Fishing - Stardew Valley Wiki - EU-Vietnam Business Network (EVBN)

For a list of fish and their locations, see the Fish page.

For an index to the completed fish collection, see Collections.

For the guide to catch all fish, see Fishing Strategy.

See also: Tackle, Bait

Fishing is a skill associated with catching fish with a fishing rod or by collecting things from crab pots.

Overview & Controls

Fishing interface showing normal and Legendary Fish

To cast a fishing rod into a body of water, hold down the Use Tool button (left mouse button on PC, X button on Xbox,  on Playstation). A meter appears, indicating how far the line will go. Release to cast. It is also possible to slightly alter the line’s placement mid-cast with the movement keys, allowing you better control over aiming the cast.

When a fish bites, the bobble wiggles and an exclamation point appears above the player’s head along with a distinct sound. Click the Use Tool button to start the mini-game.

The mini-game display contains a movable green rectangle that indicates the area of effect for your fishing line. The goal of the fishing mini-game is to keep the small fish icon within the green rectangle until the progress bar to the right is completely filled. If the fish’s icon moves above or below the green rectangle, the progress bar decreases, and the fish escapes if the progress bar reaches the bottom.

You can raise the green rectangle by pressing the Use Tool button. Repeated pressing holds the green in place when it is not on the bottom, and holding the button raises it at increasing speed. Be careful moving it though, for it gathers momentum quickly and takes time to reverse, making it easy to overshoot the fish and drain the progress bar.

Upon catching a catch, the name of the fish and its size is displayed. Players can keep track of how many fish they have caught and their record lengths in their Collections menu.

Specific Mechanics

Types of Fish

The types of fish that you can find are determined by:

the season
the weather (i.e., sunny or rainy)
the body of water where you are fishing
the time of day

For example, the forest lake, the forest river, and the town river each contain their own types of fish, though there are some overlaps. You can see the full list on the Fishing Strategy page.

Also note that to catch the legendary fish, you have to fish on specific water tiles, but in general, the specific water tile does not matter.

Bar Size

The green rectangle increases in size with higher fishing skill level.

The upgraded fishing rods (i.e., Fiberglass Rod and Iridium Rod) do not affect the bar size. However, using the Training Rod does affect the bar size; it always gives you a bar size equivalent to level 5 fishing, even after passing level 5.

Casting Distance

The player’s skill level determines the maximum possible casting distance. At level 0, you can cast a maximum of 3 tiles to the south or north and 4 tiles to the east or west. The distance increases by 1 tile (in all directions) at levels 1, 4, 8 and 15.

Reaching a skill level of 15 is possible with a combination of food, Qi Seasoning and/or an enchanted Fishing Pole.

The actual casting distance will be a fraction of the maximum distance, based on the fullness of the mini-game casting meter. Any cast that is more than 99% of the maximum distance is highlighted by the text “Max”. “Max” casts do not receive any special benefit.

The length of the cast is less important than where the bobber lands. Longer casts only improve fishing results if the bobber lands further from the shore, increasing your Fishing Zone. Standing next to the water’s edge allows casts to go further from land, as does avoiding locations with other nearby shores (e.g., try to fish where a river is as wide and straight as possible).

Fishing Zone

Every water tile is assigned a Fishing Zone of 0, 1, 2, 3, or 5[1] that controls many aspects of fishing. The further from land (in every direction), the better the zone. The game considers most walkable surfaces, including islands, piers, and stone bridges to be “land”; wooden footbridges are one exception.

If your bobber lands at least 5 tiles away from any land, it is located in zone 5. Otherwise, the zone is one less than the distance (in tiles) from the nearest land. Maps of Fishing Zone are available in the Fishing Strategy section on Fishing Zones. Note, however, that fishing zones on iOS are more complicated because of a bug.

Higher fishing zone values provide several benefits:

The chances of catching trash decrease.
The size and quality (e.g., normal, silver, or gold) of the fish is likely to be better.
The chances of hooking difficult-to-catch fish are slightly larger.
Some treasure items have zone requirements; in particular, certain valuable treasures can only be caught at Zone=5.
Some Legendary Fish have zone requirements.

Note that the color of the water is not a reliable indicator of the fishing zone for a given location. Darker shades of blue indicate deeper water, but in some cases dark blue (deep) water has a fishing zone of 0 (e.g., next to the pier at the Beach); light blue (shallow) water can have a fishing zone of 5 (e.g., at the east end of the Beach).

Fish Quality

The factors that influence fish quality (i.e., whether fish are normal, silver, gold, or iridium) are:[2]

Casts further from land produce better quality fish.
Fishing skill (including any buffs from eating food) slightly improves fish quality.
Randomness adds some variablity to the possible quality.
Perfect catches improve the quality by one grade, as long as the fish was at least silver quality initially.

Pool of Bubbles

Bubbles

Sometimes, a pool of bubbles appears in the water. If you cast into them, blue sparkles appear to indicate that you have successfully landed in them. Bubbles grant two benefits:[3]

Fish bite four times faster.
When determining the type of fish that is hooked, the effective Fishing Zone is increased by 1, i.e., trash is less likely to be caught and difficult-to-catch are more likely; some Legendary Fish can be found closer to the shore when bubbles are present.
- This adjustment to the fishing zone only applies to the type of fish that is caught. Bubbles have no effect on fish size or quality (e.g., normal, silver, or gold) and have no effect on treasure chests.

Perfect Catches

The game displays a “Perfect!” catch if the fish never leaves the green rectangle. Perfect catches grant two benefits:

If it is a silver or gold quality fish, the quality of the fish is increased by one. (i.e., a silver fish becomes a gold fish, a gold fish becomes an iridium fish).
The amount of experience awarded for catching the fish is multiplied by 2.4.

Making a perfect catch is the only way to get an iridium quality fish.

Energy

At fishing skill level 0, casting a fishing pole consumes 8 energy. Each subsequent fishing level decreases the amount of energy used by 0.1. (While the game shows whole numbers, internally it does not round numbers.) Thus, on the 10th cast at level 1 fishing, the game shows an energy cost of only 7 instead of 8. At level 10 fishing, all casts take (and show) costs of 7 energy.

Angled Casts

It is possible to slightly alter the line’s placement mid-cast with the movement keys, allowing you better control over aiming the cast. Angling the cast is useful in two scenarios:

In some non-standard fishing spots, it is necessary to angle the cast in order to get further from land.
When bubbles spawn in an awkward location, it is sometimes necessary to angle the cast in order to get the bobber to land in them.

Time

In single-player:
- Time is paused while the mini-game is active.
- Time is not paused during the animation when the casting bar is increasing.
- Time is not paused during the animation when the line is going out.
- Time is not paused during the animation when the fish is flying back towards you.
- Time is not paused during the popup that shows you what type of fish that you have caught.
- If you caught a treasure chest, time is paused while you look through the chest’s inventory.
In multiplayer, time is never paused.
If you are attacked (for example, by a slime while fishing in the Secret Woods), the slime will continue to attack and damage you during the mini-game, even though the clock is paused.
During the ice-fishing contest in the Festival of Ice, the contest timer is never paused even during the mini-game.

Fishing Poles

Fishing Skill

Fishing Skill

Experience Points

Trash, algae and seaweed caught with the fishing pole earn 3 XP each, and crab pots earn you 5XP each time you collect from them, no matter what is collected. Otherwise, for each catch of fish, the amount of experience earned is as follows: [4]

XP = 3 + (3 * Fish Quality) + (1/3 * Fish Difficulty)

Fish Quality = 0 for normal, 1 for silver, 2 for gold, or 4 for iridium

Fish Difficulty is a number from 5-110, listed in the data file Fish.xnb.

For example, a regular quality sardine (difficulty 30) would net you (0 + 1) * 3 + (30 / 3) = 13XP. Trash also follows this formula with a quality and difficulty of zero leaving only the base 3XP.

XP is multiplied by 2.2 if you also catch a treasure chest, by 2.4 if the catch was “perfect” and by 5 if the catch was a Legendary fish. These multiplications stack, and are performed in order (first treasure chest, then perfect, then Legendary).

For example, catching a perfect Sardine with a treasure chest would earn you 13 * 2.2 = 28.6 (truncated to 28) XP, then 28 * 2.4 = 67.2 (truncated to 67) XP.

Catching a perfect gold quality Crimsonfish (difficulty 95) with a treasure chest would net you (2+1) * 3 + (95 / 3) = 40.67 (truncated to 40) base XP; 40 * 2.2 = 88XP; 88 * 2.4 = 211.2 (truncated to 211) XP; 211 * 5 = 1055 XP.

Experience level is increased immediately upon harvesting a Crab Pot or catching an item with a fishing pole, but the “level up” window doesn’t appear until after going to sleep.

The XP required for leveling up is the same as for all skills:

Lvl

Total
Experience

Total Sardines
(No stars)

Total Gold Star Legend Fish
(225XP)

Total Crab Pot

100

20*

380

770

154

1300

100

260

2150

166

430

3300

254

660

4800

370

960

6900

531

1380

10000

770

2000

15000

1154

3000

*Note: The first level of fishing cannot normally be completed with Crab Pots, because the player does not have access to bait until level 2. If, however, the player befriends Linus, his four heart cutscene will give the recipe for Wild Bait, which can be used to bait crab pots at any Fishing Skill level.

In addition, three crab pots can be earned at any Fishing Level by completing the Crab Pot Bundle in the Fish Tank. Completing the bundle without playing the fishing mini-game (or using crab pots) requires 4 fish foraged from the beach and 1 crab obtained by killing crabs in the mines.

Note that an alternative method of gaining Fishing XP is by using Fish Ponds.

Food

Treasure Chests

Presents

Achievements

There are 4 Achievements related to Fishing. Note that catching Green Algae, White Algae, or Seaweed counts towards these achievements.

Fisherman (Catch 10 different fish)
Ol’ Mariner (Catch 24 different fish)
Master Angler (Catch every fish)
Mother Catch (Catch 100 fish)

Bugs

On iOS, there is a bug that alters most the Fishing Zone at most locations. The fishing zone is effectively calculated as if your bobber were located one tile northwest of its actual location. Therefore, casts to the south and east typically have a lower zone than they should; casts to the north and west typically have a better zone. This bug affects fish size/quality and treasure chest contents, but it does not affect the locations where Legendary Fish can be caught.

It is unknown whether this bug affects all mobile platforms or is iOS-specific.

References

↑
The fishing zone is calculated by the function FishingRod::distanceToLand; the value is assigned to the variable clearWaterDistance.
↑
The fish size and quality are determined by the functions FishingRod::startMinigameEndFunction, BobberBar::BobberBar, BobberBar::update, and FishingRod::doPullFishFromWater.
↑
The effects of bubbles on fishing bite times is handled in FishingRod::DoFunction, specifically at if (location.fishSplashPoint != null). The effect of bubbles on fish type is also in FishingRod::doFunction in the call to location.getFish, where the argument waterDepth is set to clearWaterDistance + (splashPoint ? 1 : 0).
↑
See Tools/FishingRod::doPullFishFromWater in the game code.
↑FishingRod::openTreasureMenuEndFunction. The PHP code used to calculate the chances of finding specific treasure can be found on
The contents of a treasure chest are determined by. The PHP code used to calculate the chances of finding specific treasure can be found on github
6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19
The chance of an artifact appearing in a treasure chest is higher if Lost Books are not possible, e.g., after the Museum’s collection is complete.
7.00 7.01 7.02 7.03 7.04 7.05 7.06 7.07 7.08 7.09 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14 7.15 7.16 7.17 7.18 7.19 7.20 7.21 7.22 7.23 7.24 7.25 7.26 7.27
The chance of a special item appearing in a treasure chest is adjusted by LuckModifier, which is set to (1 + DailyLuck * FishingZone/5). For example, the chance of finding an Iridium Band varies from 0.072% (DailyLuck=-0.1, FishingZone=5) to 0.09% (DailyLuck=0.125, FishingZone=5).