I remember my first survival world, I spent 3 days starving because I didn’t know I could just grab a stick and string to catch fish next to my base. It would have saved me so much time running around looking for berry bushes or chasing cows across biomes. If you’re just starting out or looking for a reliable, low-effort food source, learning how do you get fish in Minecraft is one of the most useful small skills you can pick up. Fish works for feeding yourself, taming pets, trading for emeralds, and even brewing essential potions, so you’ll never regret knowing all the ways to stock up.
How Do You Get Fish in Minecraft: The 3 Most Accessible Methods
You don’t need enchanted gear or a fancy ocean base to collect fish, even new players with basic tools can start gathering stacks in under 10 minutes. The best method for you depends on your playstyle, current gear, and how much time you want to spend actively collecting. Here’s a quick breakdown of the most common options:
- Fishing with an enchanted rod: The lowest-effort method for new players, no travel required if you have a water source near your base
- Hunting wild fish mobs: Best for fast bulk collection, especially if you have a sword with Looting enchantment
- Trading or looting chests: A bonus method for players exploring villages, ocean ruins, or shipwrecks
For fishing, all you need to make a basic rod is 3 sticks and 2 string, which you can get from killing spiders or breaking cobwebs in abandoned mineshafts. Cast the rod into any open water source, and wait for the bobber to dip below the surface before reeling in. I’ve found that casting into water that’s at least 2 blocks deep and 3 blocks wide gives the best results, as shallow or blocked water will mostly give you junk like broken leather boots or sticks instead of fish. For hunting wild fish, you just need to swim into any ocean or river biome, hit the swimming fish mobs with a sword, and pick up the drops they leave behind.
Pro Tips to Increase Your Fish Collection Speed
Once you have the basics down, you can tweak your setup to get way more fish in way less time, even if you only have a few minutes to play each session. The biggest upgrades come from enchantments, which turn a basic fishing rod into a super efficient collection tool.
Lure enchantment cuts down the wait time for bites by up to 5 seconds per level, so a Lure III rod will get you bites almost constantly, no waiting around for minutes at a time. Pair that with Luck of the Sea enchantment, and you’ll cut down on junk drops by 70% and increase your chance of catching rare fish like pufferfish or tropical fish, plus bonus rare drops like enchanted books or name tags. If you play single player or your server allows AFK farms, you can build a simple automatic fish farm that lets you collect stacks of fish while you’re away from your desk, no manual clicking needed. Just make sure you check server rules first, some public servers ban AFK farms to keep the economy fair for all players.
If you prefer hunting fish instead of fishing, a sword with Looting III will get you up to 4 extra fish per kill, so you can fill a whole stack of cod in 10 minutes if you find a large school in a warm ocean biome. You can also use a bucket to pick up live fish, so you can transport them back to your base to make a dedicated breeding pond for even easier collection later.
What to Do With Fish Once You’ve Collected It
Fish is way more versatile than most new players realize, it’s not just a food source for filling your hunger bar. The type of fish you catch will determine its best use, so you don’t have to waste rare catches on basic hunger needs.
Cooked cod restores 5 hunger points, and cooked salmon restores 6, making them both better than most early-game food sources like raw chicken or carrots. You can cook them over a campfire or furnace in just 10 seconds per fish, so you can stock up a chest of cooked fish for long cave exploration trips or cross-biome travel. Breeding and taming pets is another common use: raw cod works for breeding axolotls, and raw salmon can tame ocelots and cats, which will keep creepers away from your base entirely. That’s a huge bonus for players who struggle with surprise creeper explosions destroying their builds.
Fisherman villagers will buy raw cod and salmon for emeralds, so you can turn a stockpile of fish into diamonds, enchanted gear, or building materials if you trade enough. Pufferfish is used to make water breathing potions, which are essential for exploring ocean monuments or building underwater bases. Tropical fish are mostly decorative, you can put them in buckets to make custom aquariums in your base, or use them to breed axolotls too.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Trying to Get Fish
Even though collecting fish is pretty straightforward, there are a few common mistakes that waste players’ time or make them miss out on rare drops. I’ve made most of these myself, so you don’t have to learn the hard way.
First, don’t cast your rod into water that’s too shallow or covered. If the water is less than 2 blocks deep, or has solid blocks within 2 blocks of the bobber, you’ll almost never catch fish, only junk. I’ve made that mistake too, casting into a tiny 1x1 hole I dug next to my house and wondering why I only got old leather boots for 20 minutes straight. Second, don’t skip fishing when it’s raining. Fishing in the rain increases your bite rate by 20%, so that’s actually the best time to sit by the water and stock up, even if it makes your screen look a little foggy.
Third, don’t waste rare fish on food. A lot of new players cook pufferfish or tropical fish, but they’re almost useless as food, and raw pufferfish will even poison you for 15 seconds if you eat it. Save those for brewing or trading instead of wasting them on hunger. Also, don’t forget that you can carry live fish in buckets, so you don’t have to kill every fish you see when you’re exploring. Transporting live fish back to your base to make a dedicated pond will save you a ton of travel time later.
At the end of the day, learning how do you get fish in Minecraft is one of the most useful small skills you can pick up early in a survival playthrough. You don’t need fancy gear or a huge base to start collecting fish, even a basic wooden rod and a small pond next to your spawn will give you a steady source of food and trade goods for the first few weeks of your world. Don’t be afraid to test out different methods to see what works best for you, whether that’s building an AFK farm for passive collection or exploring the ocean to hunt for rare tropical fish for your base decor.