1.6 introduced two amazing features to make mad money from fishing.
Pic related - it’s the first Summer, I didn’t ship all the fish (I couldn’t smoke all of them in time), and I’m making 20kg/day, even being bad at fishing.
The bait maker is unlocked by Fishing Lv6. It requires 3 iron bars, 3 coral, 1 sea urchin. You put a fish there, and get 5~10 pieces of bait targetting that fish.
But why would you waste fish to get more fish, instead of using bug meat for the bait? Because you can target the most lucrative fish - like I did with sturgeon there, if I used normal bait I’d be getting carps instead.
Then there’s the fish smoker. The recipe is from Willy’s and it costs 10kg. You need 10 hardwood, 1 river jelly, 1 sea jelly, 1 cave jelly.
The river and sea jellies are not a big deal to get. The hardwood will likely require luck in the mines or an upgraded axe. Cave jelly is a pain, you need to fish in the mines for a while. (Ideally at Lv100, but Lv20 does the trick.)
But oh wow. It’s worth. It doubles the price of the fish, but it keeps quality. Check the iridium quality sturgeon, it’s 1200g! Lucrative fish tend to be unruly, but if you fish at good spots you can reliably get gold quality fish; 1.5 from gold quality * 1.5 from angler profession * 2.0 from smoking = 4.5 times the original price.
It does require coal but once you got the cash rolling you can buy it from Clint, that’s what I’m doing.
Just so you guys know you can grow trees by the train tracks, that usually takes care of all my wood/coal needs. If you have foraging level 7 you can make your own tree fertilizer too
The desert and quarry are also good places.
Smokers are lovely, they can just eat through a stack of fishing in no time! It does make me go through coal like no ones business though. Coal for everything…
Coal usage is a problem; a full fishing day can easily consume around 30 pieces. There are a few solutions for that:
- Farming dust sprites in the mines. Ideally with monster must, burglar ring, and an infested mine level.
- Farm wood and process it with a kiln. You’ll need to chop around 20 trees per day.
- Buy wood from Robin; 10 wood would cost 100g or 500g depending on the year. Total cost 3000g/day or 15000g/day.
- Buy coal from Clint. 150g in the first year, 250g in the 2nd+; total cost 4500g/day or 7500g/day.
@[email protected] suggested #2, it seems viable if you got a good axe and lots of space. I’m doing #4 because it’s the simplest and I’m still in the first year, but as I progress through the game I’m planning to do #1. Just make sure to not smoke fish when it’s cheaper than your coal, otherwise you’re losing money.
Since I play with my sibling we do a bit of wood farming for the kiln, but also a bit of buying the coal as we have a winery (modded) going so money is not that much of an issue.
But it’s still like “oooh nooo wet gotta go get more”
I also like killing the dust sprites. They go hop hop.
I also like killing the dust sprites. They go hop hop.
I’m always like, “GET BACK HERE YOU JUMPING PIECE OF CHARCOAL!”, when I see them.
I mean it makes money but I feel like it’s much less labour intensive to do starfruit or ancient fruits.
It is more laborious, and it won’t scale well in the late game. However, it requires less setup and you can use it alongside farming. For example, if you’re farming ancient fruit you’ll harvest + keg it once a week, the other six days are pretty much free.
Woah
Updates with “game changers” like this are why I am putting off playing the game. When it is finished, I will just start a new farm.
Frankly I wouldn’t expect any new game changer before 2026. They only appear on major versions, and development is slow, as CA is working on another game in parallel.
I would say that “game changers” only matters for the one that want to optimize their playthrough. For casual player (like me), it only becomes a nice surprise.
I went into 1.6 without knowing what’s new, and i saw the new river farm. I was like “oh cool what’s this fish smoker thing? … Holy hell this is great!”.
You get it from the start with that farm.
Would you say the fishing ponds are obsolete now?
I don’t think so; they’re low maintenance and you can use the smoker with pond fish too. I’m planning to use them alongside normal fishing, specially for stuff like lava eels (I hate fishing those, but damn, 1050g? Or 2100g if smoked? Yes.)
… Can you smoke a fish and then put it in a fish pond?
I meant the opposite - you raise them in the pond, then you put them in the smoker.
For example, lava eels. You keep their pond with 9 eels; once it gets to 10 (after 5 days), you fish one and smoke it, for 2100g. It’s roughly 450g/day for almost no effort.
Ohhhh Thank you
yeah but then it’ll get all soggy
You can put the legendary fish in the fish ponds now and their roe is $$$, and you can process it for even more.
You can use the charcoal kiln to avoid buying your coal. 10 wood becomes 1 coal, and especially if you’re fishing-focused, you should have plenty of room for some trees
