Fishing

How fishing works in Valheim: Haldor's rod and bait, trophy baits for twelve fish across the biomes up to the Deep North's Northern salmon, fish quality and raw fish, the Fishing skill and fishing hat, and the fish dishes that 1.0 added.

0:28 Fishing in Valheim is the only reliable way to catch fish: no weapon can harm them, so a Viking needs a fishing rod, bait and stamina, or the luck to find one stranded on a beach. The rod is bought from Haldor, the traveling merchant, and each of the twelve fish takes its own bait, most of them crafted from a creature trophy, which turns fishing into a small progression of its own that runs from the Meadows to the Deep North. Fish become raw fish for the kitchen, go into three meads, can be mounted as talking trophies, and together are the recipe for the fishing hat. The system was rebuilt in the Mistlands Update of December 2022, and the Valheim 1.0 Release of Sep 9, 2026 added two fish dishes to the Deep North's menu.

A hooded Viking sits in tall grass at the edge of a calm, misty lake, casting a long fishing line towards a line of trees on the far shore, with the world-tree's branches overhead. — A Viking fishes from a grassy bank at dusk beneath the branches of Yggdrasil, one of Valheim's Steam store screenshots. Iron Gate Studio

Quick facts

What it is	The only reliable way to catch fish; no weapon can harm them
Rod	The Fishing Rod, 350 Coins from Haldor; it cannot be crafted, and the only other copy lies in a rare Frost Cave room
Bait	Basic Fishing bait, 20 for 10 Coins from Haldor; every other bait is 20 basic bait plus one trophy at the food preparation table
Fish	Twelve, one or two per biome, from the Meadows perch to the Deep North Northern salmon
Casting	Up to about 30 meters; press block within half a second of the bite to hook the fish, then hold block to reel
Quality	Levels 1 to 5, each adding 2 weight and more stamina drain; a 20 per cent chance of rising a level, 15 per cent in the Ashlands and Deep North
Skill	Fishing adds 2% reeling speed and cuts stamina use 0.8% per level; experience comes only from reeling
Fishing hat	One of each of the twelve fish at the Workbench, for +20 Fishing and +20 Swimming

Rod and bait

2:23 The Fishing Rod cannot be crafted. Haldor sells it for 350 Coins from the start of the game, and the only other copy is a pickable rod lying beside the frozen lake of a rare Frost Cave room, next to the remains of its last owner, an unlit campfire and a runestone; picking it up also yields two to four bait. The rod is two-handed and slows its holder by 5 per cent (Fishing Rod, Valheim Wiki; Mountain).

Basic Fishing bait also comes from Haldor, 20 for 10 Coins. Every other bait is made at the food preparation table by combining 20 basic bait with one trophy, which produces 20 of the new bait. Bait is attached by equipping the rod and then using the bait in the inventory. One bait is spent per cast, but it comes back if the line is reeled in without a fish (Bait, Valheim Wiki; Food and Cooking).

Casting and reeling

1:08 Only fish that are actually in the water can be caught, so the first step is to find a visible school. Holding the attack button charges a cast of up to about 30 meters. A fish that notices the bobber swims to it and bites; pressing block within half a second hooks it, and holding block reels it in. Once a hooked fish is within a meter or two it can be picked off the line by hand. Walking more than about 30 meters from the bobber snaps the line (Fishing, Valheim Wiki (Fandom)).

Reeling costs stamina, and running out lets the fish escape. Since February 2023 a hooked fish alternates between struggling, when it thrashes and drains stamina fast, and idling, when reeling is cheap. Larger and later fish drain more, so high-stamina food and stamina meads are the usual preparation. Fish flee from noise, and each fish checks every 5 to 15 seconds for a bobber within 50 meters, with a 10 per cent chance of taking an interest (Fish, Valheim Wiki; Fishing, Valheim Wiki (Fandom); Mead and Potions).

3:57 Fish also turn up without a rod. They wash ashore in high waves, jump out of the water and sometimes land in a boat, and any of them can be picked up by hand. A caught fish never spoils, and one dropped back into water swims away alive, which lets players stock private ponds.

Fish and their baits

3:15 Each biome has its own fish, and a fish that is offered the wrong bait simply ignores it. Most bait trophies come from the fish's own biome and a few from earlier ones, so each new bait follows the player's progress. Tetra live only in the lakes of rare Frost Cave rooms, and Magmafish cannot be reached before the Ashlands voyage.

Fish	Where	Bait	Bait trophy	Stamina drain (struggling / idle)	Possible extra loot
Perch	Meadows, Black Forest, shallow water	Fishing bait	none (Haldor)	10 / 3	Stone, Amber
Pike	Meadows, Black Forest, deeper water	Fishing bait	none (Haldor)	15 / 5	Flint, Amber Pearl
Trollfish	Black Forest shores	Mossy	Troll	25 / 9	Troll Hide, Copper Ore
Giant Herring	Swamp shores	Sticky	Abomination	30 / 10	Iron Ore, Chain
Tetra	Frost Cave lakes	Cold	Fenring	28 / 11	Obsidian, Coins
Grouper	Plains shores	Stingy	Fuling	32 / 12	Black Metal Scrap, Barley
Tuna	deep Ocean	Heavy	Serpent	20 / 7	Tin Ore, Ruby
Coral Cod	deep Ocean	Heavy	Serpent	34 / 12	Chitin, Onion Seeds
Pufferfish	very deep Ocean, Mistlands	Misty	Lox	40 / 14	Sap, Ooze
Anglerfish	Mistlands shores	Misty	Lox	38 / 14	Soft Tissue, Blue Jute
Magmafish	Ashlands shores	Hot	Charred Warrior	50 / 18	Flametal Ore, Surtling Core, Grausten
Northern Salmon	Deep North shores	Frosty	Drake	60 / 20	Carrot Seeds, Silver

Stamina drain is per second for a quality-1 fish. Sources: Fish, Valheim Wiki; Bait, Valheim Wiki.

A pufferfish poisons the player for a few seconds if it jumps into them or is dropped. Hot bait first used a Surtling trophy; it now takes the trophy of the Charred Warrior, a creature added with the Ashlands Update (Ashlands Creatures).

Quality, raw fish and trophies

4:25 Every fish has a quality level from 1 to 5, shown in the corner of its inventory icon and by its size. Each level adds 2 to its weight and multiplies its stamina drain. In most waters a fish has a 20 per cent chance of rising each level, so four in five are level 1 and one in 625 reaches level 5; in the Ashlands and Deep North the chance falls to 15 per cent (Fish, Valheim Wiki).

Fish are cut into Raw Fish at the food preparation table. A level-1 perch, pike, tetra or trollfish gives 1 and a level-5 one gives 13; tuna, coral cod, giant herring and grouper give one more, and pufferfish, anglerfish, magmafish and Northern salmon two more. A successful catch can also drop extra materials. Mounted on an item stand, a fish occasionally speaks, each species with its own lines; the Northern salmon laments that it was once "free to jump upstream" (Northern Salmon, Valheim Wiki; Furniture and Decoration).

The Fishing skill and the fishing hat

7:02 Fishing is one of the Skills. Each level adds 2 per cent to reeling speed, from 2 meters per second at level 0 to 6 at level 100, and cuts stamina use by 0.8 per cent, to a fifth of the base rate at the top. Experience comes only from reeling: 0.25 per second on an empty baited line and 0.5 with a fish on, whatever the fish. Landing a fish gives nothing extra, so players level the skill by casting and reeling in stocked perch ponds; SnazzyGames estimated nearly 11.5 hours of reeling from 0 to 100 (Fishing (skill), Valheim Wiki).

5:06 The fishing hat, added in patch 0.213.4 of February 2023 with a "super secret recipe", is made at the Workbench from one of each of the twelve fish, of any quality. It gives +20 to Fishing and to Swimming. Upgrading it to quality 4 takes seven of every fish in total, but only raises its armor (Fishing hat, Valheim Wiki; Patch 0.213.4, Iron Gate; Armor and Capes).

Northern salmon

7:16 The Northern salmon, the northernmost of the twelve fish, is the hardest to land. It was added with the Mistlands update in 2022, when the Deep North was still an empty placeholder of ice and snow, and for almost four years anglers sailed north to catch it off a biome with no other content of its own. It takes Frosty bait, made from a Drake trophy, and at 60 stamina per second while struggling it drains more than any other fish, before the level multiplier.

Since 1.0 the salmon lives off the shores of a finished biome. The Deep North's sea ice cracks and its snowstorms freeze, so a salmon hunt there calls for frost protection and a sturdy boat (Weather, Cold and Wet). The species is listed among the biome's passive creatures, alongside the seals (Deep North Creatures).

Fish in food and mead

0:41 Raw fish is cooked on a cooking station into Cooked Fish, a 45-health, 15-stamina food that lasts 20 minutes, and cooked fish is the base of Fish Wraps and the Ocean feast, Sailor's Bounty. Anglerfish go whole into Fish 'n' Bread, a 90-stamina Mistlands dish. Three fish are brewing ingredients: perch for Vananidir, trollfish for Troll Endurance and grouper for the Anti-Sting mead. Raw fish is also one of the foods that tame wolves (Farming and Taming).

6:28 Version 1.0 added two Eitr-heavy fish dishes, both made at a fully upgraded cauldron with the new Smoker extension. The main fish dishes compare as follows.

Dish	Made at	Ingredients	Health	Stamina	Eitr	Duration
Cooked Fish	cooking station	1 Raw Fish	45	15	0	20 min
Fish Wraps	cauldron level 4	2 Cooked Fish, 4 Barley Flour	70	23	0	25 min
Fish 'n' Bread	food preparation table, then stone oven	1 Anglerfish, 2 Bread Dough	30	90	0	30 min
Sailor's Bounty (feast)	food preparation table	5 Cooked Fish, 4 Thistle, 2 Cooked Serpent Meat, Seafarer's Herbs	45	45	3	50 min
Smoked Fish	cauldron level 7 (Smoker)	1 Raw Fish, 1 Kale, 1 Poteitr	30	16	95	25 min
Fish Soup	cauldron level 7	3 Raw Fish, 2 Kale, 2 Ice	37	18	105	30 min

Sources: Raw fish, Valheim Wiki; Fish Soup, Valheim Wiki; BisectHosting, 1.0 food guide.

History

0:12 Fishing has been in the game since the early-access launch of February 2021, with Haldor's rod and bait. Until late 2022 there were three fish, perch, pike and tuna, and a catch went straight into the inventory as raw fish. Patch 0.212.7, the Mistlands update of Dec 6, 2022, added nine fish and eight craftable baits, made Fishing a skill, gave fish sizes, let them jump and be mounted on item stands, and put fish in Frost Caves (Patch 0.212.7 – Mistlands!, Iron Gate). Its baits formed a chain, each crafted from the previous biome's fish and a trophy.

Patch 0.213.4 of February 2023 replaced the fish in bait recipes with basic bait, cut each batch of bait from 40 to 20, returned unused bait, made hooked fish struggle and added the fishing hat. The Bog Witch Update of October 2024 moved raw fish and bait from the cauldron to the new food preparation table, and 1.0 brought Fish Soup and Smoked Fish (Deep North Update (1.0 Patch Notes)). Iron Gate's first post-launch hotfixes, 1.0.10 and 1.0.12 on Sep 11, 2026, fixed on Steam a bug that stripped items of their durability and upgrade level when taken off item stands, and warned players not to remove high-level fish, weapons or armor from stands without a backup (Hotfix 1.0.10 & 1.0.12, Iron Gate).

Frequently asked questions

How do you get a fishing rod in Valheim? Haldor sells it for 350 Coins from the start of the game. The rod cannot be crafted; the only other one in the world lies beside the frozen lake of a rare Frost Cave room, next to the remains of its last owner.

How do you catch a fish? Equip the rod, use the bait from the inventory, hold attack to charge a cast of up to about 30 meters, press block within half a second of the bite to hook the fish and hold block to reel it in. Reeling costs stamina, and running out lets the fish escape.

Why will the fish not bite? Almost always the wrong bait: each of the twelve fish takes its own, and a fish offered any other simply ignores it. Fish also flee from noise, and each one only checks every 5 to 15 seconds for a bobber within 50 meters, with a 10 per cent chance of taking an interest.

How do you get the fishing hat? Craft it at the Workbench from one of each of the twelve fish, of any quality. It gives +20 to Fishing and +20 to Swimming.

What is the hardest fish to catch? The Northern salmon off the Deep North shores. It takes Frosty bait made from a Drake trophy and drains 60 stamina a second while struggling, more than any other fish before the quality multiplier.

Sources

Moments

Everything You Need to Know About Fishing in Valheim

SnazzyGames

0:28 Fishing in Valheim is the only reliable way to catch fish: no weapon can harm them, so a Viking needs a fishing rod…
1:08 Only fish that are actually in the water can be caught, so the first step is to find a visible school. Holding the…
3:15 Each biome has its own fish, and a fish that is offered the wrong bait simply ignores it. Most bait trophies come from…
7:02 Fishing is one of the Skills. Each level adds 2 per cent to reeling speed, from 2 meters per second at level 0 to 6 at…
5:06 The fishing hat, added in patch 0.213.4 of February 2023 with a "super secret recipe", is made at the Workbench from…

Valheim - The Complete Fish & Fishing Guide! (+ New Mistlands Progression System)

Embr

2:23 The Fishing Rod cannot be crafted. Haldor sells it for 350 Coins from the start of the game, and the only other copy…
3:57 Fish also turn up without a rod. They wash ashore in high waves, jump out of the water and sometimes land in a boat…
4:25 Every fish has a quality level from 1 to 5, shown in the corner of its inventory icon and by its size. Each level adds…
0:12 Fishing has been in the game since the early-access launch of February 2021, with Haldor's rod and bait. Until late…