Greetings. If you're like me, you may have tried several other fishing simulators out there. And, like me, you may have felt as though those games penalizes you too harshly for not paying a fee or is far too grindy to the point of turning you away.

I've only played Professional Fishing for a week but I have decided that it does not feel nearly as bad as those other games. Progression feels challenging, yet fair and while things may change once I reach a certain threshold, I hope to guide you towards the higher levels without wasting funds or spending ages gathering experience.

Without further ado, let us get started.

Before we get started on what to do, I want to go over some of the basics that you may not have noticed, as well as some tricks to make hooking, fighting and landing fish easier.

• There are one hundred (100) rooms to choose from when joining a waterway. It is up to you as to whether you wish to fish alone or with other players. If you find your fishing spot to be a bit crowded and you can't see past player models, try going to a different room
  
• Looking at the ground and pressing T will place a tent on that spot. Tents are spawn points so placing one where you plan to fish will save you time by keeping the on foot travel to your fishing spot to a minimum.
  
• Prior to casting your bait, look at the water's edge and press N to place your keep net. The keep net is where you store your caught fish until you're ready to sell them. Take not of the maximum weight your net can hold. If your next catch will cause you to exceed the limit, you cannot put the fish inside and must release it. You will get the experience but you can't sell it for money.
  
• When float fishing (using a bobber and bait), turn your light on with L. Even during the day. Why? When you turn your light on, it makes your line highly visible. It's easier to watch the line than the bobber when attempting to hook a fish. A bobber may waver but when the line transitions from slack straight, right click to set the hook.
  
  
  
  
  
• When lure fishing, you will see a white icon on the right side of the screen. It's color will change to red once it hits bottom and will turn green when a fish has it. Press Right click when it's green to hook the fish.
  
• Prior to upgrading your gear, you can and will hook fish that are larger than your gear can handle if you're not careful. When this happens, the first thing you want to do is lower your drag, using the scroll wheel, to remove tension on your line. Playing with the drag in real time, you can lower it when the fish is running and then raise it when he stops to reel in the slack. You can end up fighting some fish for quite some time but it is possible to land fish that outclass your gear this way.
  
  
  
  Caught this little fellow on 0.22 Braid rated for 7lbs.
  
  
• Your first purchases will be better keepnets, bags, line and reel. A larger net allows you to catch more fish before leaving the waterway to sell fish. Whether you take this first or not depends on if leaving more frequently bothers you. Otherwise, focus on a new bag to increase your carry capacity, then line, reel and bait.
  
• Once you have purchased the above (I will go into more detail in the next section), get a rod bag BEFORE a new rod as you cannot unequip the default rod and you can only carry one rod by default.
  
• Default gear does not decrease durability. So, if worse comes to worst, you will always have the starter gear to fall back on if you break your purchased gear. Line durability will decrease by 1 after every cast, once you move beyond starter line. Don't worry about repairing it until durability has dropped to under 10. To repair an item, navigate to your inventory while at the shop and click the item. A wrench icon will appear on the right side of the screen denoting that the item can be repaired. You can also sell some gear from this same area.
  
• Once you move on from Bread as bait, you will need to monitor your supply. Bait will decrease by one after every caught/lost fish.
  
• When you buy new gear, it goes into Storage. You access your storage from the shop screen and click the backpack icon. You will have to move new gear into your inventory to use them on a waterway.
  
• Bait does not stack. If you have a stack of 5 White Worms and you purchase a stack 25 White Worms to top off your supply, they will take up a second slot, rather than give you a stack of 30.
  
• Do your daily tasks. They ask you to catch X number of Y fish. Said fish may or may not be available on your current waterway or may only be obtained by using bait you do not have access to yet. Do not fret if it can't be done, just do the ones you can. They're a good way to get a decent chunk of change early one.
  
• When float fishing, you can set the depth your bait sits at with the + and - keys. Default is one meter beneath the bobber and can go as deep as two meters.
  
• You can remove fish from your keepnet if you need to make room for a bigger or better fish that you've just caught. You must first throw your current fish on the ground to free up your hands and then open your keep net by holding control and clicking the bottom icon on the right side of your screen. There, you can drag a fish out of the net and release it. Once you've done that, release Ctrl and pick up the fish you tossed on the ground and deposit it in the net as you would normally.

You start the game with a handful of credits. I recommend putting these towards a Big Backpack for 890 Credits. This will allow you to carry 4 reels, 5 lines, 30 different hook types, 30 different float types, 30 different bait/lures, 2 ground baits and 2 sonars.

After you have done that your next goal is to purchase the following.

• The PROFISH Scrub 300 reel (Level 2) 950 Credits or Sakura Glinaka 2007 FD (Level 2) 1090 Credits
  
• Mono 0.14 line (Level 2) for 30 Credits
  
• White Worms (Level 1) 25 Worms for 10 Credits

Head to Silver Forest. On the left hand edge of the screen, you will see six circular icons. These are your rod, reel, line, bobber, hook and bait slots. Hold Ctrl to enable your mouse cursor and click each one to see what gear you have. Currently, you won't have anything but the starting items. Set your bait to bread and just fish until you reach level 2. You'll catch Roach and Carp fairly reliably and that first level will go by quickly. Remember to set your keepnet down and toss your fish inside. When it's full, press Esc and choose to leave the waterway. Head to the Fish Market to sell your catch and return to the waterway. Once you hit level 2, and have gotten the reel, line and worms, return to Silver Forest. Don't forget to move them from storage to your inventory.

Equip the new reel and line and put White Worms on your hook. It is time to start focusing on Bream.

Head to the bridge here:



You will be fishing towards the tree in the water. You can cast from the bridge or from the shore, whichever you prefer. Don't forget to drop your tent down on the ground as well. I like right next to the sign, personally.



Do not swap out your #16 hooks for larger ones as you can and will hook Bream that are over 8lbs, which your current gear cannot handle. 4lbs is the ideal weight you want to hook:



But you will see 1-4lbers as well as the occasional 6lbers. 6's can be landed but it takes finessing the drag.



Still, I recommend always casting at 90% drag and then increasing it if what you hooked is small.

Continue fishing for Bream, selling fish as your net fills.

Your next goals are:

• Shiny Trinkets Silver Cru (Level 3) 80 Credits
  
• Tier 2 Fishing Net (Level 3) 890 Credits
  
• Mono 0.16 line (Level 5) for 59 Credits
  
• Tier 3 Fishing Net (Level 5) 1490 Credits
  
• Braid 0.18 at level 6 for 70 Credits
  
• Rod Case at level 1 for 390 Credits
  
• Sakura Tsubaki TSS 532 UL Rod (Level 1) 540 Credits
  
• Optional: Caddisfly Larva bait (Level 7) 15 Larva for 3 Credits
  
• Optional Sproat #10 hooks (Level 7) 10 hooks for 5 Credits
  
• Optional: Sakura Ryokan 632 M Rod (Level 7) 2650 Credits
  
• Optional: Sakura Glinaka 2007 FD (Level 2) 1090 Credits if you didn't purchase it earlier

By the time you reach level 7, you should have all of the above purchased. Or, at the very least, be close to it.

Now that you have your gear upgraded, it's time to start working on a new species of fish that is smaller, as well as worth more experience and credits. We are talking about Trout. First things first, make sure you have all your new gear equipped. If you're using the cheaper equipment, it can handle up to 8lbs with ease. If you've opted to get the optional, more expensive equipment, it can handle around 12lbs with relative ease once you get Mono 0.20 line.

If you wish to continue using baits, the Sproat #10 hooks will allow fish up to that size to bite but you don't have to upgrade the size if you don't want to. Switch from White Worms to Caddisfly Larva.

We are moving to a new position as well. The tree is not a trout area. We want to head east to the river connecting both lakes. All along that river is trout habitat, though I prefer to fish just north and south of the bridge.





I had grown bored of bait fishing at this point and chose to use lures. If you're growing bored with bait fishing, go ahead and grab a lure. I've found that the Shiny Trinkets Silver Cru available at level 3 for 80 Credits is amazing here and will net you Bass, Brown Trout and Rainbow Trout. A slow retrieve works best. See the following video for how and where to use it. Brown trout reach 5lbs and Rainbow Trout reach 3lbs. Bass will be your biggest problem early on as they can reach 8lbs which will be a test of your ability to manage line tension.


Set your tent where you wish and start fishing. If you have upgraded to the Tier 3 Net at this point, you'll be able to fit anywhere between 8 and 20 trout into it, leading to a pretty sizable chunk of money per trip.



If the bite does dry up, try altering your bait depth, moving elsewhere along the river or even moving back to the previous spot and fishing for large Bream with White Worms. 8lb Bream can be landed with the gear you have and, while not as good as Trout, it's better than nothing if the Trout hole dries up. I haven't seen it do this yet when using the Silver Cru but it has gotten quiet when using bait.

At this point, the Trout and Bass income and experience gain begins to feel more like a chore than a quick means of leveling up or making money. I had trouble finding a new spot on Silver Forest or The Wild Plains that filled the two criteria I'm looking for for this guide. The first is that I want a spot that is not extremely large. The bigger the area, the more room a fish has to run, which is not great when you hook those larger species, so I wanted either a river/stream or a small pond. The second criteria was that I wanted a place that allowed me to catch something frequently. I did not want to spend long periods of inactivity between catches, nor did I want to continually catch large fish that I had to fight for minutes at a time. I finally found a spot I was happy with at Enchanted Rivers, Poland.




We are on the north side of the bridge in the Northwest. Just a few steps North Northeast from the bridge , there is a small clearing between tall bushes where you can cast about sixty meters down a shallow, narrow, overgrown creek. Here, depending on what lures/bait you use, you can catch Asp, Salmon and Zander. You can catch Salmon and Zander on the


All three species are worth good experience and money. You can hook fish in the twenty pound and up range but that's not a big issue as it doesn't have much room to run very far away. You won't be guaranteed a fish every cast but I feel the experience and money you get per fish is worth a wasted cast here and there.

Our gear has not changed except we want to purchase the Shiny Trinkets GIA SPIN 3" in Green available for 50 Credits. The Shiny Trinkets Silver Cru also works well here. I like to have a couple different lures incase they seem disinterested in one of them. Our primary goal right now is to reach level 15 so that we can purchase Braid 0.25 which has a strength of 9.7 pounds. This will make landing the larger fish up to around 20lbs we're now catching a lot easier.


If you're finding it difficult to to use a lure in such a confined area, you can use Caddisfly Larva or Nightcrawlers on a #6 Hook to land all three species. It may be a bit slower than a lure but if you're not getting anything on lures, it's the better option.





An alternate, though slightly less rewarding, area is in the swamps Northeast of the default spawn point. Here, you can find Pike within a small body of water that allows you to catch them easily. You are able to walk to pretty much any area there so Pike can never take a lot of line that you have to reel in. You can use either Leeches, which are available at level 10 or the Shiny Trinkets GIA SPIN 3" {Green} at level 5.

Leeches:

GIA SPIN:

Once you've reached level 15, go and buy the Sakura IMPACT 0.45 line. It has a strength of 27.78lbs but has a very short 30m length which isn't the actual length of the line but the durability. You can cast thirty times before the line is destroyed so you have to repair more often. For us, this won't be an issue as we will continue pulling in Asp, Salmon and Zander from the swamp area. You can move up the bank while powering in those larger fish that had us playing with our drag on the older Braid 0.22 line with 7.72lb strength. That being said, keep an eye on your rod's stress levels as your line now outclasses the rod in terms of strength. It will take damage before the line will break. We don't need to upgrade it yet but we will soon.

Use this time to keep catching fish, gaining experience and credits as we'll be upgrading to a heavier rod setup that will allow us to catch larger fish with ease. If you haven't done so, feel free to purchase a second Big Backpack for 890 Credits if you want to increase your storage space to hold more lures, lines and baits.

Our next goal is to purchase the following items:

• Sakura Ryokan Casting 742 HX Rod (Level 14) for 5290 Credits
  
• Sakura Kuanza 2.0 Reel (Level 7) for 3990 Credits
  or to wait a little longer for
  
• PowerReel's Stream FX2100 Reel (Level 15) for 12090 Credits
  
• Infernal Fishing Visio BX240 Rod (Level 19) for 9390 Credits
  
  With the first set, you will be able to continue fishing the swamp area with a lot more efficiency. Larger fish, particularly those up to the 30lb range, without worry of equipment damage. You'll make your money back in no time at all. If you opt to wait for the second set, you will be able to handle fish up to 110lbs with relative ease.
  
  For now, we will continue with this spot until level 19 or 20 and then move on to another spot which will give us a lot of experience and money.

If you haven't purchased the heavy setup I outlined in the previous section, do so as soon as you can. They are:

• PowerReel's Stream FX2100 Reel (Level 15) for 12090 Credits
  
• Infernal Fishing Visio BX240 Rod (Level 19) for 9390 Credits
  
• Live Fish (Level 18). Stack of three for 45 Credits.
  
  We're going to need these for the massive catfish we're going to start farming now. For hooks, it's whatever you want to use. The larger the hook, the larger the fish that you may get. I, personally, use Wide Gap #1 for the time being. Catfish will hit almost every lure but, for now, we're going to use live fish as bait. We're not moving far from the Salmon spot we've been using. Just to the south is a stone bridge. We're going to be fishing from the bank just west of that bridge.
  
  
  
  
  
  Set your drag to 90% and cast out into the mouth of the river.
  
  

At level twenty-six, a new waterway opens, called Forgotten Bays. This waterway has a few choices for progression. Salmon, Pike, Multiple Carp Species and Catfish are all prime targets and what you choose is up to you.

You can even stay on the Catfish spot we've been using as it's still a great way to level up. Probably the best place to level up but if you get bored there, I've outlines some spots on the new lake. Our final goal is to reach level twenty-nine where we can purchase the heaviest gear available:

The heaviest spinning gear

• Infernal Fishing Catfish DF-335 Rod (Level 29) for 22,900 Credits
  
• PROFISH Scrub 1000 Reel (Level 22) for 19990 Credits
  and
  
• Sakura IMPACT 0.70 Line (Level 28) for 399 Credits
  
• Sakura IMPACT 0.80 Line (Level 31) for 449 Credits
  
  
  After that, it's all up to you on what to do. If you want a boat or an ATV, you have the means to do it. If you just want to target a specific species, you have the gear to catch anything.
  
  Here are some good spots to fish in Forgotten Bays:
  
  Pike
  
  
  Carp Species
  
  
  Salmon
  

I hope you find this guide helpful in leveling quickly without wasting funds. I'm positive that this may not be the best way but it has worked for me.

I'm also working on a spreadsheet for baits and lures and what each species will strike as the ingame wiki is woefully outdated and inaccurate. You can find this spreadsheet here:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2182613284