ChillFishing

Fishing that's actually relaxing. Cast off your own dock, watch your base. Just overall better fishing experience.

This mod started as a personal project to make fishing at my own base enjoyable rather than a chore to grind through. I'm still actively using and expanding it, so if you have ideas for what would make it better, I'd genuinely like to hear them.

Screenshots

Fishing from a chair at the dock: cast, hook and reel in without standing up.

Fishing from a boat bench: the rod is held with both hands, and you can reel in while seated.

What it does

• Fish come to you. While you're actively fishing, fish spawn nearby instead of far out in the world. Stop fishing and they despawn — nothing wasted on background spawning when you're not at the rod.
• Any bait catches any fish. No more carrying five bait types to catch what you want.
• Rarity follows the biome, not distance. Fish from later biomes (Mistlands, Ashlands, Deep North...) are rarer than early ones, but all of them are catchable right at your base. Fully configurable per biome.
• Fish while sitting down. Cast, hook and reel in from a chair, stool, bench or a bench in your boat without standing up, holding the rod with both hands and reeling in with a hand animation. Moving, jumping or crouching still stands you up. Toggles: KeepSittingWhileFishing, FixSitRodPose.
• Progression-aware. A biome's fish only start showing up after you've beaten that biome's boss in your world — Meadows and Ocean fish from the start, the rest unlocks as you clear Eikthyr, the Elder, Bonemass, Moder, Yagluth, the Queen and Fader. Can be turned off if you want everything available immediately.
• Fish swim deeper, spawn already at depth, and stay less crowded near the surface — better views, less clutter.
• A real bite-detection minigame, not "float twitches once, hookup guaranteed":
  • Some nibbles are false alarms — the float twitches but nothing's actually on the line.
  • Real bites pull the float under, and holding right-click keeps you engaged (spamming the button won't skip the reaction window).
  • A cast stops attracting new fish after a couple of bites, so recasting matters.
  • Rarer fish struggle harder and break the line more easily.
• Own aquarium implementation. A buildable Aquarium piece (Misc category, 1 Crystal) with its own water and a single-slot container — open it and drop a fish in to watch it swim.
• Calmer water near your base — waves are dampened around your bed's spawn point, so casting doesn't fight the swell while you take in the view.

Everything above is a config toggle — nothing is forced. Open the .cfg after first launch to tune spawn radius, bite chance, density, wave dampening, and more.

Requirements

• BepInEx (installed automatically if you use a mod manager like r2modman or Thunderstore Mod Manager)

Install

Use r2modman or the Thunderstore Mod Manager — install like any other mod, no manual setup needed.

Multiplayer

Works in multiplayer. For consistent behavior, install on every client (host and players); server-only or client-only installs may cause mismatched spawn/despawn behavior between players.

Config

First launch generates a .cfg file in your BepInEx config folder, organized by section:

• A_Bait — bait, bite strength, sustained pull feedback
• B_Safety — detection range, roam range, bite chance, swim depth
• C_Spawn — per-biome rarity weights
• E_Independent — the active-fishing-only spawn system (the core of the mod)
• F_Waves — wave dampening near your base
• G_Tension — penalty for holding right-click indefinitely
• H_BiteCap — max real bites per cast before you need to recast
• I_Character — per-biome-tier break risk and struggle duration
• J_Progression — turn boss-gated fish availability on/off
• K_Debug — verbose logging, off by default (turn on for bug reports)
• N_Sitting — fishing while sitting and the sitting rod pose

Feedback & ideas

This mod is actively maintained and I'm open to suggestions — new mechanics, tuning changes, things that would make fishing at your base more fun. Open an issue or leave a comment on the mod page. @lenson on Thunderstore or Valheim Modding Discords.

Support

If you'd like to support development, you're welcome to leave a tip — completely optional:

License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0. You're free to use, modify, and build on this mod, including forks and derivative packages — just credit Lenson as the original author and link back to this mod page. See LICENSE.md for the full terms.

Changelog

1.2.2

• Code cleanup

1.2.1

• Reel-in animation while sitting: holding right mouse button now moves your hands like when reeling in standing up (a quick pull, then a slow return), with separate poses for chairs/benches and boat benches. Follows the N_Sitting.FixSitRodPose toggle.

1.2.0

• Fish while sitting down: cast, hook and reel in from a chair, stool, bench or a boat bench without standing up. Moving, jumping or crouching still stands you up as usual. Toggle with N_Sitting.KeepSittingWhileFishing (on by default).
• New sitting pose: while sitting with a rod you hold it with both hands instead of resting it on your knees, with a separate pose for boat benches. Toggle with N_Sitting.FixSitRodPose (on by default).
• Known limitations: the sitting animations are not polished yet. Sitting on the ground with the sit emote is not supported (casting stands you up, as in vanilla). The sitting pose is only shown on your own client.

1.1.1

• Fixed fish actually spawns in aquarium.

1.1.0

• New buildable piece: Aquarium (Misc category, 1 Crystal to build, durability like other furniture). Open it and place a fish in its single slot to have that species swim inside.
• Quieter fishing: the "hooked!", "wrong bait" and "lost the fish" on-screen messages no longer show up during a normal fishing session -- only "line broke" and the final catch message remain. Toggle with L_Messages.QuietFishingMessages (on by default).

1.0.2 — first public release

• Fish4_cave (Mountain-only cave dungeon fish, not reachable via normal spawn-list scanning) is now correctly classified as Mountain instead of the generic unclassified fallback — it uses the Mountain rarity weight and is now gated by boss progression (unlocks on Bonemass) like the rest of Mountain's fish.