How to fish for Annabella's Request in Crimson Desert

Crimson Desert fishing - Kliff with a rod — (Image credit: Pearl Abyss)

Puzzling out how to fish for Annabella's Request in Crimson Desert is rather tough, especially as the game doesn't explain the key principles of fishing in its help section (how helpful). It's easy enough to head to the spot she highlights, take out the rod, and cast the line, but how the actual catching of the fish works is a mystery you'll have to work out yourself.

Or not, because I already worked it out and have detailed it below. The key principle is that you need time when you reel, similar to fishing in some other games. Here's how it works so you can grab that Tench for Annabella.

How to fish and get a Tench in Crimson Desert

Once you visit Annabella at the Hernand Saddlery, she'll give you a fishing rod and send you north across the bridge to the pool before Three Saints' Fall, close to the Wycliffe Mappery where you started as Kliff—you'll have a quest marker for this. When you get there, I suggest wading into the stream a little bit and facing up towards the waterfall so the current isn't working against you.

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Now, to fish, follow these steps:

Hold F2 (Left D-pad on controller) to open your equipment wheel and move the arrow to the bottom right. You should only have your bow and fishing rod in this slot, so cycle across to that with the mouse wheel (RT/LT on controller) and then release F2 to equip it.
This next bit varies a bit on mouse and keyboard versus controller. On mouse and keyboard, press Q, then hold left mouse button, aim your cast, and release to throw it in. On controller, hold LT to bring out the rod and aim the cast, then release it to throw.
Hold left mouse button and move the mouse wheel slightly to reel in (LT and right stick on controller) until you get a bite, then hook it with right mouse button (or RT on controller)
Now, the way you actually catch a fish is to use WASD (left stick on controller) to pull in the opposite direction to which the fish is trying to swim away. So, if it swims left, you pull the rod to the right, for example. Most importantly, don't reel in while you're doing this. Wait until the fish stops splashing then pull back on the rod and reel in. It'll start splashing again after a short duration, so when it does, stop reeling and pull in the opposite direction again until it gets tired once more. Rinse and repeat this process to catch the Tench.

Similar to Rhett's Request, you don't have to deliver the Tench directly to Annabella, and instead have to bring it to Bloomwood Ranch to the southeast of Hernand. In fact, it's super close to where you had to deliver the iron. As a reward you'll get an inventory expansion, some dried fish, plus you can keep the fishing rod.

Sean's first PC games were Full Throttle and Total Annihilation and his taste has stayed much the same since. When not scouring games for secrets or bashing his head against puzzles, you'll find him revisiting old Total War campaigns, agonizing over his Destiny 2 fit, or still trying to finish the Horus Heresy. Sean has also written for EDGE, Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, EGMNOW, and Inverse.

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