Fishing help and tips

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xXBatmanXx
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Fishing help and tips

Post by xXBatmanXx » Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:44 am

So, I see that some of you are also working towards a PDA. I have done 4 fish missions, looked up how to do them, but cannot catch the requested fish.

Suggestions? My pole + bait is over 60%. Just burning through my bait. :( I have talked to others in the same "boat" AHHAHAHAH...erm...sorry....any word if fishing is broken with udpate?
Reality...never touch the stuff myself....gets in the way of all of the hallucinations!

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Re: Fishing help and tips

Post by Will T. » Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:46 pm

Upgrade your fishing pole as soon as you can. I have no idea what "fishing power" means or does, but apparently more of it is better. The Sitting Duck's Fishing Rod sold by the traveling merchant was my pole of choice until I got the golden one for doing 30 quests.

Make 100% sure you're in the right biome and at the right height. A Depth Meter is pretty much a requirement for determining whether you're in the Underground or the Caverns, which makes a difference on some missions. For biome-specific missions, you can set up artificial biomes near your house by making 50-100 (the actual amount depends on the biome) blocks of biome-specific grass in a small area using seeds. (Make sure you keep at least 5 blocks of space between your artificial biome and surrounding grass + stone if it's Hallow/Corruption/Crimson and you don't want it to spread!) What matters is which biome you are in, not which biome the water body is in (note however that depth is determined by the bobber's position, not yours), so you can place the water just outside of your artificial biome and stand within the biome and it will work. To know if you're within a biome, pay attention to the background and music. When they change, you're considered within that biome.

Bigger water pools = better fishing. Find a larger pool if one isn't working for you, or perhaps expand the one you're using if you like the location. 300 blocks of water is the threshold at which a water pool reaches its maximum fishing potential.

Beyond that, there's just a ridiculous amount of luck involved. Some days I get a mission fish on my first cast, others I fish in a single spot for 24 in-game hours and never see it.

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Re: Fishing help and tips

Post by Boss Llama » Sat Jul 18, 2015 1:08 pm

Is there any way to purchase or craft bait, or is it only available by netting and quest rewards? I run out of bait long before I run out of patience.
-Boss Llama

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Re: Fishing help and tips

Post by Will T. » Sat Jul 18, 2015 2:06 pm

You can get bait from crates caught while fishing, but unfortunately the dedicated bait items are limited to that and Angler rewards.

My suggestion is simply to catch every bug you find and use them to get started. Nighttime is a great time to harvest fireflies around your spawn point, and cutting down tall grass will sometimes spawn worms and grasshoppers which work as bait. It's hard to get started, but once you get going you can collect a ton of bait from the Angler and crates - I have over 100 baits at this point with none of them being bugs.

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Re: Fishing help and tips

Post by The Domer » Sat Jul 18, 2015 3:04 pm

Worms and a fallen star give you an enchanted worm which is a really easy way to get a strong bait.

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Re: Fishing help and tips

Post by xXBatmanXx » Sat Jul 18, 2015 3:22 pm

Yea, know all of this.....grrr....I think I have just been sooooo unlucky. Tons of crates and other stuff, but everything BUT the fish I want....

/Maybe I need to bring more beer....
Reality...never touch the stuff myself....gets in the way of all of the hallucinations!

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Re: Fishing help and tips

Post by Zork Nemesis » Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:00 pm

Unfortunately, three of the items required for the PDA/Cellphone are pure random chance from the Angler. As far as fishing rods are concerned, Sitting Duck's Fishing Pole sold by the Travelling Merchant is the third-best in the game. Buy it as soon as you can unless you've already gotten the Hotline or Golden Pole. Otherwise, the Fiberglass or Fisher of Souls/Fleshcatcher will do. Bait power is merely a chance to not consume the bait. If you have a bait power of 5%, it will be consumed on use, each 5% higher than that will give you an average number of uses per bait. So something with 20% power will usually last for four catches. This can go up to 50% with a host of specific baits, though the easiest to obtain is the Master Bait which can come from quests or crates. A very good common choice is to combine worms with Fallen Stars for a 35% bait. The Truffle Worm lists a bait power of 666%, but cannot be used for normal fishing and instead is used to spawn Duke Fishron. For further fishing bonuses, there's potions and gear you can use to increase your catch rates and chances of finding rarer fish. Most comes from the Angler.

Fishing in locations, it's important to be in the right biome first of all, but the game simply has to register you as such. I use my UFO mount for fishing on the surface and I can fish the Ocean despite the fact that my oceans have become completely corrupt. I've also had to abuse the Clentaminator to fish in the Tundra properly where I had no other usable sources of water as the area had become Hallow when I went into Hard mode. Water depth and width is important; the larger the body of water the more likely you are to catch something. Surface width is determined by how many titles are connected to the surface while depth measures what's directly below those titles. Any other tiles in that water that might be off to the side but not exposed to the surface do not count. If you have at least 300 water tiles that are acceptable you won't have any issue, but fewer than that and you'll see penalties to your fishing abilities that could result in not catching anything. 75 tiles or fewer and you have a -75% fishing power penalty while 150 tiles is halfway. Time of day and weather also affect your skills; cloudy and rain boost your fishing rates as does fishing at dawn or dusk (4:30AM-6AM and 6PM-7:30PM) while fishing during normal day or night incur a 20% penalty. Moon phase also affects it: Full Moons give a bonus, Phase 2 or 8 (waning) give a smaller bonus, while phases 4 and 6 (crescent) give a penalty and New Moons give a steeper penalty.

As far as the once-a-day timer, I saw a trick on the steam discussions using a single player world. Using a Sonar Potion, head to the proper fishing area and fish up the quest fish. When you get it, drop the fish next to you and fish up another one (you can't catch one if you already have one). Continue doing so until you get a good number of them. Once you think you have enough, collect them all and put them in a box by the spawn. Turn in your one and log out. From there, create characters equal to the number of fish you caught and have each character claim a fish from the box and turn it in. You can clear the quest several times a day by doing this. There's also an item you can get called the Enchanted Sundial which allows you to skip to the next day once a week.

The wiki page on fishing is incredibly helpful, check it out: http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Fishing
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Re: Fishing help and tips

Post by metacide » Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:25 pm

xXBatmanXx wrote:Yea, know all of this.....grrr....I think I have just been sooooo unlucky. Tons of crates and other stuff, but everything BUT the fish I want....

/Maybe I need to bring more beer....
Are you using the fishing potion? That lets you see whats on the hook before you pull it up. Doesn't make it go any faster but it can save on the bait.
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Re: Fishing help and tips

Post by Zork Nemesis » Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:07 pm

metacide wrote:
xXBatmanXx wrote:Yea, know all of this.....grrr....I think I have just been sooooo unlucky. Tons of crates and other stuff, but everything BUT the fish I want....

/Maybe I need to bring more beer....
Are you using the fishing potion? That lets you see whats on the hook before you pull it up. Doesn't make it go any faster but it can save on the bait.
You're thinking Sonar Potion.
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In my experience, common sense isn't too common.

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Re: Fishing help and tips

Post by Will T. » Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:13 pm

I just expanded all of my usual fishing holes to 300+ water blocks, and suddenly I'm having a MUCH easier time catching the quest fish - I can get it on the first cast more often than not. I don't know for sure if correlation = causation, but it's something to try anyway.

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Re: Fishing help and tips

Post by Boss Llama » Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:55 pm

300 is the number of water blocks at which there is no longer a penalty. It does make quite a big difference!
-Boss Llama

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Re: Fishing help and tips

Post by Ixtab » Mon Jul 20, 2015 10:26 pm

If you get the endless water bucket as a reward, it is amazing for making fishing holes.

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