Fishing & Cooking Guide 1-525
Fishing and Cooking are made for one another, if you do one without the other you'll be wishing you hadn't later on. As with any profession, Cooking and Fishing can sometimes dig a hole in your pocket. Take a look at our X-Elerated Gold Making Guide to learn how to sell what you make for the most profit.

This Fishing and Cooking Leveling Guide is updated for the most recent patch and Cataclysm.
Fishing and cooking go hand in hand...catch fish and cook them, they are perfect for leveling together. Higher level cooking skills require many components derived from fishing. Leveling fishing and cooking it doesn't take a great deal of talent, instead it takes an intense grind consisting of thousands of casts, fish, and flames to cook them over. I'll send you around to various lakes, trainers, and NPCs who sell recipes for this leveling guide. Basically you're going to stand around casting thousands of times catching thousands of fish and then frying their brains out over a fire while you are leveling to 525 with this guide.

Why Fish?

Fishing & cooking is one of the more effective ways to make money and lucky for you leveling them is easy with this guide. You can fish while surfing the web, reading a book, or chatting with friends. You can cook those fish into popular raid foods and sell them for quite a bit on your realm's Auction House. You should only try leveling fishing if you really enjoy it, otherwise don't waste your time.
It is important to note these instructions in this guide are just one method of leveling fishing. Fishing can be leveled in all sorts of ways, if you want you can catch fish entirely from the noobie ponds in Ironforge or Orgrimmar. It does not matter where you fish, the chance you level per catch is based on your fishing skill level, so really you can try leveling anywhere. The only benefit to following the following instructions and leveling where this guide directs you to is to have the necessary fish to level cooking in parallel or to sell valuable fish on the Auction House.

You may also find it useful to work towards Achievements while you are leveling your fishing. For example, you might want to try leveling your low level fishing in Ironforge until you catch Old Ironjaw. Although this is the least profitable way to level fishing since you'll vendor everything you catch. And it might take until level 525 to actually catch Old Ironjaw (I caught him around level 280).

Lures

In order to catch the best fish you should always use a lure to maximize the number of fish you can reel in. If you can't afford them you can go without or find nightcrawlers to use instead. These will effectively decrease the amount of casts you'll make to catch each fish and will make leveling your fishing a lot easier.

Fishing and Cooking Leveling Guide 1-525

Stuff You'll Need for Leveling with this Guide



Fishing and Cooking (Levels 1-225)

For this section be sure to have the recipes for Brilliant Smallfish, Longjaw Mud Snapper, Bristle Whisker Catfish, and Mithril Head Trout. See the chart above for where to buy them. Now have fun leveling!


Fishing (Levels 225-325) and Cooking (Levels 225-300)

For this section of the guide be sure to have the recipes for Filet of Redgill and Baked Salmon


Fishing (Levels 325-450) and Cooking (Levels 300-450)

Due to high fishing requirements throughout Outland and Northrend, it is strongly suggested to have at least a +75 lure and +20 fishing pole whenever possible while leveling. A suitable pole is easily obtained from a quest in Lower City in Shattrath, "Rather Be Fishin'."
Also for this section be sure to have the recipes for Feltail Delight, Blackened Trout, Blackened Sporefish, Snapper Extreme (you must have Dalaran Cooking Awards to buy this, see section below for dailies info), and Small Feast (you must have Dalaran Cooking Awards to buy this, see section below for dailies info).


Cooking Dailies

Leveling Cooking was made really easy in Northrend. All you have to do is your Dalaran Cooking Quests to earn Dalaran Cooking Awards and use them to purchase cooking recipes. Purchase the recipes you'll use or are in high demand on the Auction House and start cooking.

Fishing and Cooking (Levels 450-525)

This is the Cataclysm section of the guide. This will give you an idea of what it will take you to level to 525 in Fishing and Cooking. There are a lot of recipes listed that you can use to level up but they all require 3 Chef's Awards to buy which are awarded from Stormwind/Orgrimmar Cooking Dailies so you will need to be careful of which ones you buy so that you can level up in an efficient way. Be sure to buy the first one at 450, the next at 475, and the last at 500 (all when first available).