Fishing for Gold

A lot of people have not caught on to the fact that you can make a lot of money by fishing. The way you make it is twofold:

1. Selling the uncooked fish
2. Cooking the fish and selling the finished product

I have found that I make more money by selling the uncooked fish, in most cases.

But fishing is boring, you may whine. :) Indeed, fishing is not the most exciting thing in the game, but the benefits you get from it make it well worth your while. Not only do you make a good amount of money from selling your finned friends, but you also can level your cooking, and make yourself some of the best buff food in the game.

In the beginning, the fish you catch is virtually worthless. You should start leveling your fishing as soon as your character hits level 5 and can train for it. That way you can use the fish to level your cooking, and you won't waste the lowbie fish you catch. Luckily, it does not take long to start catching fish that you can sell in the Auction House. Probably the first valuable fish you will see is Oily Blackmouth and Firefin Snapper. These fish are valuable because they are used to make Blackmouth Oil (used in Alchemy) and Fire Oil. (used in Tailoring and other professions) Now, you are not going to retire on what you sell these fish for, but you can start making money at low levels selling them. Many times the AH does not have any of these fish, so you can set your own price. Don't get greedy, but if there is no competition, you can charge more. Use Auctioneer to give you information on the going rate. (make sure you have scanned recently!)

As you level your fishing, you are going to run into junk fish along the way that you are going to have to sell for next to nothing, like Redgill. There is a way, I have found, to get more for these overly common fish when you sell them in the AH.......make sure to have the recipe in the AH also, so that people can buy the recipe and then buy your fish. People are always desperate to level their cooking, so if you offer them an easy way to do it, you will find you sell more fish, at a better price. The redgill recipe is sold in Booty Bay, in the Old Port Authority. For the locations of other fish recipes, use Thottbot or Wowhead.

Once you level up to fish like raw sunscale salmon, nightfin snapper and winter squid (around 200) you can really start making some money. These fish sell for around a gold a piece, depending on your server and the competition from other fishermen. They also make some pretty awesome food. The salmon food increases health regen, the snapper increases mana regen and the squid increases agility. Not bad for a lowly fish.

The higher your fishing goes, the more the fish sell for, and the better quality buffs they give, when you cook them. If you want more detailed information, I found a cool free site that has all the fishing info you could want: El's Extreme Anglin - World of Warcraft Fishing Guide.

Talk soon,

Jade