Mini Guide to Fishing in Valheim

How and where to catch each of the fish in Valheim - and make the Fishing Hat.
Let us know if you like the mini guide format.

[@Xendrasch]

I made a fully upgraded Fishing Hat, quite while ago, before Ashlands, shortly after Mistlands came out. Most of it was pretty strait forward. The only difficulty I encountered was catching tunas. I had dozens of each other fish, before I caught my first tuna. For the other fish, I simply walked along the coast or drove the longboat around unit I saw a group of them. Then is is just a matter of minutes to catch a couple of them. Even the Tetras found in frost caves were no problem. I actually found 5 laying near a frost cave pond, long before I bought a fishing rod. But I simply never managed to spot tunas and randomly fishing in the ocean only caught me other fish, or none at all. Finally after a while I saw an incredibly fast moving fish, standing at my fishing dock at the coast. Caught it and it was a Tuna. It was at one of these ocean channels, that sometimes are very close to a coast. So I found out, that they usually swim quite deep. Contrary to other fish, they don't appear in groups, or at least swim that far apart that you won't recognize them as one. All that makes them quite difficult to spot. However you can identify them by their fast movement. If you see a fish darting through the water, much faster than any of the other fish, you know it is a tuna. Only when I realized that, I managed to catch more than my first one. So what I did is building fishing towers, simply planting a core wood log as far out, in the water, as possible. Then stairs leading as far out as possible. Looking down from there, it is much easier to spot fish and especially the tuna darting around. That way I caught a couple of them. So even tough, that they are ocean fish, initially I had an easier time, catching them at coasts that are close to an ocean biome. Walking town the stairs is also helpful in reeling them in. That and, full stamina foods and stamina potions. Later I found out, that it also works, using the longboat, slowly driving through the ocean. Then stand on the fronts highest point, camera scrolled out to max and keep looking strait down at the water, for the fast movement. When you just boat around, looking at an angle at the water, it is very difficult to spot them.

[@ThePathfindersCodex]

This is all great advice for Tuna! Another one that had me scratching my head was Tetra. I had a hard time finding Tetra mainly because finding Ice caves with actual lakes in them was a slow process.

[@Xendrasch]

Yepp, it certainly can take the longest to find Tetra, because it is just a matter of chance. So it is a brute force thing, that can require a lot of time and patience, but not much smarts or knowledge. The only useful tipps I can think of for it, are general cave exploration tipps: Choose on side, I do always left. Go that way from cavern to cavern, looting everything until you are back at the entrance again. Only occasionally do the caves have loops, that require you to deviate from the always left rule. But usually they are easy to note. But now that I further think of it, I have to correct that a bit. There are other relevant things to know about: E.g. how to find and spot ice caves, because they are easy to miss. Obviously big mountains usually have more of them. So take your boat and sail around, until you see a very high mountain. That offers the best chance to find several caves in a short time. If you found your first frost cave, I recommend that you walk around it and inspect it from all sides, elevations and angles. That way you learn how to spot them. The caves are often found at the steep sided of mountains. I always found the Tetra as a byproduct of looking for fenris hair, I needed to make my fully upgraded fenris armor set. The fenris armor also can speed up finding Tetra. Its movement speed buff helps you to cover more ground and navigate the steep mountain terrain and it's combination of frost resistance (chest piece) and fire resistance (set bonus), is useful in the frost caves, against the cultists fire breath. For fishing in general, I also like the fenris set combined with the fishing hat. The high speed makes dragging fish onto land easier. And it also fits aesthetically.

[@forngaupa]

Had no idea this was a thing

[@ThePathfindersCodex]

Yeah, it's kinda disconnected from the main gameplay. Funny, you can catch many of these fish with your bare hands!

[@maciejko05]

This is actually crazy

[@iSirTaki]

the effort is not rewarding, i will not do this anymore until they overhaul it. i like to fish, but not like this, there is no reson. Iron Gate do something.

[@chrisrubin6445]

I would rather have 8 level 1 fishing hats, than 1 level 4 fishing hat.

[@geridos3541]

i wish hey had it give some cool stats like attract more fish passive aura or increase chance to catch making you a master fisherman

[@ThePathfindersCodex]

Yeah, we need a better reason and rewards to do the fishing. Maybe they'll redo the fishing progression before it leaves early access.

[@RCbeastly]

So +20 fishing skill and +20 swimming isn't enough? (Though sometimes it says +19)

[@ThePathfindersCodex]

I think my biggest gripe is that the reward is at the end of the progression. It seems like they expect you to go through all biomes and would probably be near the end of the game by the time you reasonably get access to the last few fish... except for us adventurous types haha. Would be awesome to see different fish recipes for specific fish - or for trapping?

[@geridos3541]

@@RCbeastly no

[@ThePathfindersCodex]

The fix for magmafish is live!

[@usern4metak3ns]

a level 1 fish cant be reeled in with mistlands food stamina levels...

[@hellcrow539]

1:32 oh yeah sure, easy peasy. Let me go get you 10 of those 😮😮😮😮. I'm "newish" to the game still, but I did encounter a sea serpent once... Are you saying you can kill these things. But not only can you kill them, but you're expected to ? 😨

[@sankyboi]

You can kill these things pretty easily soon dw, you'll get stronger soon :) but the trophy and serpent scales sink in the ocean, so you have to make a harpoon, drag the serpent to the shore, and then kill it. Quite the task. You'll get a strong health food (80 hp) for early to mid game, a decent tower shield, and the trophy for the bait if you're lucky, for your efforts. Imo only the food is worth it, and only if you don't already have food with 80+ hp. And the food floats, so you don't have to bother harpooning, just kill it with arrows.

[@ThePathfindersCodex]

I would say that, other than Trolls, the sea serpents are some of the more deadly things to encounter for those new to the game. The trolls are easy after you learn the few moves they have, but those serpents strike fear into anyone carrying back a ship full of iron ore to base... learned to stay close to the coast and travel in daylight. Also, having some friends along makes harpooning and beaching them alot easier.

[@sankyboi]

@@ThePathfindersCodex Also, iirc, the sea serpent can only spawn in areas you are looking at, so if you are out in the sea, you can zoom in your camera completely and look at the floor of the ship and the sea serpent will never spawn