Tutorial:Fish farming

Fish farming is an easy method of catching large quantities of fish and other items (junk and treasure) by fishing. Most AFK (away from keyboard) designs involve right-clicking an iron door with tripwire above it, causing fish caught to flow into a hopper and then into a collection chest.

Designs

AFK automatic fish farming

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Reason: 1.16 video is private, update with new one

Pre-1.16, automatic fish farming involves right-clicking a door with tripwire above it and hoppers for collection. It’s a good idea to use an automatic fishing rod dropper to supply new fishing rods when the previous one breaks. The ideal rod is Lure III, Luck of the Sea III, Unbreaking III and Mending. For some AFK farms, it is required to hold down a button or key. For these, they can only be truly AFK if it is held down by something besides a person.

Snapshot 20w12a changed how fishing worked. To get treasure loot, the bobber must be in a 5×5×4 or larger area of water, air, or Lily Pads. This broke all old AFK fishing designs. The current designs use a timer to approximate how long it'll take to catch a fish, and then forcefully cause the player to reel it in via trapdoors activated on a redstone timer. These aren't as fast as the pre-1.16 designs.

Snapshot 20w49a added the Sculk Sensor, which powered a new generation of AFK fishing farms. A design by Rays Works uses sculk sensors to detect a bobber sinking into the water when loot bites, triggering the sensor and forcefully causing the player to reel the bobber in via trapdoors activated by a sculk sensor.

Note: None of these work in Bedrock Edition, due to how tripwires and doors work. Mojang also does not want to allow AFK fishing in Bedrock Edition.^{[citation needed]} As such, most AFK fishing designs involve exploiting bugs that get fixed in the next update.

Simple method

A quick and easy way to setup an AFK fish farm requires 1 iron trapdoor, 1 note block, 1 heavy weighted pressure plate, 1 water source block, 1 fence, 1 hopper, 1-2 chests, and one extra block. Start by placing down the chest(s), then place the hopper feeding into the chest(s). Place the fence down on top of the hopper and waterlog it, then place the pressure plate on top of the fence. 2 blocks away from the fence, place the note block, and place one block on top of it to mute it. Then place the iron trapdoor on the extra block such that it is next to the pressure plate. This is all that is needed for the AFK fishing farm.

Once built, simply hold down right click (place block) and point the crosshairs at the note block. The note block prevents the fishing rod from reeling in early. Once a fish is hooked, the bobber is pulled below the pressure plate, causing the trapdoor to return down and block the note block, allowing the fishing rod to reel in and be cast out again, at which point the trapdoor is raised and the note block is revealed once again.

Note: this design will not catch any items in the treasure loot table, but it is still a viable method for fish, items in the junk table, and experience.

Bedrock friendly 1.16 design by AlexBMinecraft

This one is specifically noted as working in Bedrock edition.

1.17+ (Not available in survival until 1.19)

Rays Works Design

Fish collector

This is a basic design using hoppers to automatically collect fish while being very quick and simple to build.

Non-AFK fishing

Here is a quick run-through of the fishing mechanics:

Time: A time between 5-30 seconds is chosen each time you cast a line. This can be decreased with Lure I, II, and III, with each level of Lure decreasing the wait time by 5 seconds. If the end time is less than 0 seconds, a new time is chosen.
Enchantments: Lure decreases wait time; Luck of the sea brings in more treasure. See Fishing for more information.
Open Water: While you can technically fish in a single water block, you cannot catch items from the "treasure" list unless you are fishing in "open water": At least 2 blocks of water in all directions around the bobber (that is, a 5×5 space centered on the bobber), and 2 blocks deep, the whole area open to the sky. Water plants and such count as "water" for this purpose, and lily pads atop the water are valid for "treasure" loot.
Safety: If you have a decent territory fenced off and lit up, you can make a large pool there. in the early game, it may be easier to make a safe "fishing stand" over an ocean or river, where you can fish but monsters can't reach you. Always remember to add a roof to prevent phantoms!

Here are a few tips on non-AFK fishing:

Enchanting
- Use an enchanted fishing rod. Spending XP on a fishing rod may seem useless, but it's not, and you can get amazing loot from fishing. There are 4 useful enchantments for fishing rods: Mending, Unbreaking, Lure, and Luck of the Sea. You can also catch enchanted fishing rods as "treasure" loot— they are damaged, but as soon as you find one with Mending, you can use that (it heals itself as you fish), and combine other rods with it as you collect the various enchantments. Eventually you end up with a good rod: Mending, Unbreaking III, Luck of The Sea III, and Lure III. Even if the last couple of anvil combinations are expensive, it's worthwhile, because once you have the full set of enchantments, you'll never need to use the anvil on that rod again.
- Mending + Unbreaking
  - Mending can be useful because you get enough XP from fishing to keep the rod at full durability with just Mending. Unbreaking enables the fishing rod to have a chance of ignoring durability cost.
- Luck of the Sea
  - Luck of the Sea increases the chances of getting "treasure" loot.
- Lure
  - Lure decreases the pre-determined wait time by 5 seconds with each level. With Lure III, time for catches are decreased by approximately half.
Repair.
- As with every other tool in the game, you can combine two fishing rods via anvils, grindstones, crafting tables, or the player inventory to gain more durability. Note that combining tools via crafting tables, grindstones, or the player inventory removes any enchantments. For more information, see Repairing. With Mending, a fishing rod repairs with ordinary use, meaning it repairs itself with each catch.