You’re standing on a beach. The sun is setting. Your hunger bar is shaking, and you haven't found a single cow or pig in three biomes. This is where most players panic and start punching grass for seeds, but the smart play is actually much simpler. Learn how to make a fishing rod in Minecraft before the first moon rises, and you basically solve the food problem forever. Honestly, it’s one of those items people overlook because they’re too busy chasing diamonds, but a fishing rod is low-key the most versatile tool in the early game. It isn't just about fish. It’s about enchanted books, name tags, and those rare saddles you can’t craft.
Getting the basic ingredients together
You need two things. Sticks and string. That sounds easy until you realize you’re playing on Hardcore and a creeper is eyeing your dirt hut. To get specific, you need exactly three sticks and two pieces of string. You get sticks by punching wood, obviously. Any wood works. Oak, birch, spruce—the game doesn't care. Turn those logs into planks, then the planks into sticks.
Now, the string. This is the part that gets people killed.
You have to find spiders. They usually spawn in the dark, so you're either diving into a cave or waiting for nightfall. Each spider drops 0-2 string. If you're lucky, you find a stray spider in the morning that hasn't despawned yet, sitting under a tree to avoid the sunlight. Kill it. If you're feeling fancy or find a desert temple, you can also break cobwebs with a sword to get string instantly. It's much safer than sword-fighting a giant arachnid with a wooden tool, but you have to find the structure first.
Putting it all together on the grid
Once you have your three sticks and two strings, open your crafting table. The layout is very specific. You can't just throw them in a pile. Think of it like drawing a diagonal line with the sticks. Place one stick in the bottom-left corner, one in the center, and one in the top-right. This creates the "pole" of your rod.
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Then, take your two strings. Place them vertically in the right-hand column. One goes in the middle-right slot, and the other goes in the bottom-right. If you did it right, the icon for the fishing rod appears in the result box. Grab it.
Why the rod is better than a sword sometimes
I’ve seen pro players use these in PvP and it's wild. You can "hook" an enemy and pull them toward you or knock them back to reset their sprint. It’s a mechanical trick that feels like cheating but is totally vanilla. But for most of us? We just want that Mending book.
Beyond the basics: Luck and Lure
A plain rod is fine. It gets the job done. But if you really want to exploit how to make a fishing rod in Minecraft, you need to talk about enchantments. There are four main ones.
Unbreaking and Mending are the "forever" enchants. A rod with Mending will literally never break as long as you keep catching stuff because the XP you gain from the catch repairs the tool in your hand. It's a closed loop.
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Luck of the Sea is the big one. It increases your chances of catching "treasure" instead of "junk" or "fish." In Minecraft's loot table, treasure includes things like enchanted bows, nautilus shells, and those coveted enchanted books. Lure, on the other hand, just makes things bite faster. It cuts down the wait time. If you have Lure III, you’re basically pulling items out of the water every few seconds.
The actual loot math
Most people think fishing is just for Raw Cod or Salmon. Boring. If you fish in "open water" (which means a 5x5x5 area of water source blocks with nothing above them but air or transparent blocks), you have a 5% chance of catching treasure. That sounds low. It is. But with Luck of the Sea III, that jumps up significantly.
I’ve spent hours on a pier just waiting for that splash. You see the little bubble trail heading toward your bobber. Splosh. Right-click. Suddenly you have a Bow with Power IV and Unbreaking III. You just skipped hours of grinding levels at a mob farm.
Common mistakes and "Junk" items
Don't fish in a tiny 1x1 hole in your floor if you want good loot. Mojang changed the mechanics a while back to stop people from making those tiny AFK fish farms that fit in a closet. To get treasure now, the game checks if the water is deep and wide enough. If it's too small, you only get fish and junk.
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Junk isn't always bad, though. You’ll catch:
- Leather boots (usually ruined)
- Glass bottles
- Rotten flesh
- Sticks
- Tripwire hooks
Honestly, catching a tripwire hook is kinda nice if you’re planning on building traps later. But mostly, you’re looking for the big stuff. If you find yourself catching nothing but lily pads and leather, move to a bigger lake or the ocean.
Taking it to the Nether
You can’t use a regular fishing rod in lava. Well, you can throw it, but it won't catch anything. If you want to ride a Strider across the lava lakes of the Nether, you need a Warped Fungus on a Stick.
To make that, you take your already-crafted fishing rod and combine it with a Warped Fungus (the turquoise mushrooms from the Warped Forest) in a crafting grid. It doesn't matter where you put them. This allows you to steer Striders like a pig on a carrot. It’s the safest way to travel in the Nether, hands down. No fire resistance potions required if you stay on the "boat."
Step-by-step for the fast learners:
- Chop wood to get 3 sticks.
- Hunt spiders or clear cobwebs for 2 string.
- Open crafting table and place sticks in a diagonal (bottom-left to top-right).
- Drop string in the two slots below the highest stick on the right side.
- Enchant immediately if you have the levels; Lure and Luck of the Sea change the game entirely.
- Find open water to ensure you are eligible for the treasure loot table.
The beauty of the fishing rod is that it rewards patience with gear that usually requires a lot of mining. Instead of digging through deepslate for hours, you can sit back, listen to the game's soundtrack, and let the loot come to you. It's the ultimate low-effort, high-reward strategy for any new world. Just watch out for Drowned with tridents while you're distracted by the bobber. They don't appreciate people fishing in their backyard.