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Fishing is part of Windrose's broader resource gathering and food system. It is confirmed as a launch gameplay system at the April 14, 2026 Early Access release, alongside farming, crafting, and trading. Launch-day coverage from Engadget and others lists fishing among the core gameplay systems included with the initial Early Access build.

The demo released during Steam Next Fest in February 2026 did not include a dedicated fishing minigame, but the launch build introduces it as a full activity integrated with cooking and alchemy.

What Fishing Provides

Fishing supplies Fish Fillets and other aquatic ingredients that are used in mid- and late-game cooking recipes. Fish Fillets specifically appear in the Seafood Skewer recipe (1 Crab Meat + 4 Fish Fillets + 2 Tomatoes). Because there are no hunger or thirst meters, fish-based food serves the same role as other foods: a buff that boosts health, stamina, or a specific stat for 7 to 30 minutes depending on recipe rarity.

Aquatic Food Sources

Community resources and the official in-game Curios menu are the best authoritative reference for the current list of fish species, tackle tiers, and best fishing locations, as these are likely to evolve during Early Access.

Cooking with Fish

Fish Fillets are a mid-tier cooking ingredient. At launch, they appear in known recipes like the Seafood Skewer. Cooking Fish Fillets requires a Cooking Fire and potentially an upgraded station such as a Cutting Table or Cookware Shelf for higher-rarity recipes. See the cooking recipes article for the current recipe list.

Ocean Activities Beyond Fishing

Fishing is one of several ways to interact with the ocean. The ocean also serves as:

• Naval combat arenas for ship-to-ship battles

• Ship customization territory with cannons, hull bracing, and boarding gear

• Island discovery through procedurally generated archipelago exploration

• Trading routes between player bases and Tortuga

• Underwater exploration near shipwrecks and dungeons

Other Ways to Gather Food

Fishing is one of several food sources. Players can also gather food through:

See Also

• Farming and Fishing, broader farming, fishing, and mining guide

• Cooking Recipes, full recipe list including seafood dishes

• Food and Potions, how food buffs work in the absence of hunger bars

• Resources, all gathering activities

Unlocking Fishing

Fishing is not immediately available on a fresh character. The rod recipe stays locked until the player has cleared enough of the main story to open the second biome.

• Finish the Coastal Jungle main-story beats on the starter island, including the Coastal Jungle boss encounter. The boss fight is the narrative gate between the first and second biomes.

• Travel to the Foothills region once it becomes available. The Foothills are the only biome that spawns the oversized hardwood trees the rod recipe requires.

• Harvest Hardwood from those trees using an axe. Picking up Hardwood for the first time auto-unlocks the rod crafting recipe in the Workbench menu.

Because Windrose generates each island's layout per save, the exact coordinates of the Hardwood trees change run to run. They tend to cluster on higher ground toward the north of the Foothills landmass, but a direct coordinate is not useful; the reliable identifier is the distinctive oversized silhouette next to normal jungle trees.

Fishing Rod Crafting

Once Hardwood is available, the fishing rod itself is a short craft at the Workbench. Community reporting during Early Access settles on the same simple recipe.

Rod durability is not prominently shown during casting, but community testing suggests the baseline rod tolerates long foraging sessions without needing constant replacement. Carrying a single spare in the inventory is usually enough margin for a full fishing trip that includes multiple coastal spots.

What to Do First

Because the unlock path routes through combat, most players benefit from handling the Coastal Jungle boss with upgraded early armor before attempting the Foothills harvest run.

• Upgrade chest and legs armor at least one tier before the boss fight. Damage reduction compounds with every swing the boss lands.

• Carry Bandages or a stack of Healing Potion into the boss encounter. The jungle approach leaves less room for mid-fight base runs than later biomes do.

• Scout the Foothills coast before committing to a long interior hike for Hardwood. A shoreline base nearby shortens every subsequent fishing trip.

Simple Fishing Rod Recipe

Once the recipe auto-unlocks from picking up Hardwood in the Foothills, the Simple Fishing Rod itself is a short craft at the Workbench. The recipe is fixed across community sources:

Ingredients: 2 Foothills Iron Ingot, 3 Rope, and 5 Hardwood.

Workbench Level 2 requirement. The rod recipe is gated behind a Workbench upgrade to Level 2, which is the Sawhorse station. The Sawhorse itself costs 20 Wood and 10 Copper Ingot, and once it is built next to an existing Workbench inside a base bonfire radius the Workbench is automatically promoted to Level 2. This gate is why the fishing rod recipe can feel unreachable even after picking up hardwood: the recipe itself is unlocked in the journal, but the Workbench will refuse to start the craft until the Sawhorse is up. Level 3 (Toolbox: 10 Wood, 20 Nails, 5 Foothills Iron Ingot) is not required for the rod.

Rope, not crude rope. The Simple Fishing Rod recipe takes ordinary Rope, crafted from Plant Fiber at the Workbench. Some community video guides call it "crude rope" on the voiceover, but the in-game item icon and tooltip are just Rope. Crude Rope is a different item used elsewhere in the crafting tree; substituting it for Rope in the rod recipe will not work.

Fishing Basics

Fishing in Windrose is deliberately compact. Equip the rod, walk to a shoreline or a peninsula, aim slightly upward at the water, and cast. There is no species-specific bait system and no biome-locked rod tier to juggle; the same Simple Fishing Rod works on every ocean tile.

Shallow versus deep water. Windrose distinguishes two water depths for fishing. Shallow water is anything within easy cast range of the beach, including the shoals around most island coasts. Deep water is open sea past the beach shelf. The two depths draw from partially overlapping fish tables, so a complete fish collection requires casting in both. In practice, standing on a small peninsula or an outcrop that sticks into open water lets the rod reach a deep-water tile with the line while the player still has firm footing, which is the fastest single-position way to catch both depth categories without moving.

Watch the bait splash cycle. After a cast, the bait sits on the surface with a small bobber. When a fish first bites, the bait visibly pops under the surface in a quick dip. That first dip is not the reel cue. The cue is the second event: a flat splash when the fish takes the bait properly. At that flat-splash moment, the reel-in input catches the fish. Reeling too early on the first dip simply loses the bait; reeling too late after the flat splash lets the fish get off the line. Higher-level fish show noticeably longer delays between the dip and the flat splash, so patience on the second cue is what separates a full stringer from a mostly-empty one.

Gut caught fish for Fish Fillets. Every successful catch returns the fish as a whole item. To use it in cooking it has to be processed: right-click the fish in the inventory (or press X on controller) to gut it, which converts the fish into Fish Fillet without any station or tool. A gut action is instant and takes no stamina. The fillets are what slot into the Seafood Skewer, Chowder, Seafood Platter, and Fish and Tostones recipes at the Cooking Fire and its upgrade stations.

Coastal jungle boss is the real gate. The rod recipe unlocks off Hardwood, but Hardwood only drops from Divi Divi Tree in the Foothills, and those trees are not reliably harvestable until the first biome boss is down. Trying to Foothills-rush before beating the Coastal Jungle boss lets the player pick up hardwood, but recipes tied to later workbench tiers sometimes fail to register in the crafting menu until the boss kill flags the progression state. The reliable order remains: clear the Coastal Jungle boss, sail to the Foothills with a Copper Axe, harvest Hardwood, return to base with a Sawhorse already built, and craft the rod.

Fisherman's Ring Collection Reward

Catching every species in the in-game fish collection unlocks a dedicated reward ring. The base Fisherman's Ring grants a flat fifteen percent chance to reel in an extra fish on a successful catch, which compounds over long sessions into a meaningful yield bump for high-demand ingredients such as Fish Fillet. The ring is upgradeable to the Major Fisherman Ring at the Jeweler's Bench, which pushes the extra-catch chance up to thirty percent. Builds that cook Seafood Platter or similar fish-heavy recipes on repeat benefit the most from the upgraded variant because the platter consumes seven Fish Fillet per cook.

Deck Fishing While Sailing

Fishing does not require the player to stand on shore. Casting the bobber off the aft deck of the flagship and turning the camera backward works exactly the same way it does on a pier. Bites register on the visible splash cue, and the reel-in input catches the fish without interrupting the ship's course. This turns every long sailing leg between islands into passive fishing time, which is especially useful for the deep-water species that would otherwise need dedicated open-sea trips.

In practice, the common pattern is to set a destination across the map, cast off the stern as the ship leaves the harbor, and alternate between the fishing reel and the ship wheel as bites come in. Over a single long crossing it is routine to bank three to six fish without any detour, and because no stamina is spent while fishing the activity is effectively free on a sailing run. The sail-fishing approach also counts toward collection-reward progress, so it pairs well with the grind toward the Fisherman's Ring unlock.

• Works on: any water tile reachable from the deck, including deep sea.

• Shallow versus deep: some species list a shallow or deep preference, but most can be caught from deep water while sailing.

• Camera: turn it backward so the bobber stays visible as the ship moves forward. The splash cue is the reel-in trigger.

• Catch a Large Barracuda: deep-water only, so a sailing leg is the easiest way to complete the species entry.