Minecraft is a sandbox game with several distinct features, which include combat, grinding, exploring, building, farming, mining, and even fishing. You’ve probably played around with most of them. However, depending on your preference and gameplay style, you can enjoy just a couple of features and not be that interested in the rest. Though, that doesn’t make those other features any less valuable or worse. In this guide, we will be taking a look at fishing, one of the key Minecraft features that many players forget about, but it comes with some amazing rewards and advantages. So, without further ado, let’s learn how to fish in Minecraft
What are the Fishing Mechanics in Minecraft?
Fishing is a feature that’s been present in Minecraft since the 1.2.0 update. With the help of a fishing rod, you can throw the bobber in any water block (water source or flowing water) and have a chance to reel something in. That can be a fish, a junk item, or a treasure. Do check out the last section of this article to learn what rewards you can get by fishing.
Furthermore, fishing is a simple and slow mechanic. It mostly requires the player’s patience and attention. It’s a change of pace compared to the other major features. Some people could even call it plain or bland because of this. Even though there are surely ways in which this feature could be improved, it shouldn’t be overlooked.
How to Fish in Minecraft: A Step-by-Step Guide
All you really need to start fishing in Minecraft is a fishing rod and a water source. Bodies of water can be found pretty much everywhere in your world. From lone water sources, small puddles, and surface and underground lakes to rivers and oceans, you won’t have issues finding water for fishing. You could even make a bucket to transport water and create your own pools. So, let’s first focus on our main requirement for fishing – a fishing rod.
Step 1: Craft a Fishing Rod
Fishing rod is a tool that can be either crafted, found, or traded. The easiest and fastest way to get a fishing rod is through crafting, though. To do so, you will need 3 sticks and 2 pieces of string. Follow the crafting recipe in the image below to craft a fishing rod in Minecraft. For a detailed guide on how to craft a fishing rod in Minecraft, follow the link here.
Step 2: Catch Fish in Minecraft
Now that we have the fishing rod and found a body of water, it’s time we learn how to fish in Minecraft. Follow the process explained below to do just that.
- Hover your cursor over the water and then look a bit higher. The bobber will travel in an arc, similarly to a shot arrow, so it is a good idea to look a bit higher from the block you want the bobber to land on.
- Have your fishing rod selected and right-click. By doing so, you will cast your line.
- Wait patiently and keep an eye on the bobber of the fishing rod.
- After a few seconds, you will see a trail of bubbles appear nearby and approach the bobber.
- When the bubbles reach the bobber, it will dip down underwater. When that happens, right-click again.
- You will automatically reel something in and get it in your inventory if it’s not full.
- And that’s it. You have successfully caught a fish in Minecraft. You can now repeat the process to get the fishing loot.
Minecraft Fishing Rod Enchantments
As you will realize fairly quickly, fishing is a slow and (kind of) boring process in Minecraft. So, to make it more fun and efficient, you can improve the fishing rod using enchantments in Minecraft. Here are all the enchantments you can use with
- Unbreaking (max level – 3): This enchantment will decrease the chance of your fishing rod losing durability, therefore, it will let you use it more.
- Mending (max level – 1): Mending will allow you to restore the fishing rod’s durability with just XP. So, it’ll make your Minecraft life so much easier.
- Lure (max level – 3): This enchantment will make the bubble trail appear more quickly, resulting in faster fishing process.
- Luck of the Sea (max level – 3): Luck of the Sea enchantment will make you more likely to fish out treasure items.
- Curse of Vanishing (max level – 1): This is a curse enchantment that deletes the item after the player has died.
All of these enchantments are compatible, so you can create the perfect fishing rod. You can also get most of these enchantments through the enchanting table, but applying them with enchanted books is definitely more reliable. The best way to get ahold of those is by trading with Minecraft villagers. If you need any help with enchanting or the villagers, make sure to check out our linked guides for details.
How to Repair Fishing Rod in Minecraft
Similarly to other tools in Minecraft, from pickaxes to the new brush added in Minecraft 1.20, the fishing rod has limited durability. Every time you use the fishing rod, its durability decreases. But if you move far away from the bobber or switch to some other slot in your hotbar, the fishing line will disappear and no fishing rod durability will be reduced. So, let’s learn how to preserve your fishing rod with repairs.
The Fishing rod cannot be repaired as a diamond pickaxe for instance, by somehow combining it with string in an anvil. But, it is repaired like a bow. So, you can merge two fishing rods together in a crafting grid or an anvil if the rods are enchanted. This implies you need two fishing rods in order to restore the durability. Both of their remaining durability will be added together, and you will get a few more uses out of it.
Fishing Loot in Minecraft: What are the Rewards?
Just like with anything else in Minecraft, we are mostly interested in the loot, right? Besides all the item drops you can get, we should first mention the XP you receive by fishing. Every time you reel something in, you’ll get experience orbs worth 1-6 XP. Although fishing is slow, this is an amazing way to get XP in Minecraft. Furthermore, if you use the mending enchantment on your fishing rod, it will instantly use the XP from fishing and repair itself. So, you basically have a forever-lasting fishing rod at that point.
The jungle biomes fishing loot table is a bit different than other biomes. A couple of items are added to the fishing junk loot table of these biomes, which you will see below.
1. Fish
Fish are the primary fishing loot. Without the luck of the sea enchantment, you have about an 85% chance of catching fish.
Fish Chance Raw Cod 60% Raw Salmon 25% Pufferfish 13% Tropical Fish 2%
2. Junk
Apart from fish, you can also get junk items from fishing in Minecraft. You have about a 10% chance of catching junk without the luck of the sea enchantment. Most of the time you can call these junk, but occasionally, they may not seem like junk at all.
Junk Item Chance Lily Pad 17% Bowl 10% Fishing Rod (damaged and unenchanted) 2% Leather 10% Leather Boots (damaged and unenchanted) 10% Rotten Flesh 10% Stick 5% String 5% Water Bottle 10% Bone 10% Ink Sac (10) 1% Tripwire Hook 10% Junk Item Chance Lily Pad 14.2% (Bedrock Edition)
15.5% (Java Edition)Bamboo 8.3% (Bedrock Edition)
9.1% (Java Edition)Cocoa Beans (Bedrock Edition only) 8.3% Bowl 8.3% (Bedrock Edition)
9.1% (Java Edition)Fishing Rod (damaged and unenchanted) 1.7% (Bedrock Edition)
1.8% (Java Edition)Leather 8.3% (Bedrock Edition)
9.1% (Java Edition)Leather Boots (damaged and unenchanted) 8.3% (Bedrock Edition)
9.1% (Java Edition)Rotten Flesh 8.3% (Bedrock Edition)
9.1% (Java Edition)Stick 4.2% (Bedrock Edition)
4.5% (Java Edition)String 4.2% (Bedrock Edition)
4.5% (Java Edition)Water Bottle 8.3% (Bedrock Edition)
9.1% (Java Edition)Bone 8.3% (Bedrock Edition)
9.1% (Java Edition)Ink Sac (10) 0.8% (Bedrock Edition)
0.9% (Java Edition)Tripwire Hook 8.3% (Bedrock Edition)
9.1% (Java Edition)
3. Treasure Loot
Unlike the fish and junk loot that have no particular requirements, treasure items do. If you want to reel in a special item, the bobber needs to be at least in a 5 x 4 x 5 whole area. So, there should be at least 2 blocks worth of space above the bobber, 2 blocks of water sources below the bobber, and the water block that the bobber sits in should have at least 2 water source blocks horizontally in all directions. Basically, try and place the bobber in open water with plenty of water source blocks around it and air blocks above it.
You have about a 5% chance of catching a treasure item without the luck of the sea enchantment. However, with this enchantment, there is an 11.3% chance you’ll get a special item.
Treasure Item Chance Bow (damaged and enchanted) 16.7% Enchanted Book 16.7% Fishing Rod (damaged and enchanted) 16.7% Name Tag 16.7% Nautilus Shell 16.7% Saddle 16.7%
Frequently Asked Questions
You probably haven’t fulfilled the requirements explained above. The bobber needs to be in an adequate area and you shouldn’t fish in jungle biomes.
No, you cannot.
No, it’s really not. You should just have enough patience to wait for the fish to bite and also get the loot that you want.
