How to get a fishing pole and fish in Valheim

There are multiple ways for you to obtain food and useful resources in Valheim. You can use tools to harvest them and then upgrade those tools to gather even higher quality resources. When you’re first starting, food is a critical resource to maintain to increase your health and stamina. There are boars and deer everywhere for you to hunt, but there are multiple streams, rivers, and oceans where you can catch fish. You can’t craft a fishing pole, though, and there’s a specific way.

How to get a fishing pole

The only way we’ve found for you to acquiring a fishing pole is by locating the trader, Haldor. You can typically find them as a random spawn in the Black Forest biome. They typically remain in that position. When you approach them, you can purchase their wares, and one of the available items is a fishing rod and fishing bait for 350 and 10 coins for 50, respectively.

When you have the fishing rod and some bait, you can approach the river and wait for the fish to show up. Make sure you have your fishing bait selected in your inventory before sending it out. Eventually, you’ll receive a ‘hooked’ notification on your screen, and then you can reel in your catch. Capturing the fish is tied to your stamina, so the moment you run out of stamina, you’ll lose it. We highly recommend eating any amount of food you can before attempting to fish. When you have enough fish, you can take it back to your home and treat it like any other piece of cooked meat.