Valheim Full Guide to Fish & Fishing

I’ve noticed that many people on the game have had trouble fishing, so I’ve put together this handy guide to help you become a fishing master and secure yourself a great & easy source of food!

To start your fishing journey you’ll need to get 2 items: A fishing rod and fishing bait.

These are obtainable from Haldor the trader who can be found randomly in the Black Forest biome and is signified by a bag/pouch symbol on the map. It’s advisable to create a portal linking your base to his camp as he won’t move from where you first find him and you may need to re-stock your bait supply later on.

Once you’ve found him, talk to him and you can now buy a fishing rod for 350 gold and a set of 50 fishing bait for 10 gold. Get as much bait as you want, if you stick to the following steps then you should be able to catch one fish per bait.

Another thing that will be immensely helpful for your fishing ventures is a boat! This is optional however I heavily advise you to invest in a boat for fishing as you’ll be able to reach much denser areas of fish, allowing you to increase your rate significantly!

Now that you’ve gotten your equipment it’s time to find a good place for fishing.

You want to find somewhere with a very high concentration of fish, I normally look for 6+ in an area. Having lots of space to cast your line is also a bonus!

This is much easier to do if you’re on a boat as you can use your raised point of view to look down into the water, though if you’re on the shore it’s also possible to find a good place too.

After you’ve found a spot where you can see a good amount of fish, it’s time to cast your line. Holding LMB down for longer will give you a further cast distance. You want to cast past the fish that you can see, I normally aim for 15-22 metres.

Now that the bobber is in the water, tap RMB to begin reeling in your line towards yourself. You’ll want to do this slow enough to give the fish time to catch the bobber, but fast enough not to miss them when they do.

Fish that have noticed your bobber will swim around in rough circles and make passes at your bait, sometimes biting and sometimes not. When a fish bites you have a small window to tap RMB (this is why tapping rapidly helps, although if you’re too fast the fish will miss the bobber. Its a balancing act!), if successful you’ll get a notification on your screen that says ‘Hooked’ and the fish will now be attached to your bobber, ready to reel in!

Now all you need to do is hold RMB 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 hooked. Once your line is fully reeled in the fish will automatically be caught and added to your inventory, although you can also take it manually before this happens if you want to! (taking the fish manually doesn’t have any differences compared to reeling it all the way in, so you choose!)

Fish can give you anywhere from 1-4 fish meat.

Congratulations! You can now cook your fish giving you 45 health and 25 stamina for a duration of 1200s.

This is very similar to cooked meat and makes a great second food until you can move on to the more filling stews, even then the easy availability of fish can make them a brilliant ‘general’ food when stews are still expensive!