Stardew Valley - Fishing Rods

The rods, from the training rod that loses the hard fish to the iridium rod that takes bait and tackle together.

Overview

Five rods exist, and the ladder between them is shorter than it looks. A rod decides what can be clipped onto the line and very little else: the width of the green block in the minigame comes from the farmer's fishing level, and the fish on offer come from the water, the season and the clock. What changes from one rod to the next is how many attachments it will hold, and that is where every real improvement in this branch comes from.

Willy's Fish Shop at the beach sells four of the five, each one unlocked by the fishing level rather than by money alone, and the fifth arrives as the reward for mastering the skill. A rod also costs energy to cast, which ties the branch to breakfast as much as to gold, and any of them can be enchanted at the Forge.

The practical shape of the branch is two steps. The first step adds a bait slot, which halves the waiting between casts and turns fishing from a slow pastime into a working morning. The second step adds a tackle slot, which is where the minigame can finally be bent: a wider block, a slower draining meter, a bar that clings to the fish, or a guarantee that chasing a Treasure Chest will not cost the catch. Everything else in the branch is a variation on those two steps.

Order

The branch starts itself. Willy's letter invites the farmer to the beach in the first week, and the errand ends with him handing over a Bamboo Pole and a short lesson. That pole catches the common fish perfectly well, and plenty of first years are spent entirely with it.

The Training Rod is the odd one out and is bought for pocket change. It is aimed at a farmer struggling with the minigame rather than at a farmer short of gold: it sets the green block to the width a level five farmer would have, and it slows the progress bar's decline by a third, which is the same help a Trap Bobber gives much later. In exchange it takes only the easier half of the fish list and lands everything at ordinary grade. It still pays full experience, still fills the collection and still hooks treasure chests, and it raises the spawn rate of the fish it can catch, which makes it a surprisingly effective way to climb the first few levels.

The second fishing level opens the fibreglass rod, and that is the purchase worth hurrying. Bait is the difference between a dozen casts in a morning and twice that many, and the rod pays for itself inside a season of ordinary fishing.

The sixth level opens the Iridium Rod, the first rod that takes tackle as well as bait, and it is the one that matters. From that point the branch stops being about rods at all and becomes about which tackle to attach. Mastering the fishing skill at the end of a long save hands over the advanced rod, which holds two tackles at once, and further copies are sold at the shop for a serious sum.

Best

The Iridium Rod is the answer for almost every save. It opens every tackle in the game, it is affordable long before the fishing level that unlocks it, and nothing above it changes what can be caught. A farm should treat its price as the real goal of the first year's fishing rather than buying anything else first.

The advanced rod is the specialist's upgrade and it is genuinely powerful, because two tackles stack. Two cork bobbers widen the block twice as far as one, two trap bobbers slow the meter by half instead of a third, and two quality bobbers lift a catch two grades rather than one. That last combination is how a farmer turns a lake into a supply of iridium fish. The exceptions are the Sonar Bobber and the Curiosity Lure, which do nothing extra when doubled.

Of the two starter rods, the Bamboo Pole is better for a farmer who wants to make money and the Training Rod is better for one who keeps losing fish. Anybody who finds the minigame comfortable can skip the Training Rod entirely and put the gold towards bait.

Uses

Attachments go on with a right click and come off the same way, bait first and tackle second, and on the advanced rod the left-hand tackle is the one that comes off first. Bait halves the time a fish takes to bite, Deluxe Bait does more and lifts Crab Pot catches a grade, Wild Bait adds a chance of two fish at once, Targeted Bait aims the water at a chosen species, and Magic Bait ignores weather, season and clock together.

Tackle is where the choices are interesting. A Trap Bobber for difficult fish, a Cork Bobber for a wider margin, a Barbed Hook to keep the block glued to the catch, a Treasure Hunter for a farm chasing chests, a Lead Bobber to stop the block bouncing off the bottom of the bar, a Quality Bobber for grades, and a Sonar Bobber for anyone tired of fighting a fish that turns out to be an anchovy. Tackle wears out with use, so a working farm keeps spares.

The Forge adds a last layer. Any rod can take a random enchantment, and four of them are worth rerolling for: one hooks fish automatically the moment they bite, one adds a fishing level while the rod is held, one gives a good chance that bait and tackle survive a cast, and one removes the energy cost of casting entirely.

Notes

A rod cast at dry ground can freeze the farmer in place, with the menus locked and the game needing to be forced closed, so it is worth aiming at water rather than at scenery.

The Training Rod behaves strangely underground. Cast into the mine's water it brings up rubbish only, because its pool underground holds nothing but trash.

Putting the mayor's lost purple shorts into a tackle slot gives the rod a bobber of its own design. On the advanced rod that is more than a joke: shorts in the first slot stop the tackle in the second slot wearing down at all.