LOTRO Fishing Hobby Made Simple
How to Fish in Middle-Earth

Not all of your time in Middle-Earth has to be spent struggling with the Enemy. Life is meant to be lived – not just striving for more gear, coin or renown. One (good) distraction is the LOTRO Fishing hobby. Fishing forms part of some festivals and may crop up in specific quests too. On top of that there are deeds, titles and homestead decorations you can acquire by simply finding a lake or river and casting your line in.If you’ve never caught something juicy-sweet, here is my Beginners Guide to LOTRO Fishing. I’ll take you though acquiring the hobby and the basics to get you going. Ready to dive in? Maybe the ‘dive’ is the wrong word!

How to Get the Fishing Hobby

If you’ve never fished in LOTRO before, then you will first need seek out a Hobby Master. These NPCs are ‘trainers’ you need to speak to before you can begin. You can find Hobby Masters in various regions of Middle-Earth, I even found one in Rohan recently.

Hobby Master Locations

I don’t know if this is a complete list, but according to the Wiki, you can find Hobby Masters in:

• The Shire
• Yondershire
• Bree-land
• Rivendell
• Moria
• Dunland
• East and West Rohan
• Wildermore
• Dol Amroth and Havens of Belfalas

Click the link above for the specific locations. I didn’t want to reproduce work someone else has already done!

Training Your Fishing Hobby

Once you speak to the Hobby Master, click the ‘Train’ button to confirm you really do want to catch things while having a snooze in the sun.

Get Your Free Fishing Rod

There’s no point knowing how to fish in LOTRO, if you do not have a rod to catch the things with! Training a hobby (well, the only hobby) does not cost any coin. The first time you acquire the fishing skill you are given a free Basic Fishing Rod, so you do not to spend silver on one. If you lose your rod, you can purchase a replacement at a Fishing Supplier for 2 × Silver or craft one (if you’re a Woodworker).

Craftable Fishing Rods

Woodworkers can craft rods at various levels of woodworking crafting proficiency. These grant modest bonuses to your skill, which will help especially in non-festival fishing. Crafted rods look different too and if you make one for yourself they can be used on characters of all levels.

Before You Start LOTRO Fishing…

Equip Your Fishing Rod

As you do with weapons and shields, you need to equip your fishing rod.

Reminder

A fishing rod is a two-handed item, so your main-hand and off-hand weapons or item will de-equip automatically. Remember to re-equip them before going back to questing!

Slot the Fishing Hobby to Quickbars

To ensure no scaly dinner escapes your hook, you should add the Hobby ability to your quickbars. To do this:

• Bring up the Character Panel
• Click ‘Hobby’
• Drag the square icon from the Hobby Panel to an available slot on your quickbars

How Fish in LOTRO – Actually Catching Something

Casting Your Line

• Head to a body of water: this can be a river, lake or pond. If you are not at a valid fishing spot, you will get an error if you try to cast your line.
• Cast your line: Press the ability you’ve just quick-slotted and you will throw your line into the water.

Wait for Your Hook to Find Something

As with offline fishing, you need to wait for a fishy to bite. You’ll be pleased to know, however, that it is significantly quicker than offline fishing!

Is It A Fish?

Regardless of what you actually catch, the LOTRO Fishing animation always shows a fish. Actual results may will vary!

Reel it In, Whatever ‘it’ is!

When your hook has latched onto something, your rod will pull down. You then have a short time in which to reel in whatever it is. It’s only a few seconds. When your line pulls, press the ability icon on your quickbar again to see what you’ve caught.

Results of Each ‘Fish’ You Catch

Every time you catch something, it looks like a fish, but may not be. Some quests may not provide you with trash items (at festivals at least). However, not everything you catch will be an actual fish. It is common to catch weeds and maybe a bunch of trash items depending where you’re trying to catch dinner. Trash can be sold to vendors for a pitiful amount of coin!

If you’re enjoying your Hobby outside of festivals, however, a variety of fish can be caught. Some of these can be used in the Cooking crafting profession. And some relate to Fishing Deeds, which may yield items you can convert into homestead decorations at the Taxidermist in Bree.

Improving Your Fishing Skill

The more things you catch the more you will improve your skill. This is not one-fish-per-point however. As with class deeds, you can only increase your fishing skill by a certain amount each day. I had thought it was 10 per day, but Emerose here managed 11 on day 1. The maximum skill (excluding bonuses from crafted rods) is 200. So if you’re committed you can max out your hobby skill in 20 days. As you increasing in skill, the results of your endeavours will improve. This, as far as I know, does not affect quests in festivals, except perhaps in reducing the frequency you reel in more exciting weeds.

LOTRO Festivals that Include Fishing

Since the old Summer Festival was merged with Farmers Faire, this is now the main event you can use to progress your Fishing Skill in LOTRO. These are:

• Farmers Faire: from trying to hook lost chairs to trying to not catch a bad fish, the Farmers Faire has a few quests for your new Hobby. These fish (but not the chairs, they belong to someone!) can be bartered for tokens. Even the “bad fish”.

Fishing Deeds

As this blog post was designed as a Beginner’s Guide for the LOTRO Fishing Hobby, I won’t go into the fishing deeds here. However, there are titles available for advancing your fishing skill and catching specific fish. However, LOTRO-Wiki has a reference to the various titles you can acquire.

Watch a Video Version of this Guide

Watch: How To Do Fishing In LOTRO

TL;DR – Your One Wish is How to Fish, because… they’re so Juicy-Sweet!

Fishing in LOTRO is a relaxing way to spend time both in and out of festivals. It opens up extra deeds and title as you progress your skill and catch a variety of fishies. As it forms part of Farmers Faire, there’s no reason not to pick this hobby up. If you’re on Evernight and want a crafted rod, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do! So now you know how to fish in LOTRO, get out there and relax!

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