There are seven Imperial Fishing Delivery NPCs, one in each territory of the continent. They buy certain amounts of blue and yellow quality fish (but no rare yellow fish). They will buy fish at 250% of the value regardless of their age, as long as they are not expired and yield for yellow quality fish Shiny Calpheon Fishing Seal. The latter exchange for special items.

Since they only accept a certain amount of each type, they might refuse to buy yours especially if the fish is local. In that case you can travel to the next one, wait 3 hours for the reset or switch channels to try another one.

Imperial Fishing Delivery NPCs
NPC Name	City	Region	Notes
Karon	Velia	Balenos	On the dock
Dius	Port Epheria	Calpheon	On the dock
Rai	Glish	Serendia	Near the trade manager
Hirio	Splashing Point	Mediah	On the road near the entrance to the town
Falleve	Grána	Kamasylvia	Near the storage keeper
Balleo	Valencia City	Valencia	Outside the castle on the east side of the city
Kubo	Duvencrune	Drieghan	Found in Global Lab Testing. Not released in the main game outside Korea.

List of fish and their locations

Work in progress

	Name	Location(s)
Freshwater fish
	Salmon	Pond north-east of Keplan Lake Kaia Rivers and lakes near Trent
	Carp
	Crucian Carp
	Catfish
	Freshwater Eel	Lake Kaia River south of Port Epheria Rivers and lakes near Trent
	Snakehead	Rivers and lakes near Trent
	Cherry Salmon
link=	? (second fish, page 4 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 5 in fish guide)
	Mandarin Fish
	Lenok
	Arowana
	Sweetfish
	Bass	Rivers and lakes near Trent
	Dace	Rivers and lakes near Trent
link=	? (second fish, page 8 in fish guide)
	Perch
	Notch Jaw	Rivers and lakes near Trent
	Mudfish	Rivers and lakes near Trent
	Goby Minnow
	Bitterling
	Bleeker
	Yellowfin Sculpin
	Leather Carp
	Striped Shiner
	Barbel Steed
link=	? (first fish, page 14 in fish guide)
	Bubble Eye
	Pacu
link=	? (second fish, page 15 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 16 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 16 in fish guide)
	Roundtail Paradisefish	Rivers and lakes near Trent
link=	? (second fish, page 17 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 18 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 18 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 19 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 19 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 20 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 20 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 21 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 21 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 22 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 22 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 23 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 23 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 24 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 24 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 25 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 25 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 26 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 26 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 27 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 27 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 28 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 28 in fish guide)
link=	? (page 28 in fish guide)
Saltwater fish
link=	? (first fish, page 1 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 1 in fish guide)
	Mudskipper
link=	? (second fish, page 2 in fish guide)
	Beltfish
link=	? (second fish, page 3 in fish guide)
	Amberjack
link=	? (second fish, page 4 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 5 in fish guide)
	Rockfish
link=	? (first fish, page 6 in fish guide)
	Trout
link=	? (first fish, page 7 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 7 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 8 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 8 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 9 in fish guide)
	Mackerel
link=	? (first fish, page 10 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 10 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 11 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 11 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 12 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 12 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 13 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 13 in fish guide)
link=Sea Eel	Sea Eel
link=	? (second fish, page 14 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 15 in fish guide)
link=Flatfish	Flatfish
link=Grunt	Grunt
link=Herring	Herring
link=Sardine	Sardine
link=Round Herring	Round Herring
link=Whiting	Whiting
link=	? (second fish, page 18 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 19 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 19 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 20 in fish guide)
link=Nibbler	Nibbler
link=Siganid	Siganid
link=	? (second fish, page 21 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 22 in fish guide)
link=Blackfin Sweeper	Blackfin Sweeper
link=	? (first fish, page 23 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 23 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 24 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 24 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 25 in fish guide)
link=Sandfish	Sandfish
link=	? (first fish, page 26 in fish guide)
link=	? (second fish, page 26 in fish guide)
link=	? (first fish, page 27 in fish guide)
link=Fourfinger Threadfin	Fourfinger Threadfin
link=Grayling	Grayling
link=	? (second fish, page 28 in fish guide)
link=Rock Hind	Rock Hind
link=Butterflyfish	Butterflyfish
link=Clownfish	Clownfish
link=Blue Tang	Blue Tang
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
Crustaceans
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
Other
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=
link=