Zunayed101
- Here's how to fish in Rust without breaking your line.
- Where to Fish
- Casting the Line
- Reeling It In
- Timing the Pulls
- Judging Good Bait and Good Fish
- Selling and Gutting Fish
- Getting the Most Out of Limited Bait
- Staying Safe at Fishing Village
Here's how to fish in Rust without breaking your line.
Fishing in Rust starts with a Handmade Fishing Rod, which costs 200 wood and 2 rope to craft. It can also be earned by completing the fisherman's quest at a fishing village, which rewards a rod along with 15 grubs for turning in tackle collected nearby.
Bait is required before casting. Checking an item shows its bait rating directly, and higher-rated bait pulls in bigger, better fish. Using fish itself as bait can land even rarer catches like sharks and salmon.
Where to Fish
Fishing works in any large body of water, but certain spots stand out. The protected status of Fishing Village ensures that there is safety from other players. Yellow Perch and Catfish are found in swamps and rivers and blue cards from gutting Salmon or Small Sharks may be found in Oil Rig waters.
Underwater Labs offer a balance of safety and access to Orange Roughy, making them a good option for players looking for a combination of security and good catches.
Casting the Line
Hold right-click and adjust position until the bobber turns blue - red means standing too close to cast properly. Left-click to cast once the bobber is blue, then release right-click and wait for a bite.
Once a fish bites, keep watching it closely. Looking away at the wrong moment can snap the line entirely, losing both the fish and the bait used to catch it.
Reeling It In
Left-click reels the fish in, while A and D move the line left and right to tire it out. The rod shaking along with a creaking sound is a clear signal to stop reeling and let it settle before continuing.
Letting the fish swim behind a solid surface while reeling also breaks the line, so keeping a clear line of sight matters just as much as timing the pulls correctly.
Timing the Pulls
Countering the fish's pull direction is the core skill here. If it pulls right, then pulling left will relieve the tension without putting more stress on the line.
Once the fish tires out and stops fighting back, that's when you reel in hard. Repeating this cycle - counter the pull, reel during the rest - eventually tires the fish out for an easy catch.
Judging Good Bait and Good Fish
Not all bait is equal. Grubs have a bait size of three but can stack up to three times, making them strong enough to land bigger fish. Berries, by comparison, only reach a bait size of 0.5 and cannot stack high enough to compete.
A good fish is judged by three things - its sale value at the fishing village, its own bait size for catching even bigger fish, and what it yields when gutted. Small Trout, for example, has a bait size of 10, making it strong enough to guarantee a shark or salmon catch when used as bait itself.
Selling and Gutting Fish
Each fishing village vending machine trades fish for scrap. Two sharks trade for a base value of 90 scrap, while two salmon trade for around 55. Turning small trout into scrap directly is poor value compared to using them as bait to catch bigger fish first.
Leftover fish can be stored for a future trip or gutted for fish meat, animal fat, and a chance at extra loot like blue cards or pistol ammo. Gutting is especially worth it on higher-tier fish where the bonus loot outweighs the scrap trade-in value.
Getting the Most Out of Limited Bait
Grubs have both a bait size of three and a stack limit of three, meaning loading two at a time into the rod produces a combined bait size of nine per cast. Since big fish only need a bait size of five to guarantee a catch, spacing grubs out this way stretches a batch of 15 grubs into several extra big fish catches rather than burning through them all at once.
Staying Safe at Fishing Village
Other players occasionally try to knock people off ladders or platforms at busy fishing villages. Standing on a ladder makes it harder to be seen and pushed off, while standing on something elevated makes it tougher for anyone to get close enough to shove from behind.
Looking around using alt-look does not break the line while fishing, making it a safe way to stay aware of nearby threats without risking the catch in Rust.
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