A breakdown of what every lure in the game actually does

A deep dive into how the art of fishing on the web actually works, and what the lures you're equipping actually do.

Edit:

All of this information and more is now on https://webfishing.wiki.gg/, which is a much better source of accurate and up-to-date information!

What this guide will teach you

Let's cut to the chase. What will this guide teach you?

Well, it's simple. we're going to cover how fishing works behind the scenes and what exactly each lure really does. None of this is speculation, it's all confirmed based on v1.0.7 of the game.

The mechanics of fishing

Fishing in WEBFISHING is a bit simpler than in real life, but a good understanding is still key to maximising your fishing prowess. If you just want to know what lures are good, you can skip to the next section. But to start, let's introduce a few key concepts.

Loot Tables

Think of loot tables as a bucket of fish that you pick from every time you cast your rod. What bucket you get to fish in depends on where and when you're fishing.

The two most obvious and largest loot tables are the freshwater and saltwater tables. These contain all of the basic fish you can expect to hook regularly. Supplementing these two tables, as of the time this guide was penned, are two more tables: the rain table, and the junk table. The rain table contains only the anomalocaris, helicoprion, horseshoe crab, and leedsichthys, and the junk table contains all the non-fish items that you can reel in (including diamonds). There are more tables, but these are either unused, or are the table that contains only the UFO. This guide will not cover how to catch the UFO, there are other lovely guides out there that will instruct you upon how to do so.

As mentioned, the loot table your hook ends up in depends on where and when you're fishing, as well as a third important factor: RNG.
Whether you fish from the fresh or saltwater tables is entirely determined by the player: Lakes, rivers, and the well all count as freshwater, the sea is saltwater, and the Fresh and Salty lures work exactly as the game states. The outliers are the rain and junk tables.

On every cast, there is a base 5% chance that your hook will end up in the junk table, regardless of the salinity of the water. This chance rises to 10% with the Magnet Lure equipped.

If it is currently raining, there is an 8% chance that you will be lucky enough to earn a catch from the rain table. Note that this 8% chance will *override* the junk table if it is chosen first.

So, to summarise: Fishing in freshwater will usually net you a freshwater fresh, fishing in saltwater will usually net you a saltwater fish, there's a 5% (10% with Magnet Lure) chance of fishing up junk at any given time, and an 8% chance of fishing up a special rain table fish if it's currently raining.

Rolling

Once your loot table has been chosen, we move onto the next step in the fishing process. The game then takes the table and chooses four fish based on a weighted random draw. Note that the same fish can be chosen multiple times. The game hasn't added a quality (shining, glistening, etc.) to these fish yet, but they *do* have varying sizes, tiers, and rarities. This is where a good chunk of lures can step in to influence the outcome in our favour.

By default, the last of these four fish is "chosen" and this is the fish you'll end up catching (unless you end up rolling a treasure chest afterwards). However, depending on what lure you have equipped, the game will look through all four candidates, and choose whichever best suits our lure. For example, with the Fly Hook equipped, the smallest of these four fish will always be chosen, and with the Large Lure, the largest of the four will always be chosen. The two other lures that can intervene at this point in the procedure are the Sparkling Lure, and our enigmatic friend, the Golden Hook.

Treasure

After the fish table rolling has taken place, the treasure chance is then rolled. By default, it's a 2% that overrides all other rolls, and the magnet lure increases this to 4%.

Now that we've covered the mechanics of fishing, we can move onto a broad summary of each lure's abilities.

The lures

What you probably came here for.

None

No special abilities.

Fly Hook

Effectively increases the catch rate for smaller fish by selecting the smallest possible fish out of all fish rolled.

Lucky Hook

Gives you an extra 1-10% of the value of each catch in cash.

Patient Hook

Waits for player input before beginning the fishing minigame. Useful if you are playing the game in the background.

Quick Jig

Increases your rod power by 15% and sets reel speed to 125% of the base value. Note that this actually decreases your reel speed if you have reel speed upgraded to level 3 or higher.

Salty Lure

Allows you to catch saltwater fish in any body of water.

Fresh Lure

Allows you to catch freshwater fish in any body of water.

Efficient Lure

20% chance not to consume bait on catch.

Magnet Lure

Increases the junk catch chance to 9.6% (regular 4.9%), and the treasure catch chance to 4% (Regular 2%)

Large Lure

25% chance to consume an extra bait. Effectively increases the catch rate for larger fish by selecting the largest possible fish out of all fish rolled.

Attractive Angler

Increases catch chance by 30%.

Sparkling Lure

25% chance to consume an extra bait. Effectively increases the catch rate for higher-tier fish by selecting the highest-tier fish out of all fish rolled. As a rule of thumb, this is generally around a 1.5x multiplier for tier 2 fish, and a 2.8x multiplier for tier 3 fish.

Double Hook

25% chance to consume an extra bait, 15% chance to double the caught fish or junk.

Golden Hook

Always consumes three bait. Effectively increases the catch rate for "rare" fish by selecting a rare fish if one is rolled. This ends up multiplying the catch rate for each rare fish by almost exactly 3x.

The following four fish are currently the only "rare" fish in the game.

• Golden Bass
  
• Golden Manta Ray
  
• Leedsichthys (Only available during rain)
  
• Diamond ("Junk" item)

Challenge Lure

Popups will continually appear during the fishing minigame, and must be clicked within a short period of time, or the fish and bait will be lost. Each popup awards you a small percentage of the fish's worth, and rarer fish award larger percentages.

Responses to common comments

• The fly hook and large lure apply to all fish. They're size-based and not fish or prefix-based, with size in this case being the absolute length of the given fish. If a whale with the microscopic prefix and a shrimp with the huge prefix are both rolled, the whale will be chosen since it has a larger physical size.
  
• If you're looking to catch a diamond, the golden hook is the better option, as it nearly triples the chance of catching a diamond, whereas the magnet lure less than doubles it.
  
• Catch chance is the chance that the fishing minigame will start during a given fish timer cycle (2-3 seconds). The default chance is 6%; rod upgrades, rain, cola, the attractive lure, and reeling the line in ever so slightly every few seconds all increase this chance.
  
• Bait only influences two things: the max tier of fish you can catch, and the chance for getting different qualities of fish. Worms can only catch tier 1-2 fish, and every other bait can catch all 3 tiers of fish. The bait descriptions with regard to max quality are accurate, but the actual percent chances to catch each quality are a bit more complicated. It works out that the best bait for normal (tier 1-2) is worms, normal (tier 3) is crickets, shining is squid, and the best bait for everything else is nautilus.
  
• You can reference the information in this guide, provided you cite it correctly (looking at you, low-effort NineWiki editorial), but this guide likely will not be maintained with full scrutiny as the game continues to update. A much better source of accurate information is https://webfishing.wiki.gg, which has much more information on it and is actively maintained by the community
  
• This information is all datamined directly from the game, and is currently accurate to version 1.08

[sei]

what, im rank 18 right now, i didnt know diamond was rare dude, i was JUST about to sell it, i got it when i was just starting the game, less then 30mins playtime

[Hazelberry]

Is that info for diamonds still accurate? The wiki states that the magnet hook is 0.437% chance whereas it says golden hook is 0.433% for diamonds.

[Ralty]

Been wondering whats better lucky hook or challenge lure?

[Chort]

if im trying to get the rarities for golden bass/golden ray, would the gold hook be more effective or sparkling?

[Quote]

Since the "rare" fish are all tier 3, wouldn't the sparkling lure have the same effect on them as the golden hook?

[socky]

nvm, didn't realize my mouse is available when reeling in, automatically assumed no, just gotta click on the pop up :p

[socky]

stupid question, how does the challenge lure ACTUALLY work? do i gotta click when the pop up appears, or when it's right about to disappear? the pop ups stay on the screen regardless of when i click it

[mynx]

@hamsterdance

Why do you think they stack? I mean you can only equip one lure.. ;)

[Winkwing]

The guy below me is dumb.

[hamsterdance1212]

Do the lures stack? If i bought all of them would i have all of the benefits?