Fishing

Fishing is accomplished by using a Fishing Pole while having a Bait item in your inventory. By standing on dry blocks and clicking a point over water, a line is cast into the water. Re-click when the bobber moves in order to reel in the line, and hopefully, a caught item.

Requirements


For a successful fishing attempt, 75 connected tiles of liquid are required (or 1,000 for oceans, 50 for honey). The game first counts tiles of liquid to the left and right of the bobber before hitting solid blocks, then the depth below those tiles. A pond holding more than 75 tiles may still not be fishable, if its shape causes the game to calculate a number less than 75. The player may successfully fish in a 1 tile-wide pond, as long as it's 75 tiles deep.

It is not possible to fish when the player is submerged in liquid, even partially, and even within a completely unrelated body of water. It is also not possible to fish while Mounted. Fishing can however be done while moving, flying, while grappled to blocks, or while standing on top of water, such as when using Water Walking Boots.

Fishing in lava requires the Hotline Fishing Hook (not even the Golden Fishing Rod will work in lava). This seems to take longer than fishing in water.

The distance of the bobber to the shore does not matter, as long as the above requirements are otherwise met.

Quest fishing
Catching a quest fish for the Angler NPC requires fishing in the proper biome and height for the day's current quest, which can be determined by talking to the Angler. You need not speak to him beforehand, nor have even encountered him, but the chances of finding the correct area to fish for a quest are much lower without speaking to the Angler first.

The quest fish cannot be caught if the player already has the quest fish in their inventory, nor if the quest fish was already turned in that day. Placing a quest fish in a container instead will allow another to be fished. Piggy Banks and Safes can be used for this purpose. Saving extras for future quests can save time and potion resources, as quests often repeat.

Multiple Quest fish can exist in a player's inventory, but can only be placed there manually from a storage item. Multiples cannot be picked up from the ground by any one player.

Factors
Given the prerequisites for fishing are fulfilled, a number of factors influence whether an item will be caught on a particular attempt, and what the quality/rarity of the caught item will be. All factors listed here are combined to determine the chances of higher-quality catches. See the sections below for possible fish types, and other items that can be caught.


 * The Fishing Power of the Fishing Pole used.
 * The Bait Power of the Bait used.
 * Equipped items and Potions.
 * The time the player is fishing.
 * The size of the lake: a lake  times smaller than 300 tiles (200 for honey) results in   times less fishing power. However, a lake larger than 300 tiles does not increase fishing power.

The following details the equipment, potion, and time boosts or penalties that apply. Most equipment must be acquired by completing quests for the Angler, but the Potions can also be crafted normally.


 * *Moon phases are numbered according to the graphic shown on the Moon page.
 * Bait Power also influences the chances that a Bait item will be consumed from the player's inventory. Items with higher Bait Powers will tend to last through more fishing attempts, as their chances for consumption will be lower.

Tips

 * When a lake is at least 300 tiles (200 for honey) in size and your total fishing power is at least 50 you will no longer fish junk (except for Seaweed in the Ocean.)
 * The bobber will move two or three times per bite, after which the fish will go away but the line will remain cast. As long as the reel-in occurs before this animation ends, the timing of the click doesn't seem to affect the quality of the catch.
 * It is possible to get a day's quest fish without having asked the Angler about it, though that would be 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. A day must still pass before another quest begins.
 * The most reliable way of obtaining Bait seems to be fishing in a surface forest, at night, close to NPCs: 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. Water Candles and Battle Potions can be used to increase the spawn rate of critters.
 * A good way to grind for Lightning Bugs is to either convert a large slab of land to Hallow, or one can dig a large hole (lined with dirt) and convert it to Hallow.
 * Crate contents are determined upon opening them. Crates caught in normal mode can yield Hardmode items when stockpiled and opened in Hardmode.

Trivia

 * Currently, the Neon Tetra has no use, though it can be sold.
 * The Clownfish quest description is a reference to the 2003 Walt Disney film, Finding Nemo.
 * The Bumblebee Tuna might be a reference to the "Bumble Bee" seafood brand. It may also be a reference to a line from the Jim Carey movie "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls"

History
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