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I leveled cooking and fishing at the same time. Go to thunderbluff, talk to the fishing supplier, they have 3 recipies there. Brilliant smallfish for level 1, the Longjaw mudsnappers (frog things) for your next cooking grind, and then catfish. You can fish for about 45 minutes to an hour and max both fishing and cooking till you can geet to BB for fishing book, and Desolace for the cooking book. It takes a bit of patience though. And don't forget to buy the shiny baubles, and upgrade your pole to the +5 one as soon as you can use it.
You can start your grind right in the poond in TB, once you get to were you can cook catfish, I suggest (don't have to) going to the waters outside of the wailing caverns in the barrens. There you will be able to catch deviate fish and possibly turn a profit on yout time. Also, kill the kolkar in the area, they drop the recipe for Deviate delights (rare, but they still drop it)
This is more or less how I level cooking on the alliance side as well. The brilliant smallfish and longjaw mudsnapper recipes can be bought from the vendor standing outside by the wagons in Goldshire. The catfish recipe can be bought in Stormwind, just as a guard for the fishing trainer and the fishing vendor will be standing right next to him.
You don’t need to buy a fancy fishing pole or lures to fish. However, at later levels, they do come in very handy and by that time you can better afford them. I would suggest you buy your cooking skill, fishing skill and the first two fish recipes and then return to your newbie area. You’ll be able to fish in the water there without worrying about the fish getting away. Keep fishing until you have about two stacks, 40, brilliant smallfish. Then find a fire and cook those. Keep fishing and cooking smallfish until that recipe turns green. By this time you should have a respectable amount of mudsnappers. Cook those up. Your fishing should now be high enough to allow you to fish in higher level waters. Try the water in Stormwind. If you have a lot of fish getting away you will either need to buy lures to fish there or try fishing in the waters outside of Goldshire. Ideally what you want right now if to be pulling in both mudsnappers and catfish. Keep cooking the mudsnappers until that recipe turns green. Then start cooking the catfish. The catfish will take you over 150 cooking. And you can do all this without having to buy any type of spices.
Keep an eye on your skill levels, both for fishing and for cooking. Once you reach your cap you won’t gain any more skill until you visit a trainer. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat there and fished or cooked and scratched my head wondering why I wasn’t gaining any more skill. Then I realize my skill has been capped for a good long while. *sigh*
Once you reach 150 skill you will have to buy a book to advance your skill. The fishing book is located on the bottom level of Booty Bay, near the bank. The cook book is located in the elven lands, not Desolace for the alliance, and is much harder to give directions to. But you can usually find these books in the auction house if you don’t mind spending more money for them. They are a gold each from the vendor. They are often two or three gold in the auction house.