Fastest Way to Level Up Fishing

See also: Guides

Introduction

This is a very simple Fishing guide and the ETA is around 2-3 hours to level 10 (from level 1) and assumes that you know the basics on how to fish.

Stay in Vesperpool - East Bank, for 2-3 hours, tallying EXP up every 2 in game days (then every 1 day when you get to level 8-9)

That's pretty much it, but for something more in depth, see below.

Prerequisites

Chapter 7 unlocked (but please get to chapter 8 so i don't see anymore "i got locked out" threads)

About 30k to 35k gil

Intro to Skill Levelling

All skills have a hidden experience point called SP. To get any skill from 1-10 you need to accumulate a total of 2300 SP.

The values we're interested in for fishing is SP and Stamina. Stamina is how quickly a fish can be reeled in. The thing we are looking for is the fish that grants the highest amount of SP with the lowest stamina - and the golden fish is... The Lotus Bluegill (40SP, 10k Stamina which is the lowest amount in the game)

Guide

First thing to do is to go to Vesperpool (the very north of the map)

I need to talk about the haven there: Every time you stay there, you will get a really long conversation with Gladio about a Fishing tour. DO NOT accept the quest. To complete the tour, you ideally need to be level 10 and have a rod from Altissia. Because of this, if you need to save, do it manually and only go to the haven to tally up EXP.

Where the parking spot is, take the Right path and follow it til you get to Bert's Bobbers 'n' Stuff. There is a fishing spot here called Vesperpool East Bank. We will be staying here for a while.

What to Buy

The Death Spin rod and the Nereid Reel (will cost about 21k)

Buy x20 Malboro Lures

Buy x20 Dragonsbeard Silk

Misc Notes

Use the Malboro lure

The Lotus Bluegill is actually pretty rare, but count your blessings when you get one as even at level 9 is worth about 10% of that levels entire SP.

Good fish to be catching are Phoenix Bass, Crag Barramundi, Golden catfish.

If you get a fish that is taking a long time to reel in, just let your line snap, even if you do catch a hard fish, the time/SP ratio probably isn't worth it (avoid dots with a ring around them)

Gladio and Ignis will shit all over you when fishing... Ignore them

"Talk about backseat fishing"

Throw your line at the small dots (we want quantity)

Buy more Silk/Lures as needed

You can reset a fishing spot by quitting the fishing game, then pressing X to fish again

Re-spool your line at about 300 durability (your party will nag you for using it <1000 but ignore them) or you can just use it till it snaps.