If you don't play old ark mobile ignore this tip.

You can get free QUALITY fishing rods by tributing artifact of the hunter which can give any quality but depends on your difficulty

You can buy a journeyman or ascendant fishing rod from the outpost crafting station which costs 20 ancient amber to buy from the ingame store and will give you 200 slips to use in the outpost: a journeyman fishing rod costs 50 and an ascendant one costs 100

You can get fishing rod blueprints from redeeming free gifts (the ones where you used to have to watch an ad to redeem) but you can only craft 3 before the blueprint disappears from your inventory after you finish crafting the 3rd one.

And finally if you have a unicorn you can put a unicorn residue on a fishing rod then get a scuba tank, get a wooden chair then find a leedsichthys and put the wooden chair on the ocean floor (or on any flat spot where it lets you) then after killing any aggressive water dinos lure the leedsichthys near you and then you can fish the leedsichthys using the unicorn residue but the minigame it gives you is the hardest of any fish in the game, only giving 2.5% fishing progress after every correct swipe done. There is also a chance for the leedsichthys to clip into the ground and despawn instantly after you fail the minigame and your line snaps. After you somehow fish up the leedsichthys it will give you an eery candy blueprint that takes 10 ancient amber, 10 potent dust and 10 unicorn residue to craft 3 and it takes like 30 seconds to craft.