Talk:Fishing

Page Splitting
I don't think we should split the page into a million separate ones for each fish...

Perhaps merge the quest fish with the angler page?

That's good. That's OK. Let's just... not go overboard and split it all up. There's a difference between too few and entirely too many. RECCOMMENDED ORDERING: Quest Items -> Angler Potion Ingredients -> New Page Other Catchables -> New Page Plet53 (talk) 02:20, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

From a users point of view, the current layout lends to ease of use--it is simple to locate what can be found where, or where a specific fish is located. Preserving the sort-able tables through the proposed split would be wonderful.

I'm fine with having individual pages for each fish, as long as this reference page for every fish still stays. That way, you can put the basics here and put any details, references, trivia, etc. in the individual fish pages. FyreNWater (talk) 03:33, 14 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I think we'll end up with "natural" divisions as we learn more about this mechanic. There's the obvious division of where and how each fish can be caught, and then there's whether the fish is a potion ingredient or used for some other notable purpose, and then whether it's part of a quest (text of the quest on the angler page -> link to the specific fish -> description of how to catch), and then you have the stack of fish that basically get used for cooked fish and that's all. I'd counsel patience and boldness - if you can add significant detail to a fish or group of fish, split it off to a new page and add it, but if you're just going to stub out a picture and not add at least a paragraph or two of meaningful detail... hold off until you (or someone) can. I'd favour subcategories over individual fish pages, where it's meaningful. CDarklock (talk) 05:38, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm thinking we keep it as a single page - after all, having 30+ pages, each dedicated to a single fish, seems counter intuitive. It'd be like having a separate page for each type of workbench. 125.239.152.172 04:09, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Fishing Mechanics
Since I don't see a page here, and I'm curious as to how the fishing mechanic works, or what factors goes into it. I don't have nearly enough information to warrant adding onto the page, and I would personally like someone to help confirm my findings before it is posted on the page.

Anyhow, what I have found so far is mostly catch speed and catch quality. Speed is determined by the size of the body of water, and quality is how far away you are from the body of water. I have noticed that if I am standing almost next to the fishing bob, I get *much* more seaweed, boots, and cans than if I was at the farthest possible distance. Also, the larger the body of water, the faster the catch rate. I don't have any real numbers yet, but I have done ~40 trials for two different pools in the underground jungle using grasshoppers and the fleshcatcher. I don't know the exact size, nor the exact distance, aside from "maybe 10 blocks or less" to "a couple of underground pockets of water collected together" and "almost max range" to "next to bob". --Bluemofia (talk) 00:56, 15 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I've done some mild testing and added the results to the page in the form of half a dozen "Tips", though it's almost a guide now. In my experience timing and distance don't affect the catch at all. I've tried casting the line right under my character's feet while standing on platforms and the results are apparently the same. The size of the body of water does however influence the catch, and heavily so. The minimum of 75 tiles nets trash 3/4 of the time. 200+ tiles and you get no more junk, 1000+ tiles and you start getting the really good stuff like Salmons, Iron and Gold Crates in Forests. I hadn't paid attention to the time before a catch as a function of lake size, though... good catch, gonna add it now.
 * I didn't count how many times I cast the line, but it's probably reaching 200 by now. I must say, fishing in Terraria is surprisingly entertaining... and profitable with a large enough lake. --186.136.111.144 07:20, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I guess the fits under fishing mechanics. What exactly does fishing skill affect and how does it differ from or influence fishing power? A logical assumption would be that higher numbers lead to greater productivity (better quality catches and/or shorter downtime between catches), but to what extent? Also, between which hours is it considered the beginning and end of each day in order for the 30% bonus to be applied? --173.66.29.113 19:29, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Mechanics of what type of fish is caught: In my trials the catch seems to be determined to a large degree by the timing of the "reel in". I often fish for Hemopiranha. There is a timing after the second bob that delivers a majority of them. It is a fairly small range but after playing with in my last trial I got 28 hemo, 20 crimson tigerfish, 19 bass, 4 iron crates, 4 wood crates 1 zephry. The timing is a lot like trying to stop a stopwatch on tenths of seconds. I fish in a made lake from a wood platform s10 above the water, 28 wide by 30 deep with fishing potion, sitting ducks rod and fireflys and have never caught seaweed or a boot.
 * In the event that this were true, the Sonar Potion would display an unintelligible mess of changing text. The mechanics aren't entirely understood but timing doesn't affect what you catch. Gearzein (talk) 00:45, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Good point, but I don't know how else to explain the catch ratios, which are repeatable when focusing on the timing. Perhaps the sonar potion just causes a random time to be chosen and then display or some other mechanic to make it work.

Breaking fishing lines
One thing I haven't found yet in the code, and isn't described on the page right now, is what exactly determines when the fishing line breaks. From testing myself I've found that certain quest items can't be caught, at least not using purchasable fishing poles, without the high-test fishing line. I'm not sure if this is just by chance though as I've been unable to confirm in the code and no one else has been reporting their experiences with this. If anyone has any clues feel free to chime in.  Equazcion ( talk ) 15:30, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The chance seems to be 1 in 7 for breaking the line when your bait is consumed. From what I can see a higher fishing level does increase the chance of catching certain fish, but it should be possible without. (Using the worst fish and worst bait some fishes are 60 times less likely to be caught than others.) --0icke0 (talk) 09:52, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Fishing Corrections
Some of the heights/biomes listed for fish are incorrect, according to what I've tested. After creating a Cavern layer, Purity biome fishing house pre-hardmode, fish caught (Using Sitting Duck fishing rod, Angler Earring, Fishing Potion, and peak times) were Armored Cavefish, Bass, Golden Carp, Specular Fish, and Stinkfish. Additionally, I was able to catch Guide Voodoo Fish and Hungerfish consistently in this spot (as well as other quest fish). After hardmode, the entire area was infected by Hallow. Since then the fish caught have been Bass, Chaos Fish, Golden Carp, Princess Fish, Prismite, Specular Fish, and Stinkfish. The wiki states Specular Fish must be caught in a Purity Biome, and Stinkfish in a "Forest" biome (will assume this is Purity), so I believe these are incorrect. At the very least, these fish can be caught in Hallow biomes as well (have not tested Crimson/Corruption, but I assume these fish can be successfully caught in any Biome so long as the height is correct). Additionally, I could no longer catch Guide Voodoo Fish or Hungerfish in that spot despite numerous attempts, even though the wiki states they can be caught in any Biome (other quest fish not tested, please help confirm this. It's possible I might've been incredibly unlucky with my fishing). Furthermore, having an Underground layer, Purity Biome fishing house allows me to catch Armored Cavefish and Specular Fish commonly, even though the wiki states they can only be caught at Cavern height or below.
 * There are indeed a few mistakes at the moment. Some which were introduced later. (See the old page here, not that that is completely correct, but for example Stinkfish is an any biome.) I'll see if I can correct some mistakes. --0icke0 (talk) 10:13, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've checked the game code, which confirms that Armored Cavefish and Specular Fish can be caught in the underground too. Furthermore it seems that all fish (except for fish from lava/honey, junk, crates, Frog Leg, Zephyr Fish and those specific to the biome cannot be caught in a purity biome. --0icke0 (talk) 11:45, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
 * So we have to go to the corruption, crimson or hallow to get quest fish? – flying sheep 17:26, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Addition: I just caught a Jewelfish in a cavern without biome. That’s purity the, right? That means this article is wrong!
 * No, I can say that's definitely incorrect. Look at what I originally posted. I have a Purity Biome, Underground layer fishing house that I use to catch Armored Cavefish. From what I can see on the updated list, every single fish currently marked as "Non-Purity" can in fact be caught in a Purity Biome, and some only within a Purity Biome. Whatever you saw within the game code is either outright wrong or was misunderstood. It's not hard to replicate these situations in-game, go and test for yourself if you have doubts.
 * Alright, I've rewritten the ugly decompiled code into a more readable form. (Hopefully I made no mistakes.) It seems I misread the code and that those fish could indeed be caught in purity biomes as well. I once again tried to look what may have caused you to be unable to catch Guide Voodoo Fish or Hungerfish, but no success there. Maybe you were indeed unlucky. --0icke0 (talk) 10:25, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
 * it really seems like what you interpreted as non purity was in fact purity only, judging from the overwheliming number of comments going in this direction. would it be possible to check if this is the case? we seem to have a blatantly false quest description here, for a high number of quests, and this is definitely something people come here to know.
 * That definitely isn't the case. The comments go in the direction that what I interpreted as non purity could in fact be caught anywhere. --0icke0 (talk) 10:36, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Neon Tetra (jungle fish)
I just noticed both in the game and in the wiki that this fish doesn't do anything, it's just for sale. Why is this the only fish without purpouse? an oversight from the devs? --EstebanLB (talk) 18:20, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Huh, it seems you are right. How annoying, I was planning to make stew or something outta them. I guess it must be an oversight from the devs, if it was intended to be a useless item it'd have grey quality. NoseOfCthulhu (talk) 12:18, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Batfish - Can be caught in ANY biome?
Well, so the Angler asked for a Batfish as the daily quest. My world is in Hardmode and most of the good lakes are in the Underground Hallow, so I went there to catch it. The Wiki says the Batfish can be caught in any biome, so I thought there should be no problem. Well, in that lake, I caught about 50 Bass, about 50 Specular Fish, 15 Princess Fish, 5 Prismite, one Chaos Fish, 15 Wooden Crates, one Iron Crate and a Golden Crate... but no Batfish. Because time was running out, I quickly searched for a non-hallowed and non-corrupted lake, and found one. After catching several more fish and several trash, I got the Batfish after maybe 10 to 15 tries. Now this makes me think, are Batfish really catchable in any biome? Because usually, I get the daily Quest fish after no more than 20 tries... sometimes it's even my first catch. Or was I really just THAT unlucky? Smwforever45 (talk) 22:06, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Played some more and I've had the same issue with the Jewelfish. Smwforever45 (talk) 15:52, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately there seems to have been trouble with determining what biomes various fish are obtained in. Perhaps a solution would be to add "guaranteed" biomes to the list in cases where it seemingly provides erroneous info. NoseOfCthulhu (talk) 22:58, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a nice idea. We could also have the players provide proof that the Quest fish can really be caught in a lake in a certain biome. A Sonar Potion could help. Or just have other people check whether the information is correct that someone put into the table. Smwforever45 (talk) 21:49, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Ocean Fishing
That tip is not correct (maybee not anymore):

''One notable exception to this is the Ocean: the player must specifically fish in a body of water whose surface is connected to the world's edge for it to count as Ocean fishing. Doing so in an unconnected lake, or in the ocean with an unconnected surface, while inside the Ocean biome will just net Bass and similars.''

It don't need to be connected! If you mean edge as the end of the world. Could be true if edge is the space 250block's before the world ends. But you can place a wall inside the ocean an still get ocean fishs on the side which is not connected to the world's end. You dont need sand as ground as well (Guide:Artificial_biomes might be wrong too)). But you need at least 1000 water blocks to get ozean fishs.


 * I brought this up here. Ocean fishing requirements appears to be that there are more than 1000 water tiles + the dobber is within 380 tiles from the worlds edge (not taking into account that various tiles fall outside then screen, maybe even more depending on the lighting mode) + the height being surface or higher. NoseOfCthulhu (talk) 20:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

underworld fishing?
i tried to fish demonic hellfish in lava the underwolrd. no luck. unless it is in water, which doesnt seem possible. this still needs ironing out
 * Demonic Hellfish don't require The Underworld. You can fish them in the Cavern layer, the one above the Underworld. You can only fish in lava using the Hotline Fishing Hook, but none of the quest fish require that.  Equazcion ( talk ) 10:19, 21 Jul 2014 (UTC)

Fish catch chances
I have not tested every chance but 4 were incorrect in the usable items section out of 10. The current tables state the (sometime incorrect) rarity for an effective fishing level of 50.
 * e.g. Item ... Catch Chance | Purple Clubberfish ... 1:50

My question to the community is: What would be the most useful display of fish catch rate to the average Terraria user?
 * Would the tables be made better by changing the odds column to tell the rarity slot the fish is in?
 * e.g. Item ... Rarity | Purple Clubberfish .... rare
 * This has the benefits of: 1) Showing which fish are exclusive to each other; 2) Being able to plug into a formula to get the exact catch chance for a specific effective fishing level, which is much more accurate than using an arbitrary value for the calculations. The disadvantages are: 1) Some items have an additional chance that may be difficult to interpret, e.g. Frog Leg ... legendary * 1/2; 2) It loses the ease of use of using odds.
 * Would the tables instead be made better by simply updating the odds to the correct values using the current effective level = 50?
 * Which items should be ignored for the purposes of determining the chance?
 * e.g. To catch a fish in water you first have to NOT catch a crate (9/10), frog leg (499/500), zephyr fish (999/1000) = (4,486,509/5,000,000) =approx= 0.8973 chance to proceed to a "normal" fish. This would change with a crate potion. This also changes in biomes with other weird fish, like the Ocean. Currently the odds only factor in NOT catching a crate. If exact values are more desirable, A decimal chance representation would be better than an odds representation. If an odds representation is desirable, it is best to only factor in the crate chance.
 * Add rarity column, and correct the odds for current effective level = 50?
 * Have the best of both options.
 * Add another column for a "maxed" fishing gear effective level?
 * To better represent veteran players.

Perhaps a combination of the above?--Blackberry Pie (talk) 23:46, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I would probably just put a textual explanation into a note at the end of the page, explaining the general complexity and warning that the values shown in the fish lists won't be completely accurate. This stuff is pretty complex, and a verbose explanation that's 100% technically accurate isn't going to be necessary or helpful to the vast majority of players, especially if it were added to the main catch lists. Most people will just want to see a picture, know which location to go to, and maybe get a general idea of the chances. Alternatively we could put a more verbose table into a separate collapsed section, so that whoever is interested can expand it.  Equazcion ( talk ) 00:15, 2 Sep 2014 (UTC)

Here is an example of one possible solution: Sandbox, with the "Item Rarity" column removed, as I doubt many people use it, and the "Catch Rarity Slot" column added.--Blackberry Pie (talk) 05:36, 3 September 2014 (UTC)


 * That looks good, although a couple things:


 * The basic "item rarity" shouldn't be removed. It's one of the basic statistics that apply to all items and is the only indication of where items rank in game advancement. Since most fish don't have individual pages, the catch lists are the only place that stat can appear.


 * I wouldn't call the column "catch rarity slot". The "slot" mechanics of fishing are on the more complex side. They don't lend themselves to lists and wouldn't be intuitively understood, without some lengthy required reading. Perhaps call the column "probability rank"? This would still be technically accurate since each slot pertains to a particular probability within each fishing area. We could explain in a note that they work as "slots" when biomes overlap (I think we already do have that note).


 * We'd need a legend of some sort to list the rank/slot order (ie. which values are more rare than which).  Equazcion ( talk ) 10:41, 3 Sep 2014 (UTC)

Sandbox. Updated table header to "Probability Slot" Changed footnote to explain slot rankings. I do not think that fish item rarity necessarily shows game progression, since all catches can be caught as soon as one has a fishing pole and bait, with the exceptions of the Scaly Truffle, fish from lava, fish from Hallow, and hardmode quest fish. That said, I am indifferent to whether the item rarity is kept or removed, and not removing existing information is less difficult than removing it.--Blackberry Pie (talk) 15:18, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Splitting Crate Stacks
Does anyone know how the heck you are supposed to split a stack of crates once they're all together (such as for multiplayer)? This isn't specifically about fish, but the crate pages don't even have a discussion page. Right-clicking them opens the box and I don't recall any shortcut for auto-splitting any stack in half. --Ceekur

If you sell them to an NPC, you can buy them back with left/right click to split them. Same applies for goodie bags and presents. 174.45.25.14 06:45, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Any kind of cap?
Since most other types of tools can have more than a 100% power, is it possible to have your fishing power above 100 or is it wasted? --66.214.76.114 04:51, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Values over 100% should still have an effect. I don't think it's actually a calculated percentage of any value, so much as a number with a percent sign added onto the end. --Gearzein (talk) 05:21, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Values over 100 will have an effect. As Gearzein says, it's not actually a percent of some whole, although it is a percent in that it's a divisor. When you fish, a dice roll occurs. Some number is divided by your fishing power to determine how many sides the die has, and the fewer sides there are, the greater your chance of fishing a higher-value item.


 * tl;dr : Yes, fishing powers do continue to help above 100% :)  Equazcion ( talk ) 06:51, 23 Nov 2014 (UTC)

Batfish/quest fish possible bug
In the page it states that quest fish aren't able to be caught unless the quest has been initiated. However, I haven't even gotten the angler, yet I caught a batfish. Has anyone else experienced this?
 * That's normal. It says at the top that you don't need to speak to the Angler in order to catch a quest fish. Equazcion  ( talk ) 21:57, 4 Jan 2015 (UTC)

Please add max stack info for fish.
Could someone add the max stack number for normal fish and quest fish? I can't seem to find the information in the Wiki. There is information for crates, junk, and Honeyfin but nothing else. Since I've caught 117 Crimson Tigerfish I know it is above 99, though I don't know if they stop at 250 or 999. Is the max stack the same for all fish or do different fish have different max stacks? Do quest fish have a different max stack than other types of fish? Thanks.

Lake clarifications
Can someone clarify (preferably in the article as well) whether tiles under the surface of the lake, but with other tiles between, count as fishable area? For example, would the area of this lake with the glowstick count as a fishable area? (Obviously this particular lake is too small anyway.) --Littlebeasti (talk) 01:00, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

The area with the glowstick in that image doesn't get counted due to the dirt blocks in the water above it. The area is counted from the top down for each column and stops counting as soon as it hits a solid block, ignoring any water directly below solid blocks inside the water as a result. 86.140.152.108 03:00, 5 July 2015 (UTC)