Vintage Story Fishing Guide: How to Craft a Rod, Use Bait, and Catch More Fish

Fishing is one of the easiest ways to obtain food in Vintage Story. With a fishing rod, players can catch fish from lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water. Using the right bait and choosing good fishing locations can greatly improve your results.

Crafting a Fishing Rod

To craft a fishing rod, you will need:

• 3 Sticks or 3 Bamboo Stakes;
• 3 Rope.

Both wooden and bamboo fishing rods function the same way and can be used for fishing.

Using Bait

Fishing without bait is possible, but bites will be much slower and only a few small fish species can be caught.

Bait can be added by:

• combining it with the fishing rod in the crafting grid;
• left-clicking the bait onto the rod in your inventory.

Once attached, the bait will appear in the rod's tooltip.

Suitable bait includes meat, small fish, and other bait items. Higher-quality bait attracts fish faster and increases the variety of catches.

How to Fish

1. Hold the fishing rod in your main hand.
2. Right-click to cast the line into the water.
3. Wait for a bite.
4. When the bobber goes underwater and a splash appears, right-click again.
5. The caught fish will be placed directly into your inventory.

Fishing rods can catch both visible fish entities and fish from the invisible fish stock system.

Best Fishing Locations

The most productive fishing spots are usually:

• large lakes;
• wide rivers;
• waters that have not been heavily fished recently;
• climates where fish naturally spawn in large numbers.

Even if no fish are visible, a location may still contain fish stocks.

Fish Stock Depletion

Fishing repeatedly in the same area will gradually reduce the local fish population. As fish stocks decline, bites become less frequent and catches decrease.

Fish stocks will eventually recover, but this may take several in-game weeks.

Fishing Tips

• Always use bait whenever possible.
• Better bait produces faster bites.
• Move between fishing locations regularly.
• Focus on larger bodies of water.
• Do not ignore areas without visible fish.
• Reel in quickly when a bite occurs.

Fishing provides a reliable source of food throughout every stage of survival and can become an important part of your resource gathering strategy.