Learning How to Fish in Enshrouded

Posted on January 19, 2026 by Aywren

Back in November, Enshrouded launched the Wake of the Water update which added water and water mechanics to the game. Syn and I were quite excited for the update, for adding water environments to our base would make for something lovely! Not to mention including the concepts of fishing and swimming in an already sizeable exploration game.

We still had a number of question marks to clear on the map when this update dropped – mostly shroud lairs and gem forges as we didn’t really do a whole lot with that kind of content. But as for quests themselves, we’d finished up to the previous boss fight by taking down the Fell Dragon Youngling, and we only had a few odds n’ ends here and there to clean up.

Despite that, we didn’t really dive deeply into the new update (see what I did there) until this past week or so. The new content is exactly what reminds me why Enshrouded has become one of my most-played games on Steam the past few years.

Learning How to Fish

The one thing I did struggle to learn the intricacies of the most was fishing. The basic concept is simple, but performing it in a way to catch Epic fish is not quite as straightforward. It took me researching several forum posts and videos to finally crack the details needed to fish well.

Here’s some basic tips on fishing:

• The quality of fish you can catch is based on both bait and location. Hence, you can use frogs (the best bait) in the Springlands, but you will never fish up an epic. For more advanced fish, you must visit other biomes – epic fish are in the Veilwater Basin.
• You can also gather specific bait within specific biomes. Here’s a good resource for fish/bait per biome.
• You can see what kind of fish you’re about to catch visually before you hook it. Cast near to yourself, and keep an eye on the fish as it starts to poke at your bait and jump out of the water around your bobber. You’ll start to learn how to identify which fish is which based on looks alone.
• There’s a trait for +30% fishing stamina you can unlock in the early skill tree.
• Follow the quests given by the Fisher to unlock crafting the Excellent Fishing Rod. You can also dig up the Lucky Fishing Rod, but I heard that was more for fishing up treasures than fish.

I already had the Excellent Fishing Rod, that you can craft once you finish the Nice Day for Fishing quest, and which appears to be one of the best rods in the game. But try how I might, even with the best bait – frogs – which you can find in surplus on Fishing Island (you’ll go there as part of the Nice Day for Fishing quest, so mark it), I couldn’t reel in higher level fish.

I tried everything from improving my own stamina with gear (this does not work as fishing stamina is NOT linked to character stamina) to seeing if I was missing a better rod (I was not).

Turns out, it’s very simple.

The mechanics for fishing in Enshrouded are thus:

• When the fish moves to the right, you pull to the left (“A” key on the keyboard)
• When the fish moves to the left, you pull to the right (“D” key on the keyboard)

However, the moment the fish stops moving left or right, if you don’t also switch instantly, then you’re going to start to wear away your fishing stamina. Once this drops too low, you lose your catch.

The key is to watch the fishing meter after the initial hook. When you first hook the fish, see which direction it begins to pull, and pull against it. Then immediately focus on the fish stamina section of the meter.

The very moment the fish’s stamina stops decreasing in the meter, switch buttons to pull in the opposite direction. I learned quickly the fish is always pulling right or left, even if it doesn’t visually look like it is. You must always be switching and pulling the opposite way, too.

The most accurate depiction is the fish stamina meter, not the fish’s position in the water related to you. Epic fish especially will juggle right and left in quick succession, so you have to be ready to tap the opposite way immediately.

Keep your eye on the meter 100% of the time. Keep an ear out for when you need to hook the fish again, as well – you will need to rehook the fish for every little section within the bar. The game makes a little sound when you need to click the mouse to rehook, which helps if you’re focused on the bar instead of the fish.

With a bit of practice, you’ll be hooking those epics!

Good luck, Fishborn! If you need any other info, please drop a comment and I’ll try to help!

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