Do you mean you couldn't figure out how to fish, or it was just too tedious and therefore "didn't work"? If it's the former, I struggled at first too. I'd click the button as soon as I heard and felt the bite, but it always failed. I realized after a while that you don't click the bite until the bite actually pulls the bobber under the water and bends the rod, THEN click the button to start fishing. Sometimes it takes 4-6 "bites" before the actual animation you should click for. Once you hook a fish, the mini game of keeping the fishing lure within the highlighted area is clunky for me, and I'm not great at it. I probably just need to practice. I really haven't bothered to fish more than maybe 10 minutes other than when it's required for a quest step in act 1.