Fishing is an essential part of progressing in Terraria. Catching fish with higher quality rods allows you to get better loot and access hardmode ores and bars earlier. However, fishing requires bait, which can be tricky to gather when starting out. This comprehensive guide will teach you how to efficiently gather bait at any stage of the game.
Table of Contents
Gathering Bait Early Game
When you first start out in Terraria, bait options are limited but you can gather what you need to get started with fishing:
- Bugs – Catch bugs like fireflies, worms, grasshoppers, and snails with a bug net. These are weak baits that work for basic fishing.
- Plants – Harvest plants like cattails, jungle plants, and vines. The jungle is a great place to get bait plants early on.
- Desert Fossils – Mine desert fossils which can drop fossil fragments to use as bait.
Once you have basic bugs, plants, and fossils as bait, you can start fishing for crates and items to help improve your fishing power. As you progress, more bait types will become available.
Unlocking Better Bait Types
Here are some better bait types that unlock as you advance in Terraria:
- Stars – Shooting stars crash down at night once you enter hardmode. You can collect fallen stars and use them as high-quality bait.
- Butterflies – Use a bug net to catch butterflies in the underground glowing mushroom biome. These make good bait.
- Specular Fish – Catch green specular fish in the underground jungle biome. Use them as bait or extract fish scales from them to craft special jungle bait.
- Crate Potions – Once you enter hardmode, you can gather materials to brew crate potions which increase your fishing power and bait drop rates for a short time.
- Fallen Stars – Collect fallen stars that land at night to use as bait. Try collecting them during meteor showers for large star hauls.
Top Bait Farming Tips
Once you unlock better bait types, you can create bait farms to mass produce high-quality bait for fishing:
- Make lava fishing farms to automatically catch specular fish, fallen stars, and crates. Lava increases spawn rates.
- Build butterfly farms in the glowing mushroom biome underground to collect large numbers of butterflies.
- AFK farm during meteor showers to gather tons of fallen stars for bait.
- Set up crab, shrimp, and snail farms to generate large quantities of bait.
- Use the Sitting Duck’s Fishing Pole or other fishing gear that gives bonus bait to boost your bait gathering capabilities.
Crafting Bait
Many critters like worms, butterflies, and snails can simply be used as bait themselves. However, some items need to be crafted into bait at an iron/lead anvil:
- Enchanted Nightcrawlers – Craft nightcrawlers from worms and fallen stars. Extremely powerful bait.
- Fallen Stars – Craft fallen stars into enchanted nightcrawlers or fallen star bait.
- Specular Bait – Use specular fish scales and jungle plants to craft specular bait. Works well in jungle.
- Scorpion Bait – Craft from scorpion stinger and worms. Great in the desert.
- Buggy Bait – Craft from ants and worms. Decent all-around bait.
Remember you can craft multiple bait types to try to catch specific fish based on the biome you are fishing in. Check the Terraria wiki to learn more about which baits work best where.
Using Bait Effectively
Once you’ve gathered bait, make sure to use it effectively while fishing:
- Use higher quality bait for fishing power over 200 to catch rare items and fish
- Match bait to the biome for best results – for example, use specular bait in the jungle
- Use the best bait you have for tough catches like quest fish
- Equip bonuses from accessories like tackle boxes and angler gear
- Use fishing and crate potions to improve bait use and crate drops
With the right gear and plenty of good bait, you’ll be reeling in awesome loot in no time!
Summary
Gathering large quantities of bait is critical for successful fishing trips in Terraria. Follow these tips:
- Early on, catch bugs, harvest plants, and mine fossils
- Progress to better bait like fallen stars, butterflies, and specular fish
- Build efficient bait farms once you reach hardmode
- Craft critters into enchanted bait using anvils
- Match bait to fishing location for best results
