Fishing is impossible

[Quirinea]

If you can use mods, there are a lot that make fishing easier. They were the saviour for me. I usually put the difficulty to something around 25 to 35 of "normal" and ta-dah, it is meditative and fun. At least some of them can be set to remove the minigame completely (if you have e.g. issues with your hands).
If you will not or cannot use mods, then there is a way to slowly get the fishing level up (and the bar larger): The catch from crab pots gives you experience points. You get three of them from the crab pot bundle, and you can get four items by foraging, the last one from the mines. Then be kind to Linus and he teaches you his bait recipe, which does not require a fishing level.

Another way to raise fishing level without the minigame: fish trash. Farm pond in standard farm, mines, Desert pond after 8 PM.

 

[PoppyForPenny]

I had a hard time learning to fish. There is a rhythm to it, controlling the bar is like, taptap taaap, taptaptap, taaap. Gentle, tiny. Foods to boost, and leveling up really help. Carp are easy from the mountain lake, sometimes they just stay right at the bottom so you don't have to do anything. And catching trash does level you up! I encourage you to keep trying, a little bit here & there! It's so rewarding to complete the community center and you can take all the time you want.

 

[nicodeux]

Like many here, I had a hard time learning how to fish in the game. I even believed at a time that fishing was broken on mobile before realising that this is just significantly harder than other professions in Stardew Valley.

If this can help, you can look at videos from players to see how the fishing mini-game is supposed to be played and then try to mimick those moves.

 

[osirisgothra]

My piece of advice is to play Geometry Dash. Similar mechanics, especially when flying. It also can be super frustrating but it’s a change from fishing. I’ve become decent at in-game fishing and it almost brought me to tears at first. I really think Geometry Dash helped.

Ah yes Geometry Dash, another set of mechanics that fall under the "impossible". I was expecting a laid back game would have *some* mechanics, maybe not as easy as minecraft fishing.....more like spiritfarer fishing mechanics or genshin impact fishing mechanics, or maybe even breath of fire/botw/oot fishing mechanics, but not geometry dash mechanics my god what exactly what were they thinking!?!?! My carpal tunnel syndrome came from games like that, and now its so bad I probably couldn't do level 1 on easy anymore.

 

[chemster]

Like many here, I had a hard time learning how to fish in the game. I even believed at a time that fishing was broken on mobile before realising that this is just significantly harder than other professions in Stardew Valley.

If this can help, you can look at videos from players to see how the fishing mini-game is supposed to be played and then try to mimick those moves.

My Fishing tip: first of all, don't even pick up your fishing rod for the first month. If you're not into fishing, it's not going to be worth it. If you wait, in 1.6 (possibly in 1.5, I don't recall), Willy will visit you, give you the training rod, and bump you to 1st level. This will make fishing a lot easier. I usually stick with the training rod for a while (at least until I hit level 5, mainly from books and crab pots.). When you can have good bait, and good tackle (the trap bobber, or the cork bobber), then it's not so bad... especially if you can eat food which also increases your fishing level. But the initial fishing is always a pain for me.

 

[Ereo]

My Fishing tip: first of all, don't even pick up your fishing rod for the first month. If you're not into fishing, it's not going to be worth it. If you wait, in 1.6 (possibly in 1.5, I don't recall), Willy will visit you, give you the training rod, and bump you to 1st level. This will make fishing a lot easier. I usually stick with the training rod for a while (at least until I hit level 5, mainly from books and crab pots.). When you can have good bait, and good tackle (the trap bobber, or the cork bobber), then it's not so bad... especially if you can eat food which also increases your fishing level. But the initial fishing is always a pain for me.

You know you can buy the training rod for only 25g?

 

[chemster]

You know you can buy the training rod for only 25g?

I'd forgotten that. Was it more expensive in the past? I don't suppose I could convince you that it was the principle of the thing? Yeah, I'm not sure I buy that. :-)

 

[MogBeoulve]

I'd forgotten that. Was it more expensive in the past? I don't suppose I could convince you that it was the principle of the thing? Yeah, I'm not sure I buy that. :-)

The free boost to level 1 with no effort makes it a little easier to get to level 2 for regular bait; until then you have to fill crab pots with wild bait.

 

[osirisgothra]

Its not the mechanics themselves that I have issue with its the fact that it doesn't correlate with 90% of the game's laid-back feel. It's like putting an FPS shooter mechanic into checkers. The majority rules and that's all. People who liked consistency and sanity are the minority now. Everything today is based on the cancel culture's instant-gratifaction more now harder better faster make it impossible or we will whine about it on tiktok and youtube. Game makers are afraid to NOT include extreme difficult aspects even in games where they don't belong. I am thinking back to stuff like shapez.io where copy and paste was considered an OP skill that you had to save up currency and buy. Or factorio where the game is only about duping the same factory over and over making science packs and thats pretty much it. Or spiritfarer and the darn parkour zipline mechanics all the sudden in the middle of the game. Some things just don't belong in a game. Throwing out-of-the-water-parkour mecahnics into a laid back game is one of them.

 

[MogBeoulve]

Its not the mechanics themselves that I have issue with its the fact that it doesn't correlate with 90% of the game's laid-back feel. It's like putting an FPS shooter mechanic into checkers. The majority rules and that's all. People who liked consistency and sanity are the minority now. Everything today is based on the cancel culture's instant-gratifaction more now harder better faster make it impossible or we will whine about it on tiktok and youtube. Game makers are afraid to NOT include extreme difficult aspects even in games where they don't belong. I am thinking back to stuff like shapez.io where copy and paste was considered an OP skill that you had to save up currency and buy. Or factorio where the game is only about duping the same factory over and over making science packs and thats pretty much it. Or spiritfarer and the darn parkour zipline mechanics all the sudden in the middle of the game. Some things just don't belong in a game. Throwing out-of-the-water-parkour mechanics into a laid back game is one of them.

... so use crab pots and buy the fish you need? I did not learn to fish until my second game. There are ways to work around or skip pretty much any part of the game you don't like. You can even get to perfection by using gold now.