Fishing and You!

A guide to show you around the most basic aspects of fishing.

First Things First

Welcome to Fishing and You! This guide will show you some of the ins and outs of fishing. For those who have read my other guides, this one will be a bit of a different format. Regardless of if you are new or a regular, lets jump right in!

Fishing Poles

In order to fish, you are going to need a fishing pole. These can be crafted, bought, or gained as a reward from the angler. There are nine different fishing poles, all listed below in order of fishing power.

Wood Fishing Pole: This fishing pole is by far the easiest to acquire. Crafted using only 8 pieces of wood at a work bench. To go with this easy accessibility, is its astonishingly bad stats at only 5% fishing power.

Reinforced Fishing Pole: Crafted using 8 iron or lead ingots at an anvil. This fishing pole is still easy to make, this pole has a 15% fishing power, making a great alternative to the classic wooden pole.

Fisher of Souls: This awesome looking fishing pole is crafted using demonite and can only be obtained in worlds with the Corruption. Requiring only 8 demonite bars, and 20% fishing power, it is a good upgrade, one that I used through most of pre-hardmode.

Fleshcatcher: Crafted using 8 crimtane bars, this fishing pole has a total of 22% fishing power. Slightly better than the Fisher of Souls, it can only be obtained in worlds with the Crimson. This fishing pole is the most powerful craftable fishing pole.

Fiberglass Fishing Pole: My personal favorite looking pole; the fiberglass fishing pole has a fishing power of 27%, but can only be obtained through jungle crates, or chests found in jungle shrines or living mahogany trees.

Mechanics Rod: Although this pole is 3% strong than the previous one, at 30% fishing power, it is unfortunately only obtainable from the mechanic. It can only be purchased during the wanning crescent moon, hardmode, and after the angler is obtained, for the price of 20 gold, making this a fairly easy to acquire fishing pole.

Sitting Duck's Fishing Pole: This fishing pole is sold by the travelling merchant every now and then, for the price of 35 gold coins. It has good stats, at a fishing power of 40%, making this is an awesome pole if you can get it pre-hardmode.

Hotline Fishing Hook: This fishing hook is the second best pole in the game. It has a fishing power of 45%, and can be recieved from the angler in hardmode. It has a 1/150 chance to be given as a reward for every quest after the 25th. This fishing pole can fish in lava, and will only bling when you have something on the end of your line.

Golden Fishing Rod: This fishing rod is the best of the best. With 50% fishing power, it can only be acquired from the angler, and is a guaranteed reward for completing the 30th quest. It also has a 1/250 chance to be dropped after the 75th quest.

Fishing Factors

You have your pole, you have your bait, and you are ready to fish. Before you begin fishing, there is a lot of information that to know to optimize and and help you fully understand your fishing expeirence. This information is really complex, so feel free to skim over or skip it completly. It is only here for those who truly want to enrich their fishing ability.

One important factor is time. Between 4:30-6:00 AM and 6:00-7:30 PM (Dusk and Dawn), fishing power is boosted by 30%, while between 9:00-3:00 AM and PM there is a there is a 20% reduction.

Weather and moon phase are also important. If it is cloudy or an overcast, there is a 10% bonus, and a 20% bonus while raining. For moon phase, full moons result in 10% bonuses while waning and waxing gibbous, moon phase 2&8, result in a 5% increase. On the opposite end, New Moon results in a 10% decrease, and waxing and waning crescent, moon phase 4&6, result in a 5% decrease.

Next up is lake size! For a lake to be fishable, it needs be at 75 tiles large. That being said, you want as big of a lake as you can get due to the smaller lakes resulting in a decrease in your fishing power. A 75 tile lake has a 75% decrease, and for every extra 25 tiles the penalty decreases by 8.33333 percent, so at 100 tiles its at 66.6%, 125-58.3%, 150-50% and so on, until you hit 300 tiles, where the penatly dissappears.
The green arrows in the picture to the right show what will be counted as tiles, while the red shaded area shows what will not be counted.


Now lets talk bait. Each piece of bait has a bait power. The bait power not only adds to the fishing power, but it also affects how fast it will be consumed. Any bait with a 5% bait power will be consumed on the first catch. The higher the mutiple of five, the higher the average catches before being consumed. So 25% bait power will average 5 catches.

With this knowledge, you are now ready to start to fishing like a pro!

Our friend the Angler

One of the most important parts of fishing in Terraria is the angler. An NPC that you find sleeping in either ocean, on the ends of your world. This NPC provides you with endless fishing quests and some pretty good loot when you complete them. He can give you lots of items, including wings and even grappling hooks and many, many, many decorative items. We are going to look at the fixed rewards, and a few other useful ones.

First, lets take a look at the fixed rewards.

Fuzzy Carrot: This might be the easiest way to acquire a mount in Terraria. After only 5 fishing quests, the angler will reward you with a Fuzzy Carrot, which can be equiped and used to spawn a ridable bunny.

Anglers Hat: This piece of clothing is recieved after completeing the 10th angler quest. With only a defence of 1, I highly recommend only wearing it while fishing, since it vies you a bonus of 5% fishing power.

Anglers Vest: Similiar to the hat, the only differnece is the vest has 2 defence (same fishing power). It is the reward for the 15th quest.

Anglers Pants: The final piece of the set, rewarded after 20th quests has the exact same stats as the hat.

Golden Fishing Pole: Like stated in the previous section, this is the best fishing pole in the game. Rewarded for completing your 30th quest, it is the last fixed reward.



Next, we are going to take a look at other cool stuff you can get from the angler:


Angler Earring: This item is an accesory to go with the angler armour. It provides you with an additional 10% fishing power, and has a drop rate of 1/40

Bottomless Water Bucket: This item does exactly what it says in the name, provides you a bottomless source of water. With a 1/70 chance of dropping after your 10th quest, and only in hardmode, it makes creating your own ponds to fish in super easy.

Fin Wings: Just like the name suggests, this item gives you the ability to fly. With the same drop requirements as the bottomless water bucket (1/70 chance, only in hardmode, after 10th quest), this route is much easier than having to kill Wyverns.

Fish Hook: This item can drop anytime you turn in an angler quest, with a 1/60 drop rate. It is a step up the from grappling hook sold by the goblin, as it has two hooks instead of one.

Golden Bug Net: This net is much like the original net, where you can use it to catch critters for bait, but it also has extra abilities. It is larger, swings faster, and can destroy anything a weapon can, like grass, which is super useful when you are bait farming.

High Test Fishing Line: This item is amazing! Are you tired of your line snapping randomly? With this item, never again will that happen! With a 1/40 drop rate, I personally find this to be one of the most useful fishing accesories.

Super Absorbant Sponge: This item is amazing for terraforming. With the same drop requirements as the bottomless water bucket and fin wings (1/70 chance, only in hardmode, after 10th quest), you can use this item to remove as much as water from your world as you want. Just pick it up as if you are using a bucket, and it dissappears completly.

Tackle Box: This item is awesome for making the most of your bait. It adds 5% bait power to any bait you are using, which helps keep the bait from being consumed.

Next up, the Fish Finder!

The Fish Finder!

The Fish Finder is an item combing the three data accesories you acquire from the angler. It consits of three items:

Fishermans Pocket Guide: This item will show your current fishing power, including potion affects and accesory/armour boosts.

Sextant: This item will tell you what the current phase of the moon is.

Weather Radio: Like the name suggests, this item will tell what the current weather condition is.



All these items have a 1/40 chance to be given as a reward for completing angler quests. They can be combined at the tinkering table to get the fish finder, which can further be combined with three other items to get the P.D.A. which doesn't add anything that is related to fishing. The P.D.A. will be in my next guide, so if you are curious about it, keep an eye out for my next guide.

Fishing Potions

In Terraria 1.3, there are currently three fishing potions. All of which can be acquire from either completing angler quests, or by crafting them. They are all exteremly helpful, and I recommend using them, even if they will be the only potions you use.

Crate Potion: This potion is amazing when looking for loot, especially during a fishermans play through. Crafted using an amber, a deathweed, a moonglow, and a water bottle, and is created at a place bottle. When used, your chances of getting a crate is creased by 10% for 3 minutes.

Fishing Potion: This next potion is crafted using a piece of cripsy honey, a waterleaf, and a bottle of water, and is also created at a placed bottle. It is the longest lasting fishing potion clocking in at 8 minutes, and increases your fishing power by 15%. Awesome for the angler quests!

Sonar Potion: This potion is useful when used in conjuction with the previous two potions, but is also useful when used alone. When a fish begins to pull on your line, the name of the fish will appear above the bobber, making sure you only catch what you want. Lasting for 4 minutes, it is crafted using a waterleaf, a piece of coral and a bottle of water. It is always a good idea to bring some with you when you go fishing because lets be honest, nobody wants to catch a bass.

Authors Note

Thanks for reading my guide! I hope you enjoyed it and learned some stuff that will help you on your next fishing trip, I know I did. If you have any guide suggestions, ideas for this guide, tips/pointers or just want to spread your own useful information, leave a comment below! If you liked this guide, I encourage you too check out my other ones as well. If you want to get notified when I put out new guides, follow me on the workshop. I should also note that all the pictures, as well as some of the information in this guide were taken from this Terraria wiki[terraria.gamepedia.com]

Anyway, thanks for reading, and may the luck of the angler be with you!


Check out my Twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/thelittletankthatcould

[Tilda]

how to get worms tho

[happyrock17]

Thanks

[Skoeterboyperez]

@sathr99 i think so

[juicerrrr]

Is the angler equipment only can be redeemed once or it has a chance to appear again? My dumbass somehow managed to delete it from my inventory and I don't know what to do now.

[friendly neighborhood gigachad]

this has helped thank you

[Irwin Rudolf]

nevermind lol

[Irwin Rudolf]

i cant craft any fishing poles other than the wooden one do i need some special workbench?

[Azzy Dreemurr]

There is the fishing pole, yes. But there are critters in the underworld that can help you fish in lava. You can stop using them when you got a lava hook, an accessory that allows fishing in lava without using the decently hard to get and low fishing power bait.

[sathr99]

how do i fish on lava? is it only possible with the fire based fising pole thingy?

[Azzy Dreemurr]

This guide is outdated. There are lava critters now!