Fishing

Hello: a couple small things about fishing, It's a secondary profession so it is not lvl capped. Fishing is a great skill to make some early cash and combined with cooking you have easy access to ingredients to make, for instance, boiled clams that give a spirit/stamina bonus over 15 mins. The loot is useful for early tailors and leatherworkers that haven't come across a skinner yet as well; i caught loads of leather and cloth. On a higher fishing lvl you will be able to catch locked chests that contain nice magical items but you need a Rogue or a fairly high Blacksmith to open these chests with lockpicking/skeleton keys. There is a little melee benefit as well: your fishing skill works towards your melee rating (this is not capped to your lvl) so with a high damage fishing pole (one exists for a lvl 5 - strong fishingpole) you can whack monsters a lot higher then your own lvl to gain quick exp while hitting them with almost every hit.

Getting "Expert" in secondary professions requires the purchase of a book, and fishing is no exception. Old Man Hemming in Booty Bay sells an expert fishing book for 1g - he's on the south side, somewhat near the bank. On the Horde side, most people will catch the boat to Booty Bay after skilling up Journeyman in Ratchet - if you're short on cash for the book, just fish around the Bay until you have your 1g. Then don't leave, Booty Bay is one of the best fishing holes for raising expert fishing. At first you'll need to use lures to avoid too many escapees. Here you'll be pulling up crates and locked chests - these can be picked by any rogue with 90 lockpicking (perhaps less).