Valheim fishing: the bait for each fish, where it spawns and how to land it

Haldor sells the Fishing Rod for 350 coins and Fishing Bait at 20 for 10 coins. Fishing Bait catches Perch and Pike. Every other bait is made at the Food Preparation Table from 20 Fishing Bait and one trophy, and each fish bites on one bait only. The fishing page has the bait table, the stamina calculator and the waters of your own seed.

Which bait for which fish

Fish	Bait	Trophy in the bait	Water
Perch	Fishing Bait	none, Haldor sells it	Meadows, Black Forest and Plains, 1.5 to 3 m deep
Pike	Fishing Bait	none, Haldor sells it	Meadows, Black Forest and Plains, 2 to 5 m deep
Trollfish	Mossy Fishing Bait	Troll Trophy	Black Forest, 5 m or deeper
Giant Herring	Sticky Fishing Bait	Abomination Trophy	Swamp, 5 m or deeper
Grouper	Stingy Fishing Bait	Fuling Trophy	Plains, 5 m or deeper
Tuna, Coral Cod	Heavy Fishing Bait	Serpent Trophy	Ocean, 5 m or deeper
Anglerfish	Misty Fishing Bait	Lox Trophy	Mistlands, 5 m or deeper
Pufferfish	Misty Fishing Bait	Lox Trophy	Ocean and Mistlands, 6 m or deeper
Northern Salmon	Frosty Fishing Bait	Drake Trophy	Deep North, 5 m or deeper
Magmafish	Hot Fishing Bait	Warrior Trophy	Ashlands water outside the lava, 5 m or deeper
Tetra	Cold Fishing Bait	Fenring Trophy	the cave pools of Frost Caves and the Howling Cavern

With the wrong bait the float dips at half strength and the game says "It's not taking the bait". That fish then ignores the float until you cast again.

Where fish spawn

Water depth is how far the ground lies below the water line. Shallow water beside a Meadows shore counts as Meadows; the Ocean is the deep sea away from land. Fish appear 40 to 80 m from a player and never within 40 m of one, every 60 to 120 seconds, in small groups, up to a limit for the area. A catch frees a place. Time of day and weather do not matter, though fish leap more at dawn and dusk.

Tetra never spawns. Each cave pool room holds its fish with a 66 % chance when the cave is made, always at quality 1, and a caught Tetra does not come back.

The bite

Cast so the float sits in water at least as deep as the fish needs: 1.5 m for most fish, 2 m for Pike and 4 m for Tuna. Every 5 to 15 seconds each fish within 50 m of the float has a 10 % chance to swim to it. Walking makes noise out to 15 m and running out to 30 m, and a fish that hears you swims away unless it is already within 5 m. Crouching makes no noise.

After the float dips you have half a second to pull, at every skill level. A float dragged faster than 2 m/s, behind a moving boat for example, hooks without a pull. The bait is used up only when a fish is hooked.

The fight

A hooked fish costs stamina every second, 1 per second at Fishing 0 down to 0.2 at 100, and while it is on your stamina does not come back. Pulling costs more on top, and much more while the fish thrashes. At zero stamina the fish is lost. The line shortens only while it is taut, 2 m/s at Fishing 0 and 6 m/s at 100, half as fast during a thrash. It breaks when the fish is more than 10 m beyond the reeled line or more than 30 m from the rod tip, so do not walk or sail away with a fish on.

A quality 3 Northern Salmon on a 20 m line, at Fishing 20 with the Fishing Hat, costs 226 to 254 stamina if you pull only between thrashes and 429 to 1,095 if you pull through them. With 150 stamina it can be landed from Fishing 38 and every time from 43.

The Fishing Hat, made at the Workbench from one of every fish, adds 20 levels to Fishing and to Swim.

Quality and the catch

A fish starts at quality 1 and rises one step for each roll it passes, up to 5. The roll is 20 %, or 15 % for Northern Salmon and Magmafish. On the Normal combat setting a Perch is quality 1 four times in five and quality 5 once in 625. Hard and Very Hard raise the roll, and some alternate biome regions double it: in those waters a Perch reaches quality 5 about once in 40.

A fish weighs 2 at quality 1 and 2 more per quality. At the Food Preparation Table it becomes Raw Fish: 1 at quality 1 and 3 more per quality, plus 1 for Tuna, Giant Herring, Grouper and Coral Cod and plus 2 for Anglerfish, Northern Salmon, Magmafish and Pufferfish. Every catch also has a 20 % chance of an extra item from the fish's own list, such as Amber from a Perch or a Ruby from a Tuna.

Fish on your seed

Enter your seed on the fishing page or open it on the seed map. The fishing page marks the water where the chosen fish can spawn, lists every fish with its nearest water from the starting stones, and points to the nearest water where the quality roll doubles. On the seed map, search a fish's name to see all of its water and the nearest first.