Every Fishing Bait in Valheim: Nine Types, and Eight Are Made From Trophies
You cannot fish in Valheim without bait, and the bait you attach decides which fish you can catch at all — not the location, not the rod, not the skill. There are nine types, and eight of them are crafted the same way: twenty basic bait plus one trophy makes twenty advanced bait. Which turns your trophy chest into a fishing tackle box.
On sourcing. Iron Gate do not publish system documentation. The figures below come from the community wikis and can change with any patch.
Bait Decides the Fish
| Bait | Attracts | Biome |
|---|---|---|
| Fishing bait | Perch, Pike | Meadows, Black Forest |
| Mossy fishing bait | Trollfish | Black Forest |
| Sticky fishing bait | Giant herring | Swamp |
| Stingy fishing bait | Grouper | Plains |
| Heavy fishing bait | Tuna, Coral cod | Ocean |
| Misty fishing bait | Pufferfish, Anglerfish | Mistlands |
| Hot fishing bait | Magmafish | Ashlands |
| Frosty fishing bait | Northern salmon | Deep North |
| Cold fishing bait | Pike, Tetra | Meadows & Black Forest, Frost Caves |
Attach the bait by equipping the rod and right-clicking the bait in your inventory. There is no separate menu, which is why a surprising number of players have fished with an empty hook.
The mapping is one bait per biome, with two exceptions worth noting. Cold fishing bait covers two things at once — Pike in the Meadows and Black Forest, and Tetra inside Frost Caves, which is the only bait that fishes a dungeon. And Frosty fishing bait targets the Deep North, a biome that is still largely unfinished, making it the most forward-looking item on the list.
If a fishing spot is producing nothing, the bait is almost always the reason. The fish for that biome simply will not approach the wrong bait — as covered in our fishing guide, the skill affects your reel speed and stamina, not what bites.
Trophies Are the Ingredient
Basic Fishing bait is bought from Haldor at 10 coins per 20. That is the only bait you purchase; everything else is crafted.
Every advanced bait uses the same recipe shape: 20 basic bait + 1 trophy → 20 advanced bait, at the Food preparation table.
| Bait | Trophy required |
|---|---|
| Mossy | Troll trophy |
| Sticky | Abomination trophy |
| Stingy | Fuling trophy |
| Heavy | Serpent trophy |
| Misty | Lox trophy |
| Hot | Warrior trophy |
| Frosty | Drake trophy |
| Cold | Fenring trophy |
This is the strongest argument against the Obliterator there is. As our trophies guide covers, a trophy fed to the Obliterator becomes one coal. The same trophy makes twenty advanced fishing bait. Never bulk-obliterate a trophy chest without checking this list first.
The trophies are spread across the whole progression, which means your fishing range widens as you clear biomes. A Troll trophy is early; a Warrior trophy is Ashlands. You cannot skip ahead to Magmafish.
Note that a Serpent trophy is a boat fight. Heavy fishing bait — the one for Tuna and Coral cod — requires killing a Serpent first, which is the one bait with a genuine prerequisite fight attached.
Practical Notes
All baits weigh 0.1 and stack to 100. That is the most useful fact here: twenty of each of the nine types costs you 18 weight in total — trivial next to a Megingjord's +150. There is no reason to carry a selection rather than everything; bring the lot and you can fish whatever water you happen to be standing beside. (A full stack of 100 weighs 10 on its own, so do not haul nine full stacks.)
The fishing rod itself has two sources. Haldor sells it for 350 coins, and it cannot be crafted. The alternative is free: a rare Frost Cave room containing a large frozen lake spawns a rod at its edge, and picking it up also drops 2–4 fishing bait.
That Frost Cave room is worth checking every cave for, because 350 coins is a meaningful sum in the mid-game and the room costs you nothing but a look.
Casting distance is held, not clicked. The longer you hold the primary attack, the further the line goes — so a short tap and a long hold reach very different water.
And the rod is a weak weapon. At 5 Blunt and 5 knockback with a −5% movement speed penalty, it is two-handed and worth nothing in a fight. Swap it out before something finds you.
Practical tips
- Nine baits. The bait, not the location, decides what will bite.
- All weigh 0.1 and stack to 100 — twenty of each of the nine types is only 18 weight.
- Basic bait is 10 coins per 20 from Haldor; everything else is crafted.
- 20 basic bait + 1 trophy = 20 advanced bait, at the Food preparation table.
- A trophy is 20 bait or 1 coal. Do not obliterate them.
- Cold bait fishes Frost Caves for Tetra — the only dungeon fishing.
- The rod is 350 coins from Haldor, or free in a rare Frost Cave room with 2–4 bait.
Running your own Valheim server
Fishing is the activity people do while somebody else is building or smelting, which only works when everyone shares one world rather than taking turns hosting. A gamever Valheim server keeps that world live for up to 10 players, with one-click backups protecting the trophy chest your entire tackle box is made from.
Conclusion
Valheim has nine fishing baits, and the bait — not the rod, the location or the skill — decides which fish will bite. Basic Fishing bait comes from Haldor at 10 coins per 20; the other eight are crafted at the Food preparation table using 20 basic bait plus one trophy for 20 advanced bait. That makes trophies a fishing resource: Troll for Mossy, Abomination for Sticky, Fuling for Stingy, Serpent for Heavy, Lox for Misty, Warrior for Hot, Drake for Frosty and Fenring for Cold — and it is the reason feeding a trophy to the Obliterator for one coal is such a poor trade. Every bait weighs 0.1 and stacks to 100, so twenty of each of the nine costs just 18 weight — carry them all. And the rod itself is 350 coins from Haldor or free in the rare Frost Cave frozen-lake room, which also drops 2–4 bait on pickup.
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