There are some advantages for you to fishing in the Elder Scrolls Online compared with in the real world. Maybe the points are in it's free and you don't need spray or sun tan lotion, or you don't have to sit in traffic or wait in line at the marina for a boat to get there. But the bad news is you can't use the chat commands to talk to friends while you sit back and relax waiting for the big one to bite. You also can't use your catch to make potions or meals like it was originally planned for the game.

Some have even said because of this that fishing in ESO is broken and should be nixed altogether. But with 8 kinds of fish, 4 kinds of bait and over 200 rare and unique fish to catch on your line I think it's far from being broken or boring. There is even rumor of a guild dedicated just to the sport in the game. So without further ado I will explain how you too can become a "Fisher King."  

Fishing Holes

The first thing is you need to find a fishing hole. You can find them in any body of water and they usually have between 15 to 20 fish in them. After that they dry up and you have to wait for them to respawn. This takes approximately 15 minutes to happen. Four types of fishing holes exist. These are lake, river, foul water and salt water. You can catch two blue and one green in each. So, what does that mean? You can catch two types of fish (blue) and one type of bait (green) which I'll go over later on in this article.

How to Fish

In ESO your character already has a fishing pole on them, so there is no need to buy one or carry one in your inventory. When you find the fishing hole you want to fish in you need to do two things. First when you hold the courser over the hole it will prompt you to press and hold "E" to chose your Bait. The Bait window with is identical to the Quick slot window will pop up for you to choose from. It will only show bait you have on you, so if you have no bait you will not be able to select anything. Once you have your bait of choice selected you simple press "E" again and you will see your character cast their line into the water. The next thing you will have to do is watch the bobber. When the bobber gets pulled under and you simultaneously here a "zzziiiinnk" sound you have a bite and must hit "E" to reel it in.  

At this point you will get one of six possible catches. The dreaded "Used Bait" which means you failed to catch it, one of the two normal fish or the type of bait found in that type of hole, a "wet gunny sack" with some choice loot or one of 12 rare fish found in that region. Most of the time it will be one of the first four items mentioned. The rare fish are just that Rare. I've only caught 4 so far and I do a bit a fishing from time to time. There is also a known bug the developer is working on that does not allow you to keep the rare fish when they are caught. You still get the achievement for it though. More on that later.  

Bait

Let's talk bait for a minute. There are nine types of bait you can use. You can get them in a variety of ways. For instance Fish Roe, Minnow, Chub and Chad can all be caught while fishing while Guts. Insect Parts and Crawlers can be found while hunting. Also Worms and Crawlers can be found when you harvest reagents and clothing materials. Finally Simple Bait can be bought from merchants. It's important to note that different bait is better than other bait when fishing. Using the wrong bait will lead to a 50% failure rate in fish by catch the dreaded Used Bait that is utterly useless. 

The Fish

It's time to talk fish. Your lake fish are the Silverside Perch and the Spadetail. Your river fish are the River Betty and Salmon. Your foul water fish are the Slaughterfish and Trodh. And your salt water fish are the Dhufish and Longfin. All of them are worth 3 gold each. These are the fish you will catch most of the time provided that you use the right bait. 

Achievements

Finally we have the unique (rare) fish. Even though you cannot keep these fish at present you still get achievements for them. If you go to the achievements menu and look under fishing you will find them. Each region has 12 rare and unique fish to catch to get the achievement for that region. The three starter Islands only have one fish to catch for theirs. When you have achieved all the regional achievements in an Alliance you get that Alliance Achievement. There is even a "Fisher King" achievement that comes with the title "Master Angler." To achieve it you must get all three alliance achievements, all three starter island achievements and both the Cyrodiil and Coldharbor achievements. Definitely not an achievement tree you go blow through in a week. And definitely one that holds true to the physical sport of fishing in many ways.