This guide will be covering the details on how you can catch a fish in Valheim. Unlike any other games with a fishing feature, the fishing process in Valheim is a little bit complicated. If you’re one of the players having a hard time catching a fish for food, this guide is for you.
In this Valheim guide, we will be taking a few steps on how you can fish in the game. Below is the best and recommended process to do it.
Valheim Fishing Guide
Tools of the Trade
You’ll need to get 2 things to start your fishing journey: a fishing rod and a fishing bait. These are acquired from Haldor, a trader who can be found randomly in the Black Forest Biome and is marked by a bag/pouch symbol on the map. It’s advisable to build a portal linking your base to his camp as he doesn’t travel from where you first find him, and you might need to re-stock your bait supply later.
When you’ve found Haldor, talk to him, and now you can buy a 350 worth of gold fishing rod and a package of 50 fishing bait for 10 gold. Get as much bait as you like, if you stick to the following steps, you should be able to catch one fish per bait.
Another thing that will be of tremendous help to your fishing journey is a boat! This is optional but I strongly encourage you to invest in a fishing boat as you will be able to enter much denser areas of fish, enabling you to raise your catching rate significantly!
The Perfect Spot
Now that you’ve got your gear, it’s time to find a good fishing spot. You want to find a place with a very high concentration of fish, I typically look for 6+ in a zone. It’s also a bonus to have plenty of space to cast your thread!
It’s a lot easier to do if you’re on a boat since you can use your elevated point of view to look down into the sea, but if you’re on the shore, you can still find a good spot.
Fishing Time
After you’ve found a spot where you can see a lot of fish, it’s time to cast your line. Holding LMB down for longer will grant you a further cast distance. You want to cast past the fish that you can see. I generally aim at 15-22 meters.
Now that the bobber is in the water, tap RMB to start reeling in your line towards yourself. You’re going to want to do this slow enough to allow the fish time to capture the bobber, but fast enough not to lose them when they do.
Fish that you’ve found is going to swim around in rough circles and make passes to your lure, sometimes biting and sometimes not. When a fish bites, you have a short window to tap RMB. This is why tapping quickly helps, but if you’re too late, the fish will miss the bobber. It’s a juggling act! If you succeed, you’ll get a message on your screen that says ‘Hooked’ and the fish will now be attached to your bobber, ready to reel in!
All you need to do now is hold the RMB button and the fish will be reeled in. In my experience, the line has never snapped, nor has the fish been able to get away once it’s hooked. When your line is completely reeled in the fish, it will automatically be caught and added to your inventory, but you can also take it manually before this happens if you want to! Taking the fish manually doesn’t have any variations as opposed to reeling it all the way in, so you choose! Fish will give you around 1-4 fish meat.
Enjoy Your Fish
Congratulations to you! You can now cook your fish for 45 health and 25 endurance for 1200 seconds.
This is very similar to cooked meat and makes a perfect second food before you can move on to more filling stews, even though the simple availability of fish can make them a brilliant ‘general’ food when stews are still costly!
