How to fish in New World

Fishing can be a fun pastime, but it can also be a way to gather up useful resources in New World. You can find multiple water sources in the game where you can attempt to put your patience to the test and gather up fish, but you’re going to want to bring a few supplies with you before you invest in this activity. So here’s how you fish in New World.

Before you adventure out into the wild to find a water source, you want to make a standard fishing pole. You can do this at a workshop station. These are all of the ingredients you’re going to use to create a basic wooden fishing pole. There are better models, and you’ll learn how to craft them later in the game.

• 1 Green Wood
• 1 Fiber

These are fairly common resources to find in New World, so it shouldn’t take you too long to find them. Once you have a wooden fishing pole, equip it as you would your other gathering tools.

When you reach a water source, press the F3 button, and you’ll draw your fishing pole as if it were a weapon. Next, you can press the R key to equip any bait you have or press the F3 button against to put your fishing pole away. After you’ve equipped any bait you have, hold the left mouse button to hold your cast, and then release it to start fishing.

You’re going to see a small black and white icon above where your fishing location. This will indicate when fishing is drawing close. It’s going to warn you to get ready, but if you attempt to pull your fishing line back too early, you’re going to miss the fish. You want to wait until you know the fish is hooked and then pull back. You can also miss the fish by attempting to bring it back too late.

When you catch something in the water, you’re going to see a small progress meter that displays how close the fish is to reaching shore. However, at the center of that circle is a green icon. As you steadily reel in the fish, that icon slowly becomes orange and then red, indicating the tension of the line. If you let it remain red or orange for too long, the line could break, and your catch will return to the water. All you have to do is release the left mouse button, let the tension return to green, and then resume reeling the item to you.

Once the progress meter fills, you’ll obtain the catch. This item is not always a fish, which can be disappointing, but you still gain quite a bit of experience for successfully reeling in a catch.