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Fish are tasty and delicious and profitable and make for all kinds of very powerful food. The trouble is, they like to hang out in lakes and rivers and stuff, and are much faster swimmers than poor old Link. While I can usually catch a fish by hitting the 'Dash' button to swim quickly at them, this burns a lot of stamina, and I often don't have enough left in the tank to make it to shore. especially if I need to scale a cliff before I can stand on dry land again. That leaves me stuck choosing between eating food to get more stamina to go fishing... or just drowning and eating the health loss (often literally, as I eat food to recover it...)

Both of these options really put a damper on the usefulness of acquiring fish. Is there a better way to catch fish that won't get me killed? Perhaps a pole? Maybe some scuba gear?

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    I have not played this game, but I have seen it played on streams. Can you not make an ice block in the water to climb onto as a resting spot?
    – Dragonrage ♦
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 21:32
  • You could do that preemptively as well, I suppose.
    – LessPop_MoreFizz
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 21:33
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    In my tiredness when scanning the HNQ, I thought this was a lifehacks.stackexchange.com question :/
    – ʰᵈˑ
    Commented Mar 8, 2017 at 8:43
  • 4
    @ʰᵈˑ I thought this was The Great Outdoors :P
    – Gallifreyan
    Commented Mar 10, 2017 at 7:42
  • I won't leave a answer since this isn't really useful but just start acquiring stamina.
    – Bloonarius
    Commented Mar 9, 2021 at 21:00

8 Answers 8

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Just blow them up.

No, seriously. The ol' 'Dwarven Fishing Pole' is alive and well in Zelda: Breath of the Wild. If you throw a bomb into the water where the fishes you want are, and detonate it, they'll rise - belly up - to the surface. Then just dive in and collect your seafood at a leisurely pace, without using the dash button and swim to shore. You can even jump in multiple times as needed without any fear of losing 'The One That Got Away'.

Those fish ain't going anywhere.

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    Bahroo did this on his 100% BoTW stream the other day and just blew them all up to quickly gather useful fish.
    – n_plum
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 19:58
  • Fantastic, thanks. This will make it easier for me to max out the zora armor.
    – Seiyria
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 22:11
  • This is solid advice for other games, like Resident Evil/Biohazard 4.
    – Ismael Miguel
    Commented Mar 8, 2017 at 18:10
  • Classic HNQ answer
    – AAM111
    Commented Mar 11, 2017 at 13:52
  • The game seems to be championing a very environmentally unfriendly approach with this being the easier way to fish though lol. I remember in real life many places banned fishing with explosives because it produces too much damage to the environment...
    – xji
    Commented Mar 19, 2017 at 11:32
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As a less fun alternative to blowing the fish up, you could simply create an ice block in the body of water you are fishing in for a resting spot for when you get low on stamina. Then dive off, search for fish, and clamber back on top of it for a breather.

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16

I haven't tried this, but I saw a tip on a loading screen. You can apparently drop food in the water to attract fish. Which fish are attracted to what food is a matter of experimentation, however.

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If you purchase the complete Sheika outfit you will be virtually silent when moving about. You can use this to swim right up to fish (with the X button even!) and they won't immediately run away. It's also great for running around and collecting insects and getting really close to animals.

Also, be sure to upgrade it to ★★ to get the fast night movement set bonus.

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6

I found that being quick with the bow is a good alternative and it allows you to quietly take out the fish, just in case there are more dangerous things in the area.

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Use eletrical arrows for a larger area of effect. If you walk parallel to the water you will be surprised how steep a surface you can walk on (seems to work on grass surfaces). Even sledge hammer work on a small area, using it a second time will destroy those hit the first time. When about to die from stamina loss or even a fall open your map and fast travel.

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This is quite late to the party, but there is another solution that hasn't been addressed here.

If you swim towards the fish, they will usually swim directly away from where you are when they detect you. This means that if you swim at them, you can essentially herd them to where you want to go.

This is useful for herding them into a smaller dead-end area, so that they have no escape and you can swim up and collect them.

A better method is to herd them to the shore, and if the land is flat enough they will swim right up and out of the water and flap about, unable to swim away from you.

It is then easy enough to just walk up to them and collect them, with the added benefit of ending up on the land, so there is no chance of drowning (so long as you don't start too far away from the shore).

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  • That once happened to me where a fish got stuck on shore and went flap flap and I went like what the heck?
    – Bloonarius
    Commented Mar 9, 2021 at 21:02
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Bomb fishing is the most fun way! You can also Time you shot to move the fish to where you want it

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