hey, I want to get into fishing, I read the two guides, but can't properly understand fish levels and what is the very best way to level up fishing.

Any advice will be great.

Catch fish.
Gain XP.
Level up.

i also have questions with fishing

i noticed that with a higher level rod, fishing takes longer and gives more XP but not better fish... kinda the same difficulty in catching, just takes longer

Different Fish tiers are achieved every 5 levels. So at 5 you catch Herrins at 10 you get Cod. That doesn’t stop you from getting sardines though.

I suggest that you fish your current level and catch like 50 Fish - time it and record the XP gain.
Then move up a level or two and do the same thing.
Then calculate your XP/minute. Fish which ever is best XP. The only exception to this would be if you were to go from like level 3 to 5 (or 8 to 10) you might get a bit less XP/min, but you can catch another tier which is better imo

You should always cook your junk fish to increase profs to help you cook sardines (+100 life / mana) by 100% to make them +200 life / mana.

EDIT: cooking increases slowly, but if you find nice 95 life/mana sardines and cook them 100% easily... it makes things better for you in the long term.
NOTE: if you are in a guild that has a skilled Suffusence skill, they can also increase the capacity of the sardines by 100%+ at times.

This post was edited by izParagonzi on Oct 29 2018 01:02am

Cooking will always lag behind your fishing skill due the fact that all completed catches give prof but cooking must be at or above a minimum.

That said cooking seems to level slightly faster so if you can find a supplier of raw fish you could easily boost it. On top of that there is less downtime cooking because you dont need to stop to trash junk fish unless you burn something.