Open your inventory, remove everything from both of your rod configurations, and create this setup with the starter gear:

ROD: UFE Feeder Master 270 (3.5kg)
REEL: UFE Barracuda 2001GN (4.5kg)
LINE: UFE Mono CLEAR 0.16 1.3kg
LURE: Robson Classic Twist 8cm

When you load into Jackson, turn around so that you’re facing the lake, and start fishing off the pier. We’re going to use the soft lure twist, and for now we’ll take anything that bites.

If you catch tiny fish under a $1 worth, release them for the extra XP.

Open your fishing basket, hit ‘sell all’ - ka-ching!

When you ding level 2, HAPDQ (haul ass, pretty damned quick) to the shop and buy the Sakura Aya 0.18 line with the 2.20kg strength. That’s the highest strength line you can buy at this point, and it’ll make your fish fights much easier.

Equip your new line, and keep fishing.

For levels 2-4 we’re just going to grind through catching anything we can at that lake location. If you’re lucky you’ll get some bigger fish for the XP :)

Sell those tasty fishies, baybee!

Exit the location and buy a license for Zalasie, then head into the new map.

Open the shop and buy the level 3 UFS Mono 0.14 line with 3.2kg strength, a UFA Bait hook $14, and some delicious dough balls from the bait section. Try not to eat them on your way to the lake - I know it's tempting.

In your inventory, click the button to reset your set, and build it again with the same rod, reel, the new 3.2kg line, the starter float, starter 3g weights, starter #16 hook, and your new bait.

Open the map and use the magical teleporter to go to location 2. No need to move, we’re going to fish from right here. Equip your rod and set the leader length as high as it’ll go - 2.5m. Do a short-ish cast, we’re going to fish in the shallows some 7-15 meters in front of us, and the leader will dangle our delicious dough just over the vegetation.

You’ll catch all sorts here - barbel, asp, roach, tench, lots of different types of carp. The dough should make sure that no pike bite, they’re big and heavy and we’re not quite ready for that fight yet!

If your fish are slipping off the hook a lot, make sure you’re striking with a high enough drag to keep line tension (note the bottom right of your screen, there's a semi-circle; if the circle is filled in grey to the left, your line tension is low and you can reel in the line until it's blue - if the line is to the right and in the blue, you're good!) - but don’t worry, we’ll address this when we hit level 4!

If you’re lucky you’ll have landed a few chonkers that boosted your XP nicely, and you’re soon at Level 4.

Assign your skill point and sell your fishies!

Open the shop. In the Lines category, buy the UFS Mono 0.18 line with 4kg strength.

Under Lures > Soft Lures, buy the UFA Twister 8cm in blue and red.

Go back to Jackson National Park. Equip all your new stuff, including the twister lure, and go to spot 4. Walk out onto the pier and cast straight in front of you as far as you can. You’ll be catching mostly salmon and trout - the trout are better XP, salmon better $ - and you should hit Level 5 pretty quick :)

Sell the fishies, sell sell the fishies

In the shop, buy:
UFE Hyper Braid 0.20 (the black one) with 4,8kg strength
Carptack ClawXL hook #7 (under hooks > carp)
Dough balls, dough balls, dough balls

Head back to that spot at #2 in Zalasie and gear up with your new stuff. We’re using a line that’s significantly tougher than our rod now, and a bigger hook that’ll attract big fish, so we need to be very careful of drag - if you don’t like living life on the edge, use a #10 - #8 hook and keep the 4kg line on. Fights will take you longer but your gear will be safer.

Using the big hook we won’t get bites as often, but the fish that bite will be bigger, and worth more XP/$.

Assign your skill point if you want to, otherwise we’re just carrying on catching the phat carp in Zalasie until level 7.

If you want to spice things up, put a worm on the hook and go to the little T-shaped jetty between locations 4 and 5, then fish towards the long jetty at #4, angling slightly inland. You’ll still catch some big carp but might also land a pike.

UPDATE FOLLOWING JACKSON MAP EXPANSION

If you want, you can go back to Jackson and catch some big rainbow trout. Stand on the little wooden bridge at 3 and fish towards the big white building opposite with;

Level 6: Robinson Trophy 14G pink spoon
Level 7: Sakura Gemibug 30F black red

The latter landed me a 9kg rainbow trout!

Sell teh fishiezzz!

Buy the Slovakia license, and a Robinson Sonic s28 13g lure from the Spinners section, then equip it. Walk out into the river a bit, set your speed to 24, and fish to the right.
Welcome to the rainbow zone! :P

The rainbow trout are great XP, while the huchen, salmon, and other trout are good money. Just fish until you’ve got trout coming out of your ear holes. You should be getting a catch on every cast. If you want a change of scenery, cross to location #4 and fish to the left.

If you reel in to within 8 meters of your position and don’t have a bite, stop reeling and let the line idle there for some ten seconds; sometimes the fish bug out and catch at your previous lure location and need a few seconds to right themselves. If you want to try avoiding this, you can also do a start-and-stop retrieve (actually called stop-and-go but it doesn’t really flag as that kind of retrieve in-game) where you reel for a few seconds, let the lure drop down, reel again, pause, etc. The fish will still bite because everyone in this river is starving.

LEVEL 8

Booya!

Spend your skill point if you want, or just stay in the river annihilating the local trout population. Either way, you’re coming back here to cause a trout extinction event.


LEVEL 9

As soon as you hit 9 and have $1500, head to the Spinning rods section of the shop and buy the Sakura Speciz SPES Light 762 Zander at 6.35 strength (note we want the cheaper one with the lower casting weight because we’re still using light lures and bait - not the slightly more expensive one with the heavier casting weight).

Equip your new Troutcatcher Extraordinaire. You should now be on the following setup, to recap:

ROD: Sakura Speciz SPES Light 762 Zander
REEL: UFE Barracuda 2001GN
LINE: UFE HyperBraid 0.20 4,8kg
LURE: Robinson Sonic s28 13g

Head back into the same spot in Slovakia. We’re not done harassing the trout yet!

The troutening is at hand!

Don't forget your level 10 skill point.

Lines are cheap, let’s upgrade now that our rod is better. Buy the UFE Fluo Classic 0.30 with 5.9kg strength. It’s much higher than our reel but lower than our rod, and we’ll be upgrading the reel next.

Skill point!

Buy and equip a Robinson Trophy 14G pink spoon lure. Go back into Slovakia, location #1, and walk out into the river straight ahead until you reach a fallen tree trunk underwater on your left (it’s almost at the other bank). Walk to the end of the tree trunk, turn left, and fish upstream in the clear path between the rocks, with your lure at speed 20.

You should be catching salmon, brown trout, and huchen by the gallon. If they stop biting, turn around and fish downstream for a little while.

Grind out another level here. When you have entirely decimated the local trout population, it’s time to move on!

(Updated for game version 0.9.15.2ea)

We can finally leave the trout alone :D

Assign your skill point, then head to the shop and buy a Sakura Alpax 4508 SW reel - you can choose whether you want the black or silver, they’re both the same :)

Equip your new reel. We’re now on a 6.35kg rod, 6kg reel, and 5.9kg line.

In Lures > Spoons, buy a Robinson Mackerel K15 Silver/Red (level 13).

Buy the Kiel Canal license and go there. Go to spot 1 on the map, run to the middle of the little bay, and cast straight out.

Be careful of your drag here - the fish are much bigger and feistier. Set your speed to 24 and just cast and reel.

When you hit 15 and have enough cash, grab the Sakura Salt Sniper SALSS 902H 9.07kg spinning rod with the casting weight of 14-42g, a Sakura Flatphoxy Minnow HW60s gold/pink/black (level 15), and a UFE Fluo Classic 0.45 line with strength 10.4kg. If you can’t afford them yet, catch a few more fish until you can.

Equip your new stuff. Go to location 5, then run to the middle of the wooden bridge (the one that's higher up on the map), and cast from the middle of the bridge inland up along the canal. Again, just cast and reel in at 24% speed.

The bigger lure means you’re catching bigger fish, which means more money more XP. Woot! There's the possibility of reeling in 60kg cod and 80kg catfish here, so be ready for a fight. If you want to catch smaller fish for faster fights until you can upgrade your gear again, just turn around and fish from the same spot but out to sea instead of into the canal.

Assign your skill points and keep grinding. We’re aiming for $7165.

At level 16, buy the Sakura Mousty 95F orange green white (level 16) lure, equip it and keep fishing from the same spot.

Level 19

As soon as you can afford it, go into the shop and look under Fishing Sets at the top, scroll down to the $7165 spinning set at the bottom and buy it. Our current rod is better, but the reel in the set is much better and it’s cheaper than buying the reel stand-alone, plus you’ll get some lures and line :D Equip the new reel (18.1kg) and line (14.6kg), and get back to fishing. At level 22 we can unlock Russia, and we’ll want another $2750 to get a new rod.

Levels 20 - 21

Buy the UFE Powercatch 270 universal rod - it can handle just over 31kg. Now that we’re on an 18kg reel and 30kg rod we can upgrade the line to match - get the UFE Tough braid-x 0.27, strength 25.9kg . Equip all your new stuff and let’s get on the final sprint to level 22 :D

With the update to the Kiel map and the possibility of catching 80kg fish there, you can probably get faster XP by staying on Kiel - but Russia is still viable if you want a change of scenery. If you're staying in Kiel, you can just buy the equipment outlined below as and when you're able to.

We're going to Russia, weee!


You're going to sit here and catch beluga sturgeon. That's all. Just beluga sturgeon, for five whole levels. Bring a packed lunch and a tent. Watch the days pass as you catch more beluga. The seasons, come and go. Build yourself a little log cabin. Let your hair grow. Rename yourself to Bob Balugalugalugalugaluga.

Buy and equip a Predatek Pilk 200 rod (32.65kg strength), a Sakura Bainer 105S minnow lure in red/white, and a UFE Mono Expert 0.70 line with the 26.90kg strength (the line might not make a difference, but just in case, that's what I've had best catch rates on).

Head to spot 1 on the map and walk onto that light stone with the little patch of weeds. Aim to the right. If you're just loading into the map, you may need to cast a couple of times while waiting for the fish to spawn in.

You won't catch on *every* cast with this lure as it's a big one that the smaller fish won't bite on, but it's the one you want for catching the huge 70-80kg beluga sturgeon that can get you over 1,000 XP and $ per fish. :D

At level 23 you can try the Sakura Mousty 110F silver blue opalescent topwater lure (and reel in at speed 26). It's bigger, so it'll catch less frequently because the smaller fish won't take it, but it'll catch bigger fish ^.^

Again, as of the new Kiel map, you'll probably get consistently more XP there - but head to Thailand if you want a change of scenery!

Rod: Predatek Pilk 200 Spinning rod, 32.65kg
Reel: UFE BigSpin 12000W 35.70kg
Line: UFE FLO Expert 0.86 39.60kg / UFE Tough Braid-X 0.32 35.9kg

All kinds of lures work well here, if they're fish-shaped, be they soft lures, minnows, crankbaits, topwaters, even the frogs. If want to target the bigger fish at the expense of bite rate, choose one of the higher level ones; if you want more consistent bites but with the trade-off of fish size, choose one of the lower levels. I've found that a level 15 minnow will give me a bite on pretty much every cast, starting from around 20kg, and even those smaller fish can give you 500+ XP if you release instead of keep.

Right now, grinding from 27 upwards, you have three viable options;

* Stay in Thailand if you want a chill time with frequent bite rates and not having to worry about targeting any specific fish;
* Stick with the Beluga Sturgeon in Russia if they're biting very well for you;
* Go back to Kiel and try to target the bigger fish if they're also biting well for you (some people still have bite issues in Kiel).

Lures:

Sakura Bainer 105S green yellow white
Sakura Flatphoxy Minnow HW 60S red green gold
Sakura Sodium Shad 100 Green - a bit slower as this one works better if you let it sink

Cast from spots 4 or 5, aiming out into the deep water.

Smaller lures to get more bites (if you want to check off the 'catch all the fish' list);

Robinson Aspex 70mm
Sakura Bubble Frog 70F Brown/Orange
Sakura Flatphoxy Minnow HW 50S Green

If you want the lionfish to check it off the list:

Robinson Classic Twist 8cm orange