Fishing

Various fish can be caught using Fishing Poles while having Bait in your inventory. By clicking, a player can cast a line in the water. If the player re-clicks when the bobber moves, they will reel in a catch. Rarer catches will require a faster click in response to the bobber's movement. The line will be cast wherever the player's cursor is; it is affected by gravity and it will ricochet off a block.

Fishing Tips
Not all bodies of liquid can be fished in: there is a minimum required size of 75 connected tiles of liquid for a successful fishing attempt (any less, and the bobber won't even move). The shape and depth don't matter at all: the player can successfully fish in a 1-tile deep pond as long as the 75-tile rule is observed. Likewise, distance of the bobber to the shore does not matter. However, there does seem to be a direct correlation between size of the lake and quality of the catch: personal testing indicates lakes with upwards of ~200 tiles net no trash items, and at least in Forests it's only possible to catch Salmon in lakes several dozen tiles wide and deep (for reference, a 15-tile wide moat only began to yield Salmon, Iron Crates and even Gold Crates when it was dug 70 tiles deep). Also, fishing in bigger lakes seems to take less time between catches.

When fishing, the bobber will move two or three times per "catch", after which the fish will go away but the line will remain cast. It doesn't seem to be necessary to reel in as soon as the bobbing starts, the player will get the catch as long as they click before the animation ends. The timing doesn't seem to affect the quality of the catch, either, at least across different tries in the same place.

It is possible to get a day's quest fish without having asked the Angler about it, though it's a lucky event since the player won't know where to fish in the first place. Taking it to him will then successfully complete the quest, but a day must still pass before the player can get another.

The most reliable way of obtaining Bait seems to be fishing in a surface forest, at night, close to one's base: staying still and restricting the spawns to critters will result in a lot of Fireflies spawning, and if alternating fishing and catching it's easy to end with dozens more bait.

To fish in a particular biome, the player only needs to be standing in it in such a way the background music and backdrop change to those specific to that biome. One notable exception to this is the Ocean: the player must specifically fish in a body of water that is connected to the world's edge for it to count as Ocean fishing. Doing so in an unconnected lake while inside the Ocean biome will just net Bass and similars.

It is possible to fish in lava but only when using specifically the Hotline Fishing Hook (not even the Golden Fishing Rod will work in lava). This seems to take longer than fishing in water.

It is not possible to fish when submerged, even partially and even if it's in a completely unrelated body of water. It is possible to fish when standing on dry land, a platform, when grappled to a wall, and when flying.

Variants
Normal

Quests Crates Junks Other