Catching fish is important because it is a great food source and it gives you a better buff than most of the food you encounter. The best buffs you can get at this tier without recipes are the neck tail, raw meat, and raw fish.
These are all easy to get but there are a lot of mechanics involved in fishing in Valheim compared to other games. This guide will show you how to catch fish in Valheim.
How to Get the Fishing Rod
To get a fishing rod, you will need to find the trader that has a random location for each world or seed. The marker for the trader shows up on the map after going near the island (worked like that on my playthrough). Even if you have not discovered the exact location of the trader, an icon on the minimap shows up with its exact location. You can learn more about the trader here.
The fishing rod will cost 350 coins and each fishing bait 10 coins for every 50 pieces. Coins are easy to get and doing dungeons is the best way to farm for them.
Catching Fishes
To catch a fish, you need to look around the shore or a body of water if there are fish that can be seen. In the daytime, they are easier to spot and during the night, you will only be relying on your bauble or the shadows of the fish. They can easily be mistaken for stones on the shore so keep a keen eye out during the night.
Pressing the left mouse button casts the fishing bauble and the longer you hold the left mouse button, the farther it reaches. The right mouse button is for reeling the fishing bauble closer to you. You need to time this perfectly to catch the fish once they nibble.
You literally only have 1 second to react to the fish’s nibble so you have to be quick. Once you have done this correctly, a message will pop out of your screen and say “Hooked” which means you have successfully hooked the fish to your fishing bauble. Reel the fish in using the right mouse button and claim your raw fish.
Tips and Tricks You Need to Know in Fishing
After hooking a fish to your fishing bauble, the fish will sometimes swim laterally and switch directions. It helps to aim directly at them and reel them in at the same time.
Holding the right mouse button is good but you can also let it go and spam the right mouse button to reel the fish in. On some occasions, this was faster for me.
You can build a small raft and sail a little farther to the ocean. There are bigger fishing to catch here and give more raw fish per reel. Small fishes only give you 1 raw fish while medium to large fishes gets you at least 4 raw fish.
Casting the fishing bauble very far will only make it difficult for you. The longer the distance you have to reel the fish in, the higher the chances they can get away. The perfect distance should be around 8 to 14 meters.
Each cast costs a fishing bait so if you miss the direction of the fish, check first if you can reel it closer for the fishes. Fishing bait is cheap but might as well be efficient.
Conclusion
Fishing takes a lot of patience and is sometimes it can take up to 1-2 minutes or 10-15 seconds to catch a fish. The amount of raw fish you get in the end will be useful as the stats it gives you are way above the first 2 tiers of meat before you start cooking food with recipes.
