Better Angling

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Pack a rod and a hide tackle bag for a morning on the shore, or fit out a longship and fish with a crew. One sailor can steer while another watches the net, hauls the catch and stows it below. Watch the water on the way home. Dolphins sometimes race the bow, and a pair of tentacles over the rail can put supper on hold.

An old sailor swears there’s a white mountain that moves beneath the waves. He took a bearing on it once. By the time he’d set his compass down, it had crossed his wake.

• Rod and reel. Nine regional bait recipes use local ingredients. Listen for the bite, set the hook, then ease off when the fish struggles. A hide tackle bag can take your catch and feed bait straight to the rod.
• Working boats. Craft six increasingly wide nets, secure a harpoon line at the bow, or trade the stern net for a salvage trawl to bring up lost gear. The winch shows how many fish are in the net and how much strain the line can take. Fishing skill helps you haul heavier catches.
• Pots and provisions. Mark lobster pots with hide buoys and return after a game day. Upgrade the fish hold as your crew grows. Take the catch to a cauldron for 26 dishes, from Berry Perch Stew to Northern Lobster Chowder.
• Open water. Dolphins breach alongside fast ships. Colossal squid reach over the gunwale, and giant sperm whales hunt them. Pack a boarding pike for the deck and a knife for the swim home.

Northern waters and a sailor’s tale

Pods of orcas hunt seals in the Deep North. Along another stretch of coast, a lantern burns outside Ishmael’s shack. His sheltered workroom, Hugin’s visits and the notes in your catch journal are the beginnings of a voyage. Orcas appear naturally in the Deep North. To play Ishmael’s optional voyage in single player, launch the mod once, quit the game, then set NarrativeTrial = true under [Eternal Hunt development] in BepInEx/config/curti.valheim.betterangling.cfg and relaunch.

Bait recipes

Each recipe makes 20 bait at Workbench 1. Discover the ingredients to unlock it. These are alternative recipes for existing bait, not nine additional custom items.

Tackle bags

Every bag occupies one inventory slot. Craft at the workbench with 4 of its material, 6 leather scraps and 2 resin; the Root-bound bag also needs 4 roots. Each is crafted independently, so a filled bag is never consumed to make another tier.

Right-click a carried bag to open it. Choose Wear bag to hang it from your hip and gain its Fishing bonus. It occupies the utility slot. Remove bag takes it off. You can still store fish and use bait while carrying it. Click to move a stack; Shift-click moves one. Buttons store carried fish/bait, take all that fits and switch bags. Right-click stored bait to select it for your rod. Use inventory bait selects ordinary handling; Auto-select bag bait prefers basic bait when available. An exhausted explicitly selected type falls back to ordinary inventory bait.

Newly acquired whole/raw fish try the active bag, then other carried bags, then ordinary inventory handling. Quality and item details survive; full bags do not silently discard catches. Cooked meals, unrelated items and nested bags are excluded. Contents add their full weight and follow teleport restrictions. Take ingredients out before cooking: crafting does not pull from bags.

Contents and bait selection stay on the item through saving, trading, dropping and tombstone recovery. The original tackle bag remains the maximum-size whale tier with its contents intact. Unreadable saved contents are preserved and locked rather than replaced or truncated.

Boat fittings and trawling

Craft the Harpoon holder kit at Workbench 1 with 10 fine wood, 3 bronze and 4 leather scraps. Carry it aboard and press the configurable install key, F9 by default, to mount it at the bow. The Karve, Longship, Drakkar, and Pequod each have a built-in stern net winch opposite the rudder. Use a crafted net from your inventory at the winch to fit it. F9 can also mount the highest carried net tier when the slot is empty.

Rafts cannot mount nets or salvage trawls. If a raft from an older save has a net, press the fitting key aboard that raft to reclaim each stack of cargo and then the net.

Six crafted fishing nets

Each tier is a physical item crafted at the forge before mounting. Use a carried net near the stern fitting to install or swap it. Empty and stow the current net first; the previous item returns with its condition preserved. Loose metal does not upgrade a mounted net.

Copper retains its 4m-wide mouth. Each metal widens the net by an equal step for the boat carrying it. Bloodgold reaches two ship widths from the centreline on each side, for four ship widths in total. The physical catch area follows the mesh; width adds no extra tension multiplier. Stronger nets also tolerate more speed and carry more fish. Salvage trawls retain their original size.

Press Use at the winch to deploy, tow slowly through existing fish, then hold Use to haul. The meter below stamina shows line tension, fish count/capacity, FULL and hauling progress. Count decreases as fish land. Speed, turns and catch load build tension; higher-level fish add more strain. Sustained overload snaps the line and loses the net catch. The meter hides after a break unless another intact tether or crushing grip still needs it.

On a longship, stand close to the inboard side of the stern winch and hold Use. Your sailor crouches, braces with one hand and cranks with the other. Watch the net draw together behind the stern; release Use to pause it, then hold again to finish. Other fishing boats use the hand-over-hand pull. Hauling costs less stamina as Fishing skill rises, and landed fish grant level-based Fishing XP. Insufficient stamina pauses hauling; insufficient storage leaves the catch secured. Nets exclude fish already on a fishing line.

Alternate Use packs a stowed net. On a deployed net it cuts the line and loses the catch. Repair a broken fitting by using 2 leather scraps on it.

Bow harpoon holder

Harpoon a creature, return to the bow and press Use to secure the line. The boat and fitting take the strain instead of the continuing handheld stamina drain. Speed, distance and resistance build tension: a mounted line is not an unbreakable tow. Alternate Use releases it.

Use 2 bronze, iron or black metal at an unoccupied holder to reinforce it to a stronger tier. These are fitting upgrades, not additional kit items. A mounted squid's escape attempts strain the fitting and can damage the hull or break the line.

Salvage trawl

Craft at Forge 2 with 8 iron, 10 bronze nails, 10 fine wood and 8 leather scraps. The Salvage trawl replaces the fishing net. Lower it over loose submerged scales, trophies, materials, equipment or sunken lobster pots, then hold Use to reel it up.

It has 8 slots, a 200-weight limit and 120m of cable. Stop or tow slowly. Recovery costs stamina but grants no Fishing XP; full inventories retain cargo in the basket. Cutting or breaking its line releases the cargo into the water. It recovers loose items, not whole chests or tombstone containers, and excludes quest items.

Fish holds and expedition tools

The Karve fits wood through iron. The longship, Drakkar and Pequod take all seven holds. Rafts have no mount. To recover a previously installed oversized Karve hold or raft hold, board the boat with one free inventory slot and press the fitting install key (default F9). The recovered kit carries its saved catch. Older iron and black metal holds can retain more catch than their new capacity. Withdraw the excess before depositing more fish.

Use a hold kit aboard to install a themed fish-only hold amidships. Net/pot catches try it first; cargo adds its full weight to the boat. Upgrades preserve catches and return the previous empty kit. A destroyed boat drops one floating hold kit containing its saved catch, ready to rebuild aboard another boat.

Right-click the crafted catch journal to leaf through fish and wildlife sightings. Each catch entry keeps the fishing method, best level and landed weight. Sightings record encounters and stars. The last sighting reads like a sailor’s bearing, using familiar landmarks where possible. Voyage pages remember what Ishmael and Hugin have told you as you discover it. Buying or trading a fish earns neither a catch record nor Fishing XP.

Lobster pots and hide buoys

Craft a Deep-ocean lobster pot at Forge 3 with 8 iron, 10 ancient bark, 8 leather scraps and 2 deer hide. Carry it and one raw fish in your main inventory. Aboard a boat, face clear Ocean water 15–80m deep, then use the pot. It deploys in front of you, clear of the hull.

Pots soak for one full in-game day, using that world's day length. Return and hold Use at the buoy to haul the Deep-ocean lobster catch and pot. Alternate Use recovers it early without a catch. Catch quality contributes to hauling effort and Fishing XP. These are pot catches, not freely swimming lobster creatures.

Hide buoys work on pots and as standalone markers. Craft each with 2 of its material, 4 leather scraps and 2 resin, at the listed workbench level.

Right-click a buoy to select it and deploy a carried pot. With no pot, a warning appears and nothing is consumed. Using a pot directly chooses the selected usable buoy, otherwise the first usable buoy from the top-left. Shift-right-click a buoy aboard to place a standalone marker.

Recovery preserves wear. A serviceable float of the same type already fitted to a pot is reused; changing type returns the old usable float. When a pot's float expires, it sinks with its catch preserved and remains recoverable by salvage trawl. Use the recovered pot item to collect its saved catch, then replace the worn float before redeploying.

Personal, world-specific map markers track pots and standalone buoys across saves. Labels show soaking/ready or last-known information for unloaded locations. Recovery removes the pot marker. Buoys are anchored rather than freely wave-simulated.

All 26 dishes

Discover the ingredients and use the listed cauldron level. Whole-fish dishes yield two servings; lobster and whale/squid dishes yield one. Fish size does not multiply output, and lobster quality does not bypass regional crops or station progression. Meals use the normal three food slots.

Whole-fish dishes — 15

Each row consumes one whole fish. H / S / E means health / stamina / eitr. Tier-1 dishes and the Swamp hotpot last 25 minutes; the remainder last 30 minutes.

All twelve native fish species have a use across nine fishing regions. The first cauldron still requires normal metal progression.

Lobster dishes — 7

Each row uses one Deep-ocean lobster plus the ingredients shown. All grant zero eitr. Broth and turnip hotpot last 25 minutes; the rest last 30 minutes. Regional ingredients gate strength even when lobster is readily available.

Whale and squid dishes — 4

All last 30 minutes, grant zero eitr and regenerate 3 health per food regeneration tick.

Weapons, catches and materials

Both boarding pikes thrust upward to defend the deck and spare the boat their wielder stands on. Their matte fantasy heads use layered chitin or a pronounced squid beak, embedded tooth barbs, weathered wood, leather and tight frayed bindings.

If the boat sinks, one-handed knives can be equipped and used for primary attacks while swimming. Other weapons and leap attacks remain blocked in that state.

Animals and encounters

Colossal squid

Approximately 27m fully extended, imposing beside a longship: eight arms, two longer clubbed tentacles, a substantial mantle, fleshy fins and enormous eyes. It swims mantle-first as a closing wave gathers the arms from their bases toward the trailing tips. Articulated crown and arm hitboxes support deck combat.

Squid dive under the boat, rise tentacles-first on the opposite side and approach the rail. The mouth comes within reach while the long clubs extend over the deck. A 12-second attack window gives the crew time to fight. Retreat is a steep mantle-first plunge; exposed fins and resting arms stay calmer between strikes.

Every fifth attachment becomes a ten-second crushing grip. Break it with 5 / 9 / 15 damaging boarding-pike or whale-tooth-harpoon hits at zero / one / two stars. An unanswered two-star grip sinks the boat. A loud creature roar and three deep bell notes announce it; the third bell aligns with the latch.

A handheld harpoon prevents dive attempts at a cost of 75 stamina, repeated every 12 seconds. A boat-held line instead risks the fitting and hull.

Giant sperm whales

Original 23m whales have narrow rectangular foreheads, irregular skin, recessed ivory-edged jaws, flexible rear-body swimming and broad flukes. They turn through forward arcs, pitch through dives and emit tall misty spouts at random 15–60-second intervals when the blowhole is above water.

They cruise without attacking a boat until provoked, hunt squid and can attack swimmers. Boat attacks repeat ram → tail strike → ram → tail strike → breach. Rams and raised tail strikes cover broad contact areas; a committed breach lands with a thunderous crash. A direct two-star breach can destroy a full-health longship. Three bells warn of it, with the third marking emergence into the air. Ordinary attacks use creature sounds without bells.

Whales remember provoked boats through coastal biome changes and recoveries. Their jaws target squid and swimmers, with quicker bite approaches in wildlife fights. Giant sperm whales are poison-immune.

Stars and wildlife battles

Squid and giant sperm whales have zero-, one- and two-star variants. One star doubles health and adds 50% damage; two stars triple health and double damage. Squid are red-brown, amber and violet; whales use charcoal, slate and russet colors.

Encounters and stronger variants become more likely farther from spawn, at night and in broad deep Ocean. Squid require at least 25m of water; whales 30m. Spawn chances and populations are capped. Rare shared encounters include whale bites, squid wrapping, louder struggles, thrashing, separation, dives and renewed attacks.

Dolphins

Rare Ocean dolphins are friendly, fast and playful. They keep clear of slow or stopped boats and may join after sustained fast sailing. Flexible swimming, banking and frequent clear-water breaches keep them lively. Escort calculations stay behind the scenes.

Player attacks make dolphins flee, never retaliate. Other animals do not target or damage them. Occasionally a dolphin flicks an existing fish into the air: a 5% chance at eligible play checks, with cooldowns rather than a roll every frame. Hooked fish are excluded; no extra fish or loot is created.

Deep North orcas

Look for black dorsal fins among the northern ice. Orcas travel in pods of two or three, circle seals and take turns rushing in to bite. A pod can round on a swimmer or surface alongside a boat for a tail strike or breach. Look for different markings on the starred animals.

Ishmael’s shore · optional voyage

Keep an eye out for a lantern hanging from a whale rib. Ishmael lives in a stilt shack with a chart desk, a stove and room to tie up alongside. His porch offers the same shelter from hostile creatures as a trader’s camp. Hugin has a few words for visitors, and your journal keeps the clues you’ve heard.

Out at sea, a wreck still has a rope ladder leading to its damaged crow’s nest. Follow the bearings and you can earn the plans for the Pequod, a sailing ship with a bowsprit and jib, a masthead lookout you can climb and an aft workbench you can fit for hull repairs. Take your journal aboard.

Controls and interface

World prompts display your current bindings. These are keyboard defaults; isolated test sessions may reserve function keys for demonstrations.

Alternate Use at a deployed net cuts it. Empty/stow before packing. Tension, fish count, hauling and crushing-grip defence use the under-stamina display; bags, holds and journal use themed panels.

Configuration, compatibility and removal

Better Angling uses BepInExPack Valheim 5.4.2351 and Jotunn 2.30.2. Version 0.18.0 has been tested locally on Windows with Valheim 1.0.21. Use matching mod and dependency versions on every client and the server. BetterRowing is optional. The voyage has been playtested in single player. Two-player validation is pending.

The server controls recipes, storage, boat gear and wildlife settings. Each player can adjust fishing prompts and sound in BepInEx/config/curti.valheim.betterangling.cfg. Better Angling includes adaptations from FishCues and BaitMeBruh. Installing either alongside it triggers a loader conflict.

Before removing the mod from a world you plan to keep playing, back up the save, haul in pots and nets, empty bags and holds, and remove custom items. Native bait carries over.

Install

In Thunderstore Mod Manager or r2modman, select Valheim, create a profile, install CwewMods-BetterAngling with its dependencies, and choose Start modded. For a crew test, use copies of your world and characters and update everyone together.

Credits

Better Angling by CwewMods. Adaptations from FishCues by Andrew Shepard and BaitMeBruh by Pete Navarra (Vapok) are credited under their MIT licenses. Art and development used AI assistance. Sound credits and redistribution terms are in the package’s THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md and license files.

0.18.1

• Removed internal playtest commands, asset galleries, and capture tools from the public mod.

0.18.0

• Wear any of nine tackle bags at your hip. Each hide has its own color and gives +1 through +9 Fishing while worn.
• Upgrade your fish hold through seven tiers, from 24 slots in wood to 60 in bloodgold. Longship crews can work the stern crank to draw in their nets.
• Watch dolphins bank through turns and breach alongside the bow. Deep North orca pods stalk seals in the ice and can turn on boats or swimmers.
• Visit Ishmael’s sheltered coastal shack in the optional single-player voyage. Hugin and your catch journal keep track of what you have heard. Follow the clues to the Pequod and take her to sea for a scored encounter in a storm.
• Tested locally on Windows with Valheim 1.0.21. Two-player validation of the voyage is pending.

0.11.0

• Added original animated dolphins: rare Ocean sightings, sustained-sailing companionship, friendly behavior with escape when hurt, predator exclusion, clear-water breaches and occasional existing-fish tail play.
• Added forge-crafted Flametal and Bloodgold nets. All six metal tiers progressively widen their visible net and catch area; copper retains its width, while Bloodgold extends two boat widths from the centreline on each side. Tension/load ratios and overload breaking thresholds are retained.
• Added live net fish count/capacity and FULL status to the under-stamina HUD and winch tooltip. Hauling reduces the count; a broken line hides it. Salvage cargo is kept distinct.
• Nets respect replicated hook state before and after ownership transfer; deployed strands use native boat-rigging materials.
• Reduced both boarding pike models by 25% while keeping their grip axis and combat stats.
• Added a player guide to the 26 dishes, fishing equipment, wildlife and boat systems in this release.
• Built cleanly and checked with 513 rule checks plus isolated native audits. This remains an early Windows test release; update the server and every client together.

0.10.5

• Rebuilt abyssal and squid-beak boarding pikes with weathered timber, leather grips, riveted collars, matte organic heads, rooted barbs and tight frayed rope. Corrected hand alignment and regenerated clear inventory icons; damage and attack behavior are unchanged.
• Replaced the catch journal's transparent window with a wood frame, parchment pages, species icons, catch/wildlife filters and pagination. Sightings show encounters and stars; catches retain weight records. Existing journal data and right-click access are preserved.
• Added six lobster meals and rebalanced the existing broth into seven progression tiers, gated by regional crops and cauldron levels 1–7. One lobster makes one serving. Broth changes from 25 health / 75 stamina to 15 / 45.
• Newly placed lobster pots take one full native game day. SoakDays replaces SoakSeconds; already placed pots retain their saved deadlines.
• Corrected transparent hide-bag icons. The catalog now contains 72 custom inventory items and 26 cooked dishes.
• Update all clients and the dedicated test server together. This remains an early Windows multiplayer test release.

0.10.4

First public multiplayer test candidate. Includes fishing cues and simpler bait, seafood recipes, nine hide tackle bags, boat fittings and metal nets, salvage trawling, lobster pots and hide buoys, fish holds, the catch journal, colossal squid, sperm whales and marine crafting.

Latest changes: hide-based bag progression (6–24 slots); crown-first squid surfacing; crushing-grip escape scaled to 5/9/15 weapon hits; poison-immune sperm whales. Existing maximum-size tackle bags retain their identity and contents. Separate test-world installation recommended; crew multiplayer validation is ongoing.