The Basics of Fishing

A player can start fishing by acquiring the Beginner Fishing Rod (Chillet) and some bait (no Pal Spheres required). You can get this item by unlocking the Beginner Fishing Set in the Technology tree, with the upgrade available at Level 15 for 2 Technology Points. This upgrade also unlocks the ability to make Simple Bait. More advanced fishing supplies can also be unlocked, discussed later in the article.

The beginner rod is fairly easy to make, requiring:

• 10 Paldium Fragments
• 3 Pal Fluids
• 8 Ingots
• 8 Fiber

Simple Bait is arguably even easier, created in sets of 10 with:

• 2 Pal Fluids
• 4 Berries
• 2 Flour

With a rod and bait, a player then needs to seek out underwater Pals to start fishing, which are easily spotted under the water as dark silhouettes. You may need to travel around a bit to find these spots; in testing, the easiest way to find these spots was typically to take a ridable Water Pal like Surfent (whose saddle is unlockable at Level 10) and surf around island coasts or along rivers. With that said, any quick way of traveling or just memorizing areas where underwater Pals spawn should make finding silhouettes fairly easy.

Once you spot a Pal's silhouette, you can toss your rod's lure into the water near the creature. As long as the lure is close enough, the Pal should eventually bite (with better bait making this process faster). Exclamation marks will appear, at which point you must click to start reeling in the Pal. This initiates a fishing minigame.

The goal of this minigame is to keep the yellow fish line inside the green bar. Clicking to reel moves the bar to the right, while the bar moves to the left while the button is released. While the yellow line is in the green bar, you build up progress towards the catched, marked by the wheel above the reel bar. Fill the wheel, and you catch the Pal. However, while the yellow line is outside the green bar, you will lose progress and your character will start to struggle, eventually breaking the line and losing the catch. A lost catch will disappear, and you cannot attempt to catch it again (although fishable Pals do respawn in a similar way to other Pals).

Fishing Advice

It takes some practice to learn how to consistently keep the green bar where you want it. In testing, the trick seemed to be to basically "pulse" at different frequencies, clicking and immediately releasing the button at different speeds. You can eventually learn how to keep the bar still and slowly move it up or down along with shifting the yellow line, only using extended clicks or releases to quickly move the green bar if the yellow line rapidly shifts. The specific buttons you need to click should be shown on the screen and can also be rebound.

Fishing some Pals can be difficult, with some requiring a lot of practice or feeling outright impossible to successfully reel with the early equipment. Eventually, you can craft Deluxe Bait and Alluring Bait, both of which make the fishing minigame easier by enlarging your green bar.

The benefits of the better fishing rods you are able to unlock at later levels, the Intermediate Fishing Rod (Cattiva) and Advanced Fishing Rod (Pengullet), seem to be less fully understood by the community. They are better and seem to allow for more tension before you lose a catch, but their exact benefits aren't fully documented and can't be confidently determined in testing.

As a final note, pay attention to the Pal silhouettes. Their shape determines which Pal will be fished up, and some spots may sparkle or even shine. These sparkling and shining spots mark special Pals, like Alphas and Lucky Pals.

Location matters while fishing. Water in caves will hold different Pals than water outside. Additionally, some Pals can be fished or caught as normal, but there are a few you must fish to acquire.

Salvage

You can also fish up salvage at particular spots scattered around the ocean. These salvage spots are marked by debris and seem to come in two forms. The first, and more easily fished, of the two are

marked by brown barrels. Fishing at these spots requires that you ride a Water Pal and have a rod in your inventory. Then there are spots marked by black barrels, which still require a Water Pal and rod, but also require a Powerful Fishing Magnet, which gets consumed when used successfully. This is a late-game item, unlocked in the Technology tree at Level 61, but these spots also offer significantly better rewards.

The minigame to salvage is easier than fishing. A circle appears with a green segment inside it. A yellow line then begins to spin around the circle. You must hit the marked button to reel when the line is in the circle, which then pulls in the salvage. In testing, failing this minigame seemed to have no penalty, you can just immediately try again.

Important Milestones

In quick summary, assuming other players don't give you items you haven't unlocked yet, you can start fishing with the Beginner Fishing Set upgrade at Level 15, letting you craft the Beginner Fishing Rod (Chillet). You can later unlock the Intermediate Fishing Rod (Cattiva) at Level 29. Finally, you can unlock the Advanced Fishing Rod (Pengullet) at Level 45.

Simple Bait is unlocked along with the Beginner Fishing Set, while the other baits are their own upgrades. High Quality Bait can be unlocked at Level 22. Deluxe Bait can be unlocked at Level 38. Alluring Bait can be unlocked at Level 52.

The Fishing Pond, which lets you fish at your base, can be unlocked at Level 31. The Powerful Fishing Magnet, required for the best salvage spots, is unlocked at Level 61.

Finally, there are schematics you can find to unlock slightly better versions of fishing rods, which will have the same names as their standard rod equivalent but a different Pal lure. These weren't found in testing, but the community has reported finding Beginner Fishing Rod (Gumoss), Intermediate Fishing Rod (Croajiro), and Advanced Fishing Rod (Depresso) schematics. Reportedly, these are fishing-specific rewards.