Thanks! This works!

I had tried every key close to the Enter key, but turns out it's the one furthest from it! ;-)

FISHING H3LL-- WHAT IN THE BLUE DUCK did you do to equip fishing pole????

For me the whole fishing system is bugged to the ground. Bringing up the  circle then highlighting the fishing rod icon only equips my weapon and puts me into combat stance..ive tried it hundreds of times and all the icons on that ring only give me combat stance, so i have to use the crossed swords icon next to fairy icon...and that only gives me fishing rod  symbol never a harpoon symbol, then 4 times out of  every 5 tries that to gives me the  weapon then combat stance  after ive highlighted and pressed the fishing rod  symbol.

On top of that no function unequips my rod...pressing RMB and other random  guesses does nothing, only way for me to unequip my rod is switch server or log out / log back in. Add  to the fact that im UK and had a painful time leaning that the hash key not the apostrophe key brought up the non functioning  ring with the forever  crossed swords  no matter which symbol i pressed and im pretty well miffed with it. For sure its impossible for me to hotspot fish..by the time i equip or unequip a rod the hotspot  is long gone.

i dont understand what yall mean! You stand next to your spot press crossed swords, rod, space and you are fishing.

If you want to cancel press rmb (to cancel animation) press crossed swords, pole and you back.

Yeah its pointlessly more to press but i dont understand the confusion.

First of all, no matter which method you try to use a fishing rod or a harpoon, you have to equip a fishing rod and/or a harpoon in your new life skill equipment window first.

If you don't have one equiped here, you can't use it!  eg. I can't switch to harpoon because I don't have equiped one.

And for the ring menu: If you have equiped a fishing rod and try to use the ring menu to switch to fishing mode, but every time your wepon gets drawn. It's because you press LMB to confirm your selection instead of just releasing the ring menu button.
Press and hold the ring menu button - select fishing rod by highlighting it - release the ring menu button (do not press left mouse button!!!)

To unequip ther fishing rod:

first, if you are currently fishing, you need to reel in your line by pressing rmb. If not you can skip this step.

Then select combat mode with the ring menu (the same way you selected the fishing rod, so highlight an release the button and don't do a left click to confirm) or use the button at the top which should now display a rod and shows you the combat mode when you click on it.

What is even the issue here LOL
And its literally a indirect buff because now it doesnt unslot the outfit weapon and off-hand, which means you get 10% durability resistance

I was only unable to use hotkey when it was free mouse cursor mode. By pressing Control function works. 

I genuinely dont get why people are/were confused about this. I didnt read the patch notes, logged into the game after update, saw a new icon under HP/MP bar, went to click on it, saw rod and harpoon, immediately understood what it was for and how it worked before i even tried it. I mean then i realised there was also a new icon in equipment, clicked it, oh i guess i have to put my life gear there now. It was literally self-explanatory within seconds. IDK man.  I dont particularly have a giant brain.

Its not that deep my dudes.  pull up mouse. Click a damn button, then spacebar to start.