Deskrawl Fishing: 3 Lakes, 12 Catches and the 1-in-2000 Reel

Deskrawl has three fishing lakes and no fishing guide worth reading, because the thing everybody quotes — a 1 in 2,000 chance for the Flying Fish King Rein — is only the raw weight the game stores. Real catch rates need three numbers the community tables never print: every lake is 50% empty, all twelve catches in a lake share one weight pool, and that pool totals 2.47. Divide those in and the Rein is closer to one in 4,900 casts that land something, or one in 9,900 casts overall.

This page lists all three lakes, all twelve catches in each with real names and prices, the five life skills that change the odds, and the one item in the game you can only get by fishing.

Four numbers to keep before the tables:

• All three lakes are 50% nothing. Half of every session is spent pulling back an empty line.
• The two common fish are 81% of every landed cast. You will see almost nothing else for a very long time.
• Every lake drops the same key — and it is the top one. The Royal Treasure Key is the Inferno tier, and there is no fishing route at all to a Silver or Golden key.
• One Rein in the entire game comes from water. Every other Rein is a boss drop.

The three lakes, and how to unlock each

There is no fishing button and no fishing menu. Each lake is a location that opens after you clear one specific map on Normal difficulty, and the game announces it with the line "With the monsters cleared out, the anglers are back." All three sit on map 4 of a zone, which is the same map that holds the zone's mini-boss.

So: the lake is a reward for finishing a zone's fourth map, and that map is always the zone's mini-boss map. The level the fish roll at is not the level of the map you cleared — the beach rolls three levels above its own map and Cinder Lake rolls three below. Neither number is a requirement; a level 70 character can fish the beach and a level 32 character can stand on it. The zone order that gets you there is on our areas and level order guide.

Two consequences worth planning around. First, Cinder Lake is effectively endgame — its map 4 is level 68, so the third lake opens at 68 in a game capped at 70, and it is the only source of the Cindershell Crab. Second, the fish level rises with the lake but the catch table does not, so a harder lake does not pay better odds. It pays the same twelve things at the same weights. The only reason to move up is the unique fish listed below.

All 12 catches in every lake, with the real odds

Read the odds column as: of the casts where something came back, not of every cast. Multiply by 0.5 for the true per-cast figure.

So: two common fish are 81 out of every 100 things you land, and the Flying Fish King Rein is one in about 4,900 landed casts — or one in 9,900 if you count the empty ones. The 1-in-2,000 figure floating around is just the stored weight read on its own, before the pool is normalised and before the 50% empty rate is applied.

The two chests are worth noting on their own: the silver one lands once every ~988 casts and carries 600–900 gold, the golden one once every ~1,650 casts and carries 2,400–3,600. Their contents are already covered in our drop rates guide — neither can produce a Common item, and only the mythic chest can reach Divine.

Which lake gives which fish

Three lakes share most of the pool, and every one of them has the same fish in slot B of every tier. Each lake swaps in one unique entry at the common, uncommon, rare and potion tiers, and the game's own item names make the swap obvious:

So: four fish appear at all three lakes, and the lake swaps exactly one entry per tier. The beach and Cinder Lake share both of their common fish; only the Snow Lake has a different one. Slot B of every tier is identical everywhere, which means moving lakes does not widen the pool nearly as much as the three-location framing suggests. To collect all fifteen fish in the game you need all three lakes.

Prices scale with the lake, and the item descriptions tell you why. The Frostcoil Shell is "frost on every ridge… stays cold beside a roaring fire"; the Brimstone Loach "curls around stones warmed by vents below the lakebed"; the Cindercoil Shell has "warm amber bands" and ash in its grooves. So the two lakes that cost you real progress are the two that pay the best fish.

The top of that table is worth the trip: a single Azure Sailfin or Cindercoil Shell sells for 50 times a Bleached Fishbones, and both sit behind zone 6 and zone 10 respectively. If you are fishing purely for gold, the gold farming guide has routes that may beat 16,000 a cast.

The potion fish are the only Rare fish you will realistically catch

This is the single most useful thing to know about fishing, and it is buried in the item data rather than the drop table.

The two potion fish are twice as likely as the two rare fish, and they are Rare-tier items in the game's own item list. They are also the only catch in the game that does anything — and the game prints exactly what:

So: the Cindershell Crab is the best fish in the game and the hardest one to reach — a flat 10% damage reduction for an hour, behind the lake that only opens at level 68. And the Jadeink Squid hands you 105 Thorns for free, which the developer later made worth having: patch 0.1.12 changed Thorns to benefit from physical damage and every conditional damage bonus, so a squid is a real Thorns build in one cast.

That is also why the game's own achievement for this system reads as high as it does. "Catch of a Lifetime" — land a Rare fish — sits at 6.8% of players, and the practical way to earn it is a potion fish rather than a genuine rare one.

Official source: [Patch 1.0.0g] Various Improvements and Fixes — published 2026-09-29, read from the Steam news feed on 2026-10-04.

The Rein that only comes out of water

Every Rein in the game is a boss drop except one. The Flying Fish King is the only minion you can obtain without killing anything, and its Rein is the last entry in all three lakes' tables.

Thirty capacity is a genuine tier: it is five slots better than a default Rare horse and five worse than the capacity-35 ceiling that only bosses reach. Mana Monsoon is one of just 15 active abilities across all 67 minions, and it is the only one on a minion that is not a boss. Both facts are on our minions and carriage guide.

At roughly one per 4,900 landed casts, this is not a farm target. It is a thing that happens to you over a week of idling at the beach, and the honest play is to leave the filter on and let it arrive.

The five nodes that change fishing

Fishing has exactly two branches in the life skills tree, and they are uneven — three on one side, two on the other:

So: the success branch tops out at +35% and stops — there is no Angler's Instinct III in the launch build — while the speed branch goes all the way to −25%. Catch success and cast time both feed into the 50% empty rate, so the practical order is Angler's Instinct I first (it attacks the bigger problem), then the Swift Cast nodes for throughput.

These are the only five values in the whole fishing system the game publishes. Everything else on this page is a weight or a price.

The full node order, prices and the nodes worth buying before them are on the life skills tree guide.

FAQ

Where do you fish in Deskrawl?

Three lakes, each opening after you clear map 4 of a zone on Normal difficulty — the mini-boss map. Tazan Fishing Beach opens off Tazan Wastes map 4 at level 32, Veldak Sky Lake off Veldak Highlands map 4 at level 56, and Cinder Lake off The Cinder Crown map 4 at level 68. The fish roll at 35, 55 and 65 respectively. The unlock is a map clear, not a level.

What is the fishing chance in Deskrawl?

Half of all casts come back empty, at all three lakes. Of the casts that land something, roughly 81% are one of the two common fish, 16% are uncommon, 1.6% are potion fish and 0.8% are rare fish.

How do you get the Flying Fish King in Deskrawl?

Fish it. Its Rein is the rarest entry in all three lakes at about one in 4,900 landed casts, and it is the only Rein in the game not tied to a boss. It is a Legendary with carriage capacity 30 and the Mana Monsoon active ability.

Is fishing worth it in Deskrawl?

For the Royal Treasure Key, yes — every lake drops it and no lake drops a lower tier. For gold, only once the higher-tier lakes are open. For gear, no: nothing fish-related competes with a Legendary weapon drop, and the drop rates guide has the numbers.

Can you fish on Nightmare or Inferno?

The unlock condition is written against Normal difficulty, and the key that comes out of every lake is the Inferno Royal Treasure Key rather than a difficulty-scaled one. The game does not publish a separate fishing table per difficulty.

What does a potion fish do?

Four different real effects: the Greenspot Grouper restores 10 life per second, the Jadeink Squid grants 105 Thorns, the Frostglow Jellyfish restores 4 mana per second, and the Cindershell Crab reduces all damage taken by 10%. All four promise one hour in the item text, though the crab's real timer runs about twice that.

Which lake has the best fish?

Cinder Lake and Veldak Sky Lake. Each holds a 16,000-gold rare fish the beach does not have — the Cindercoil Shell and the Azure Sailfin — plus its own potion fish. The beach is the cheapest to reach and the only one open before level 40.

Related Guides

• Deskrawl Zones and Level Order — which zone's map 4 opens which lake.
• Deskrawl Minions and Carriage — what the Flying Fish King is worth once you catch it.
• Deskrawl Achievements — every unlock rate, including Catch of a Lifetime at 6.8%.
• Deskrawl Life Skills Tree — where Angler's Instinct and Swift Cast sit.
• Deskrawl Gold Farming — whether 16,000 a fish beats the routes already on the page.
• Deskrawl Horse Cart Filter — turn the Reins Filter on before you start casting.