I spent my first 20 hours of No Man’s Sky hopping between desert and frozen planets, mining ferrite dust and chasing starship upgrades, completely unaware of how much I was missing by skipping aquatic biomes. When I first stumbled on a deep, bioluminescent ocean planet, I had no clue how to fish in No Man’s Sky, and I wasted almost an hour fumbling with my mining laser before I figured out I was using the wrong tool entirely. Fishing isn’t just a silly side activity, either: it unlocks rare crafting materials, unique companion creatures, and even exclusive trade goods that sell for millions of units at space stations. If you’ve been sleeping on this feature, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know to start reeling in great catches today.
What You Need to Know Before You Learn How to Fish in No Man’s Sky
Fishing isn’t available from the start of your playthrough, so don’t worry if you haven’t seen the option in your menu yet. You’ll unlock the Nautical Hook, the game’s dedicated fishing tool, after completing the first three tiers of the Dreams of the Deep side quest, which triggers automatically the first time you land on a planet with large, deep water bodies. You don’t need any high-end upgrades to get started, but you should make sure your life support system can handle at least 5 minutes of underwater time to avoid having to surface mid-catch. If you have a Nautilon exocraft, you can fish directly from its cockpit without worrying about oxygen at all, but it’s not a requirement for new players. Stick to temperate, frozen, or exotic ocean planets for your first few trips, as toxic or irradiated oceans usually only host hostile parasitic creatures that can’t be caught as fish.
Step-by-Step Process to Catch Your First Fish
Once you have your Nautical Hook and found a suitable fishing spot, the process is pretty straightforward, even if it feels a little tricky at first. First, equip the Nautical Hook from your quick access menu, then aim at a patch of water that’s at least 2 meters deep – shallow puddles won’t register as valid fishing spots, and your hook will bounce right off the surface. Hold the fire button to cast your line, and you’ll see a small buoy floating where your line landed. All you have to do next is wait: you’ll feel a controller vibration (or hear a loud splashing audio cue if you’re playing with no controller) when a fish bites, and the buoy will fully submerge under the water. Wait until the buoy is completely gone before you pull back on the stick or release the fire button, or you’ll yank the line out before the fish is hooked. Once the fish is on the line, you’ll see a tension meter pop up on your screen: keep the meter in the green zone by adjusting your pull direction to match the fish’s movement, and you’ll reel it in in 10 to 30 seconds depending on its size. Most new players make the same few mistakes when they start out, so keep these rules in mind to avoid wasted trips:
Common catches will give you raw fish meat that you can use for cooking, while rarer catches drop rare resources like bioluminescent glands that are used for high-end starship and base crafting. Ultra-rare leviathan class creatures can even be adopted as companions or sold to NPC collectors for more than 500,000 units each.
Tips to Catch Rare and Valuable Fish More Often
I caught nothing but common small fish for my first dozen fishing trips, until I tested a few small changes that boosted my rare catch rate by almost 60% with barely any extra effort. First, fish at night on bioluminescent ocean planets: rare fish are far more active after dark, and you can see their glowing silhouettes swimming under the surface to target your casts directly at them, instead of waiting for a random bite. Second, use bait to cut down wait time and improve your odds: basic fish bait can be crafted from 10 units of carbon and 5 units of di-hydrogen in your inventory, and it increases your chance of catching a rare fish by 30% while cutting wait time for a bite in half. You can craft species-specific bait from the portable cooking menu if you’re hunting for a particular type of fish, too. Third, install an upgraded Nautical Hook mod that you can buy from most space station technology vendors for 15,000 nanites: this mod increases your line strength by 80%, so you don’t have to worry about snapping your line when you’re reeling in a large leviathan class creature. Avoid areas with aggressive underwater fauna like giant crabs or toxic jellyfish, too: they’ll attack you while you’re waiting for a bite and interrupt your attempt, forcing you to cast again from scratch.
What to Do With Your Catches to Maximize Profit and Value
A lot of new players make the mistake of selling all their raw fish directly to the first NPC they find, but that’s leaving a ton of units and value on the table. If you catch a 4 or 5 star rated fish, don’t sell it at all: first, register it in your creature collection for a permanent nanite reward, and you can even adopt it as a companion if it’s small enough to summon. For common raw fish, cook it into grilled fish steaks at a portable cooking station: cooked fish sells for 3x more than raw fish, and it’s a high-efficiency food source that restores 80% of your life support in one bite for long exploration trips. For rare crafting materials you get from catches, like bioluminescent glands or crystalline scales, don’t sell them raw either: use them to craft quantum core components that sell for 2.4 million units per stack at wealthy system space stations. If you’re playing multiplayer, you can even trade rare catches with other players for high-end S-class upgrades that would take you dozens of hours to grind for on your own. I once traded a rare leviathan class eel I caught on an exotic ocean planet for a S-class freighter hyperdrive upgrade, which saved me more than 2 million nanites of grinding sentinel battles.
Fishing is one of the most underrated side activities in No Man’s Sky, and it’s well worth taking a break from mining and main quest progress to try it out for yourself. Whether you’re looking for easy units, rare crafting materials, or a unique new companion to travel the galaxy with, you’ll find it once you learn how to fish in No Man’s Sky. Don’t get discouraged if your first few attempts end with snapped line or common small catches: with a little practice, you’ll be reeling in leviathan class creatures in no time. Next time you land on a beautiful, untouched ocean planet, don’t just scan it from the shore – grab your Nautical Hook, cast a line, and see what’s hiding under the waves.
