Although fishing isn’t a required feature of Terraria, it is one that can yield a lot of good rewards. In addition, it’s necessary for creating items such as the Cell Phone, and also necessary to complete 100% of the achievments.
If you’re looking for a good explanation about everything you need to know about fishing, than this is the guide for you. I’ll cover everything from the basics of fishing all the way to being the best fisherman you possibly can.
How to Fish
To do any sort of fishing, you of course need a good pole to fish with. The pole alone won’t help you though, as you also need bait. You can keep as much bait in your inventory as you want, but the bait that shows up first in your inventory is the one the pole will use.
When you’ve found a lake or body of water big enough to fish in, you simply cast your line into the water or lava and wait (more on lava fishing later). You’ll see the bobber dip under the water, and then you click to reel it in.
You can catch many things depending on what biome you’re fishing in, and most things are worth keeping. Junk items, on the other hand, are completely useless items that are there to clutter up your inventory and be thrown away. There are ways to stop catching junk altogether, which I cover later.
Basically, you can keep catching fish until all of your bait runs out, but it’s sometimes takes a while to run out since bait can be found in chests.
Where to Fish
Basically every biome has their own fish, including floating islands. Fishing during Blood Moons has also been revamped in Journey’s End, even going so far as to add new bosses that can be fished out of the ocean.
When you fish in the new area, it’s wise to set up a small fishing hut with the basic necessities, including a bed and storage items. If you’re fishing in lava, it’s smart to set up a lava fishing lake somewhere where you won’t be bombarded with enemies.
Each layer of underground has its own fish to catch, causing you to move around quite a bit when you need new fish. When your fishing pole is in the water, you’re extremely vulnerable to attacks. As long as you’re safe, you won’t have much to worry about, with the exception of creatures that can clip through walls.
Angler Quests
Every in game day, the Angler will give you a brand few fishing quest to complete. The quests always involve heading to a particular biome and catching a quest fish, and the quest is completed by turning the fish in to the Angler.
Out of every reason to go fishing in Terraria, the quest rewards are by far the most beneficial. There are a ton of unique items that you can get by doing these quests, such as the Golden Fishing Pole and fishing accessories necessary for the Cell Phone.
Fishing Poles
Obviously, you’ll need a pole before you can start fishing. Here’s a list of every pole in the game, along with their fishing power and how to get them.
| Fishing Pole | Fishing Power | How to Obtain |
|---|---|---|
| Wood Fishing Pole | 5% | Crafted with Wood at a Workbench |
| Reinforced Fishing Pole | 15% | Crafted with Iron/Lead at an Anvil |
| Fisher of Souls | 20% | Crafted with Demonite at an Anvil |
| Fleshcatcher | 22% | Crafted with Crimtane at an Anvil |
| Scarab Fishing Rod | 25% | Found in an Oasis Crate |
| Chum Caster | 25% | Dropped from a Wandering Eye Fish or a Zombie Merman |
| Fiberglass Fishing Pole | 27% | Found in Underground Jungle Chests |
| Mechanic’s Rod | 30% | Bought from Mechanic in Hardmode during the waning crescent moon phase |
| Sitting Duck’s Fishing Pole | 40% | Bought from Traveling Merchant |
| Hotline Fishing Pole | 45% | Random Angler reward after completing 25 quests (1/75 drop chance) |
| Golden Fishing Pole | 50% | Guaranteed Angler Reward after 30 quests |
Bait
To do any sort of fishing, you need to have at least 1 piece of bait in your inventory. When a fish is caught on the line, 1 bait will be consumed. You’re also able to decrease the chance of bait consumption using accessories.
The quality of the bait is a major factor in the effectiveness of your fishing. Although you’ll need a ton of bait if you plan on fishing often, bait is quite easy to get by catching insects with a bug net.
When you start doing Angler quests, he rewards you with bait very frequently. Every crate can contain bait as well, so there definitely isn’t any shortage of bait.
Lava Fishing
Journey’s End introduced lava fishing to Terraria, but it doesn’t explain how to start doing it. There are 3 ways to fish in lava. The first is by catching bait in the underworld using the Lavaproof Bug Net. The second is by getting a Hotline Fishing Rod or Lavaproof Fishing Hook, and the last is by getting the Golden Fishing Rod.
Of course, the easiest way to fish is simply by using lava bait caught in the underworld. The Lava Proof Bug net is easy to get and let’s you collect some decent bait from the underworld. You can use this bait to complete any Angler Quests that require lava fish, as well as to get lava fish to make potions.
If you’re lucky and manage to get either the Hotline Fishing Rod or the Lavaproof Fishing Hook, then that’s pretty much all you need to continue your lava fishing adventures.
Although it can be enjoyable fishing in the Underworld, it’s not practical for Expert and Master Mode worlds. The best way to lava fish is to create a lava lake towards the surface, and then you’ll have the easiest time catching the lava exclusive fish.
One of the best items you can get while lava fishing is the Demon Conch. It’s an amazing but rare item that will teleport you to the center of the Underworld, essentially negating the need to build a Hellevator.
How to Avoid Junk
Junk items are super annoying to catch since they take up inventory space and waste the life of your bait. There are several ways to avoid catching junk so that you never have to worry about it again.
Sonar Potions
While it’s smart to use Sonar Potions anyway, they will show you when there’s junk at the end of your line. The potion will also show you what fish is on the end of your line, so it inevitably will save you bait by letting you pick and choose the fish you want.
The potions are cheap to make and make fishing a lot easier, so always have some of these on you on your fishing trips.
Get a bigger lake
If the lake you’re fishing in is over 300 blocks in size, you’ll no longer catch any junk. The same goes for fishing in honey, except you only need a honey pool 200 blocks large.
You won’t have to worry about junk in the ocean, but the junk becomes annoying when fishing in other biomes. If you manage to get the Bottomless Water Bucket or Bottomless Lava Bucket, you’ll easily be able to create lakes large enough to fish in without junk.
Increase fishing power
Fishing power is incredibly beneficial for catching fish the fastest, and having a high enough level (50) will stop you from catching junk altogether.
The Golden Fishing Rod is the best reward you can get from the Angler, and automatically has 50 fishing power. In addition to the fishing pole you use, the type of bait also increases fishing power, and there are several accessories that add fishing power as well.
There are many ways to increase your total power, but as long as your total power is over 50 than junk will no longer be a problem for you.
Fishing and Potions
Besides the Cell Phone, the best reason to go fishing is to collect potion ingredients. There are so many potions that require fish that it’ll take forever to collect them all.
Fishing Potion
This potion will increase your fishing power by 15 for 8 minutes. These are great to use if you don’t quite have 50 fishing power and don’t want to catch junk, or simply for just catching fish faster.
Crate Potion
The Crate Potion increases your chance of catching a crate to 20%, instead of the usual 10% chance. The potion lasts for only 3 minutes and requires several herbs and a piece of Amber to craft.
Crates are filled with items that are either total garbage or extremely helpful. If you fish for crates Pre-Hardmode, you can potentially get some game-changing items.
While the crates are still good in Hardmode, they won’t provide you with any amazing items. They do provide many great Hardmode ores and some good baits, but other than that crates aren’t as beneficial in Hardmode.
Sonar Potion
Possibly the most useful fishing item there is. When you use this potion, it’ll show you anything that gets caught on your line. This allows you to avoid junk, and only catch the fish you need. You can also save a massive amount of bait while using this potion.
It’s also insanely cheap to make, so I recommend making as many of these as you can. It also lasts for 8 minutes, making it a must-have for any fishing trip.
Fishing Crates
Crates hold all sorts of good things, and can even be used to gain better items early on in the game. Speed runners use crates to gain a head start in Hardmode by gaining high tier ore early.
There are some incredibly useful weapons that can be obtained even early on, such as the Enchanted Sword. All it takes is a little patience and a few crate potions, and you can save yourself the trouble of farming certain items.
Fishing Power
Now while fishing power sounds complicated, it’s actually very simple when you see its effects. There are a bunch of different formulas that are used when calculating fishing power, but all you need to know is that the higher the fishing power you have, the faster you’ll catch fish.
If your fishing power is over 50, you’ll no longer catch junk anymore. So obviously, fishermen want to have as much fishing power as possible. There are several items in the game that increase fishing power, and here is a list of all of them:
- Angler Tackle Bag / Angler Earring – increases fishing power by 10
- Angler Armor – full set increases fishing power by 15
- Fishing Potion – increases fishing power by 15 for 8 minutes
- Chum Bucket – increases fishing power by 11 on first use, 17, on second use, and 20 on the third use
In addition to these accessories, every fishing pole and bait in the game has its own fishing power modifiers. The maximum amount of fishing power you can ever have is 303. Some wizards on the Terraria wiki calculated that number, which is an insane amount of fishing power that can only be rarely obtained.
Fishing Accessories
There are several items you can get that will aid you in various ways while you fish. Some of these are given as Angler Quest rewards, while the rest are either a combination of several accessories or found in crates.
Angler Quest Rewards
- High Test Fishing Line – makes your fishing line unbreakable
- Angler Earring – increases fishing skill
- Tackle Box – decreases chance of bait consumption
- Fisherman’s Pocket Guide – displays your fishing power
- Weather Radio – displays the weather
- Sextant – displays the current moon phase
Other Accessories
- Fish Finder – combination of the Fisherman’s Pocket Guide, Weather Radio, and Sextant
- PDA / Cell Phone – Fish Finder combined with all other informational accessories
- Angler Tackle Bag – combination of High Test Fishing Line, Angler Earring, and Tackle Box
- Lavaproof Fishing Hook – allows lava fishing with any fishing rod. Found in Obsidian and Hellstone Crates.
Fishing for Enemies
Before 1.4, Duke Fishron was the only enemy you could fish out of the ocean, but Journey’s End changed that. You can now spawn all of these new enemies by fishing during a Blood Moon:
- Wandering Eye Fish
- Zombie Merman
- Blood Eel
- Hemogoblin Shark
- Dreadnautilus