Fishing is one of the many essential tasks that will help you throughout Monster Hunter Wilds.
Fishing is required to complete sidequests like “Seeking the Goldfish” and it will allow you to collect a whole bunch of useful items. The fish you catch can be used as ingredients in meals and fish scales, like Whetfish Fin+, can be used as a whetstone.
This guide will tell you how to unlock fishing in Monster Hunter Wilds and provide some extra tips on how to fish.
How to unlock fishing in Monster Hunter Wilds
It is possible that you unlock fishing very early on in the game when you arrive at Windward Plains base camp and the game prompts the tutorial for the Essential Ttems, which includes the fishing rod. We weren’t able to go and test to see exactly how early fishing unlocks, but the game’s main fishing tutorial happens after you progress the main campaign to Chapter 1-5 and go to the Scarlet Forest base camp.
The game teaches you how to fish during a side quest called “Fishing: Life, in Microcosm.” You start it by talking to a character named Kanya, who just so happens to be fishing in the pond nestled within the Scarlet Forest base camp. Talk to her to start the quest — and your Monster Hunter Wilds fishing journey.
How to fish in Monster Hunter Wilds
Not to diss Kanya, but she’s a pretty bad fishing instructor. She doesn’t teach you how to fish or tell you how to pull out your fishing rod. That’s where we come in.
You first need to pull out your fishing rod. Pull up the radial menu and navigate it so the screen shows the “Essential Items” menu. (We did this by pressing down on the D-pad while holding R1.) Continue to keep the radial menu open and select the option, “Fishing Rod.”
Once your hunter is holding the rod, the game will show you the controls to aim and cast your line. Follow the prompts to cast your line.
Now, jig your line or wait until a fish bites. You will know one bit because it will splash around a lot and the controls on the screen will change. Once you get a bite, it’s easy to finish the job. Just press the button prompted on the screen (it was R2 for us, playing on PlayStation 5), and your hunter will reel in the fish.
Here are some tips to keep in mind as you fish:
* You can move your lure around by “jigging” it. This helps attract fish. However, keep in mind that jigging the lure up and down will also reel the lure in. The more quickly you jig it up and down, the faster your hunter will reel the lure in and out of the water. So don’t jig it up and down too much unless you want to reel your lure out of the water.
* If you want to move the lure back and forth without reeling the lure in, jig it from side to side to move it left and right.
* The button to “Reel In” doesn’t gradually reel the line in, it immediately pulls the lure out from the water entirely. Don’t press it unless a fish bites!
* You can equip different lures using the item bar to catch different kinds of fish. The tutorial for lures unlock as part of the “Seeking the Goldfish” quest.
To also help you understand Monster Hunter Wilds, we explain how to change weapons, provide some Seikret tips, and cover how cooking and layered armor work.
