Like most survival/crafting games, catching fish is an integral part of the Terraria gameplay experience.
You can catch fish for crafting recipes or as sustenance, enhancing your character’s livelihood overall. However, Terraria has something that most other games don’t: Lava fishing.
This guide will cover everything you need to know about Lava fishing in Terraria, including the importance of Fishing Power as well as why you would catch fish in Lava in the first place.
How Does Catching Fish Work In Terraria?
Fishing in Terraria is the act of using your Fishing Pole in a form of liquid, such as water or Lava, to catch fish and items.
Of course, you must have bait while fishing in any type of liquid, and different bait/liquid combinations result in various items like crafting materials, accessories, or fish.
There are various types of Fishing Rod, each with their own Fishing Power. Fishing Power determines the rarity of the items you can catch — a higher Fishing Power results in better catch quality. Finding Rods with very rare Fishing Power or higher is preferred.
What Is Lava Fishing?
Lava fishing involves fishing specifically in the molten red liquid instead of water or honey. As you can probably imagine, you need special gear to fish in Lava, considering its terrifying melting properties.
There are quite a few benefits of fishing in Lava.
For one, these are the items you can catch from fishing in Lava:
Obsidian Crate
An Obsidian Crate can contain all sorts of rare items like a Lava Charm, a Mini Volcano, a Lava Serpent Bowl, and much more.
Hellstone Crate
The Hellstone Crate is the Obsidian Crate’s Hardmode counterpart. We address Hardmode later in this article.
Obsidifish
Obsidifish are rare, onyx-colored fish that you can use in food or potions.
Two of these fish make for a delicious Seafood Dinner that restores your character to a reasonable degree.
Otherwise, this fish is part of the Inferno Potion recipe that deploys a ring of fire around your character.
Finally, it’s also part of the Potion of Return recipe that portals you back to your spawn point.
Obsidian Swordfish
Believe it or not, the Obsidian Swordfish is not a fish.
Instead, it’s a Spear that you can only acquire during Hardmode. This spear deals 70 melee damage and has a high critical strike chance of 24%.
Demon Conch
The Demon Conch is a vital item for any explorer. Using it teleports you to the middle of the Underworld — a great way to catch fish in Lava whenever you’d like.
Lava Absorbant Sponge
The Lava Absorbant Sponge works precisely the same as the Super Absorbant Sponge, only it absorbs Lava instead of Water.
Bottomless Lava Bucket
The Bottomless Lava Bucket is exactly what it sounds like: an endless bucket of Lava. Use this to pour Lava wherever you’d like.
Flarefin Koi
The Flarefin Koi is the only other fish you can find in Lava. It’s the other ingredient required for an Inferno Potion, and you can also use it in Seafood Dinners.
How To Fish In Lava Terraria
Being able to fish in Lava in Terraria takes a bit of pre-work. But first off, you need to find Lava.
Where to Find Lava in Terraria
Lava appears in the world’s Cavern layers as well as in The Underworld, which appears at the bottom of any Terraria world.
The level at which Lava appears depends on your world size:
Small World
Lava begins at 475 tiles deep in a small world.
Medium World
Lava begins at 725 tiles deep in a medium world.
Large World
Lava begins at 975 tiles deep in a large world.
Once you make it deep enough to find Lava, make a note of the positions in which you’d like to fish. From there, we need to gather some equipment.
There are two items you can use to fish in Lava: the Hotline Fishing Hook or the Lavaproof Fishing Hook.
Hotline Fishing Hook
Right off the bat, the only way to find the Hotline Fishing Hook (which is actually a Fishing Rod, despite its name) is in Hardmode — a version of the game that introduces new bosses, items, and loads of other content.
You can enable Hardmode in your world from the beginning, or your world will automatically swap over after you beat the Wall of Flesh.
Either way, once you’re in a Hardmode world, the Hotline Fishing Hook will have a 1.33% chance of dropping after you complete 25 Angler quests.
The Angler is a fishing-specific NPC that typically asks you to find him rare fish.
This Lava Fishing Rod is of the orange rarity and has 45% fishing power. This is an extremely rare fishing power only beaten by the Golden Rod.
Lavaproof Fishing Hook
The Lavaproof Fishing Hook is a hook you can attach to any Fishing Rod, allowing it to fish in Lava.
You can find the Lavaproof Fishing Hook by using the Hotline Fishing Hook to catch Obsidian or Hellstone Crates. These Crates are only found while fishing in Lava, and each has a 19% chance of holding a Lavaproof Fishing Hook.
Notably, you can only use Lava Critters as bait to catch these boxes. Lava bait is vital for catching things in the scary red liquid.
To catch Lava bait, use the Lavaproof Bug Net to catch Underworld Snails or similar creatures. You can then use them as bait.
Other items that may help are the Lavaproof Tackle Bag or the Lava Waders. The former helps to decrease your bait consumption and provides an increased Fishing Power bonus of 10. The latter allows you to walk on Lava for a period of time.
As you can see, Lava fishing is an important, if not difficult, part of the Terraria progression process. It may take a while to start properly catching fish in Lava, so why not bring some friends to help out?
If you’re looking to play Terraria online with some buddies, NameHero has you covered. Our servers support 12 or more players, providing you with multiple layers of DDOS protection, full-on backups, and a ton of RAM to support mods if you so desire.
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Max is a freelance writer with a love for gaming and technology. He’s always looking for the next big game to play and tinkers with tech in his remaining free time.
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