Fishing

Fishing requires a fishing rod. There is a fishing guide in-game.

Saltwater, Fresh Water, Crustaceans, and Other are the categories of fish.

Beginner's Knowledge

 * First thing you'll read is the resources at the top. The resources go from Abundant, Average, Not Enough, and Exhausted. Every fishing spot starts off at Abundant, but over-time if a fishing spot has been populated for several hours by a lot of people, eventually it will go down to average, then not enough, etc. What this does is slows time the time between you casting the line and getting a fished hooked on your line. This is bad because it'll slow down your efficiency and you won't earn as much money as fishing in a abundant spot.
 * Fishing rods (with the exception for Artisan Fishing Rods) are not repairable and will become useless when the durability hits zero.
 * There are different tiers of fishing rods. They go from: Old Fishing Rod, Fishing Rod, Thick Fishing Rod, Steel Fishing Rod, Golden Fishing Rod, and the Artisan Fishing Rods. Each tier have different rank/level requirements, have different durability, and have different effects.
 * Be patient. To fill a 64-slot inventory, you'll spend around 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes with a Thick Fishing Rod, if you're really good at fishing. If not, It'll probably be 2-3 hours. Don't worry about the money just yet, just learn the mechanics first.
 * To auto-fish (afk-fishing), just simply cast your line and go afk. Don't touch anything. Note: It will auto fish for you, but it will NOT continue fishing when your rod breaks, and it will not automatically switch fishing rods from your inventory if it does break.
 * There are 2 types of in-game costumes (not cash-shop) that boost fishing level, and certain foods can help with fishing as well.
 * Fish has a freshness timer, so the longer you hold onto it, the less value it has. The value won't decrease until past 2 hours and 25 minutes. Eventually, at 24 hours it'll be worth nothing.

Fishing Rods:

 * Old and Regular Fishing rods are the same tier, with 10 and 30 durability respectively, and are your basic rods. Not much to say about em except they'll get you to level 10 beginner.
 * Thick Fishing rods are green tier, are equip-able at Level 10 beginner, and have 40 durability. They provide a natural increased chance to obtain better fish, and they provide +1 Fishing Level (Speed). Fishing Level stat basically decreases the time it takes from casting your line to hooking the fish on the line for the mini-game. +5 Fishing Level will make your time between cast and hook to about 10 to 25 seconds, which depends on your fishing resource.
 * Steel Fishing rods are blue tier and require Level 5 Skilled fishing to equip, and have a naturally better chance than a regular rod to catch better fish. It has 65 durability, and +2 Fishing Level. *Golden Fishing rods are yellow tier, requires Level 1 Professional to equip, and are the best at speed fishing. It has 100 durability, +3 Fishing level, and has the same ability to have better chances to get better fish like the previous 2 rods. Golden Fishing Rod is the dream for anyone who wants to fish really fast, and really efficiently, while having 100 durability so you don't need to craft as many. Also, they're great for long term auto-fishing, as it has 100 durability. However, it's not the best for auto fishing because I personally prefer to keep these rods for when you're actually fishing, as the +3 Fishing Levels makes a big difference.
 * Artisan Rods (Calpheon, Epheria, Mediah, and the last one I forget the name) are the best fishing rods in the game, being equip-able at a monstrous Level 1 Artisan. Each rod has a default 50 durability, but they are each very special in their own way. The Artisan Rods are the ONLY fishing rods that can REPAIRABLE and ENCHANTED. This makes it so you don't need more than 1 of each Rod. Enchanting is the same as enchanting a weapon, so If you fail an enchant past +7, you'll need to repair the rod by sacrificing more rods of the same name. Enchanting each rod will give it different effects. The Calpheon Rod will give you a natural better ability to chance Better fish (already higher than all of the previous rods), while enchanting it 1 by 1 will increase that chance. Once it's +15, the chances of it getting better fish (i.e. blues and yellow) will be very high (I doubt you'll get anymore white or green fish). The Epheria Rod is simple: It starts off at 50 durability, but every enchant gives it 10 max durability. This is the most useful rod for long-term afk fishing (i'm talking like 7+ hours without breaking at +15) as it can go up to 200 durability at +15. The last rod (The name escapes me) just lowers afk-fish timers with enchanting. The standard time i'd take to auto fish is 3 minutes after the fish icon pops up above your character, but enchanting the rod will lower that timer and also increase durability by 5 everytime. Mediah Rod isn't available to NA/EU yet I believe, but it increases the chance to catch RARE fish (Coalacanth and other Rare fish).
 * If you're serious about fishing, you need to PLAN ahead when it comes to spending your points. Spend them into nodes that have Iron and Copper Ore, so you can collect materials early on to build the rods. You'll also need coal eventually, and then gold ore (gold ore can only be obtained by you through mining, but your gathering has to be professional in order to do this).

Crafting a Fishing Boat

 * Materials needed for this boat will be 50 Birch Plywood, 25 Bronze Ingots, 30 Black Stone Powder, 25 Usable Scantling, and 30 Pine Sap.
 * Purchased the previous houses in Epheria Port to reach the Shipyard house, a mineral workshop (if you don't have the knowledge from quest series to process it yourself), a wood shop to make plywood (if you don't have knowledge from question series to process yourself), a refinery to make black stone powder,
 * At least 7 workers in total, collecting ore, chopping birch timber, building the ship together, gathering potatoes/wheat to make beer to feed workers (this should already be done if you're beginning this project). Recommended to use AT LEAST Skilled or better workers, for maximum time efficiency (Building a Boat in NA will take 3 times as long as the KR/JP/RU servers due to energy costs on processing).
 * Gathering/Processing rank/skill recommended to be around at least skilled, but apprentice is absolute bare minimum. Make sure you use tools that are appropriate to your ranking/skill level.
 * Willpower, Time, and a LOT of energy points. I cannot stress enough how long it takes to craft a fishing boat. On KR, it took me several days (playing around 12 hours, staying online for 16-17 for workers to keep working) to gather all of the materials, process them, and I hadn't even begun to build the ship yet. The actual ship building takes around 18 to 24 hours with skilled/professional workers. In NA and EU, due to the energy cost on processing, it will triple the time it takes to craft the boat, because there is so much material processing and gathering to be done.

Other Tips

 * 1) You MUST have connected the origin of your fish (the node you caught it from) to where you're selling it. If you do not follow this absolute rule, you'll receive a 70% value penalty to every single fish you attempt to sell. This is by far the most important rule to any sort of trading with trade managers, so it will the number 1 rule for making millions.
 * 2) Try to sell as far away as you possibly can from where you caught it while still obeying rule 1. Trade Managers will factor in a distance bonus, which is about 2% every connected node (cities/towns count towards this value, so they are treated as a node, even tho they are not nodes), so if you are selling farther than 8 nodes, you're already breaking a 130% value if you assume the fish will have 115% value.
 * 3) If you know for a fact that people have been selling the same fish you've been catching to the same trade manager than you plan to sell to, don't sell it to them. If a trade manager is over-sold a certain fish, they will drop the value of that fish, which can go down to 80%, which is not what you want at all. It's far better to go to a node that you guess or know that people haven't been selling to. For example, if you fish in Velia, and you sell that fish to the trade manager in Velia, and 10-20 other people are doing the same thing as you, the NPC will give you like 80-95% only. But, if you go to Heidel, you'll probably get a better price.
 * 4) Sell fish as fast as possible. All fresh has a freshness timer, and the value of your caught fish will go down if you keep it for too long. 2 hours and 25 minutes will keep your fresh at 100%, while 5 hours will drop it down to about 85 to 80, then it continuously drops til it reaches zero, at 24 hours.
 * 5) Use a wagon. It's better that some of your fishes go to 95% value than missing out on selling 8-20 extra fish (depends on wagon).
 * 6) When traveling with your fish, try to take the most efficient route to your destination. It will save you time from going there and going back, and it'll add up.
 * 7) If you find trade manager "A" along the way to traveling to Trade Manager "B", and Manager "A" offers you 130% for your fish, you need to calculation your distance bonus + how much you think "B" will offer you. If the % total amount that "A" is giving you is more than what you think "B" will give you, sell it to "A". Manager A is closer to where you caught it from, so its a efficiency calculation and guesswork. This rule collides with rule 2, so it's all depending on situation.

Credit to \u\GordonRamsayNA from reddit.