Challenge Bait
| Challenge Bait | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Tackle |
| Location | Crafting; Golden Fishing Treasure Chests |
| Recipe | Fishing Mastery |
| Sell Price | 1g |
Challenge Bait is the bait for people who have stopped losing fish. A perfect catch with it on the rod pulls up three of the same fish at once, but every slip costs one of them, and three slips lose the lot. Fishing Mastery unlocks the recipe, which is a late reward, and the ingredients are Bone Fragment and Moss rather than the usual Bug Meat. Fish also bite faster with it than with plain Bait, so the gamble sits on top of a solid base. For anyone confident at the minigame it is the quickest way to triple a day's haul or clear a quest that asks for a long list of one species.
Recipe
These are the ingredients one batch needs.
| Name | Image | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Bone Fragment | 
|
5 |
| Moss | 
|
2 |
Use
The count sits in a small box just outside the minigame window, at the top right, and it starts at three. Each time the fish slips out of the green bar the count drops by one. Keep the fish inside the bar from first tug to last and all three come up together. Let it out twice and the reward is a single fish. Let it out a third time and the fish is gone, which is the real cost of the bait: a cast that would normally have ended in a catch instead ends in nothing.
That makes Challenge Bait a poor choice for a hard, darting fish and an excellent one for a stretch of water full of easy, slow ones. Pike and Catfish will punish it; Sardines and Anchovies will not.
Unlike the double catch from Wild Bait, the triple does apply to the Legendary Fish, so a single immaculate cast at the right spot can bank three of a fish that is supposed to be unique. Extra fish on one cast do not pay extra fishing experience, but they all count towards a fishing quest or a special order, which is where the bait earns its keep.
Upgrades
Claiming Fishing Mastery teaches the recipe. Mastery only opens after all five skills reach level ten and the Mastery Cave in the south of Cindersap Forest has been found, so Challenge Bait belongs to a long-running save rather than a first year.
Each batch takes five Bone Fragments and two pieces of Moss and returns five pieces of bait. Bone Fragments come up from artifact spots, from the skeletons deep in the Skull Cavern and from a Bone Mill fed with bones, so the supply is steady without being endless. Golden Fishing Treasure Chests, which the same Fishing Mastery unlocks, sometimes hold a stack of it as well, which pairs neatly with the recipe arriving at the same moment.
In a Crab Pot it behaves like plain Bait, so a stack is wasted on traps and belongs on the rod.
Notes
Challenge Bait and Deluxe Bait pull in opposite directions. Deluxe Bait gives the widest fishing bar and the fastest bite, which makes every catch safer; Challenge Bait gives no help at all with the minigame and asks for a flawless run. Switching between the two depending on the water is the sensible habit: Deluxe for the tricky fish, Challenge for the shoals.
A rod carrying the Preserving enchantment halves the rate at which a stack disappears, which softens the sting of a cast that ends with the fish escaping and the piece spent anyway.
All Tackle and Bait
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
| Name | Image | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Bait | 
|
- |
| Bait (item) | 
|
1g |
| Barbed Hook | 
|
500g |
| Challenge Bait | 
|
1g |
| Cork Bobber | 
|
250g |
| Curiosity Lure | 
|
500g |
| Deluxe Bait | 
|
1g |
| Dressed Spinner | 
|
500g |
| Lead Bobber | 
|
150g |
| Magic Bait | 
|
1g |
| Magnet | 
|
15g |
| Quality Bobber | 
|
300g |
| Sonar Bobber | 
|
250g |
| Spinner | 
|
250g |
| Tackle | - | - |
| Targeted Bait | 
|
0.1 × Fish Price |
| Trap Bobber | 
|
200g |
| Treasure Hunter | 
|
250g |
| Wild Bait | 
|
15g |