The problem: There's a severe lack of good autofishing machine mods on the Curseforge-verse. Everywhere I look, it's always "ooh it has to be surrounded on all sides by water" this and "uug you have to put fish bait into it" that. The only good autofishing machine I've ever encountered is the Marine Fisher from Industrial Foregoing. I mean, that thing was amazing! Just feed it electricity and it'll dredge up all sorts of fishy goodness!

The solution: The Auto Fishing Machine. This Marine Machine will finally let you automate this tedious (yet relaxing) task, no bait, tackle, rod, or hats that say "Fish fear me, Women want me" needed! Just a few pieces of copper and some other junk!

Recipes

So, how does it work? First, you gotta scout out a location. You can't just cheese it by building it in a silly little man-made lake! Any Ocean or River biome (and their variants like Frozen and Warm and whatnot) will be acceptable.

Choosing a Biome

Next, put your hard hat on and get building! This fantastic fisher is a multiblock affair, meaning you've got to build the special structure before it starts working. In this case, the structure is designed to look like a floating wooden platform with a grated underside, a fish-sucking nozzle, and an internal tank. There's actually two variants of the structure you can build depending on whether or not you have the Create mod installed. Consult the images below to see how to build both variants. (Note: the water has been removed from the first image for clarity, but you'd ideally build the structure such that the wood is on the same level as the water)

How to build the machine

Create Part Swaps

Third, get juicing! You'll need electricity to power this terrific trawler. Any sort of Forge Energy will do, be it wires or fluxducts or carrier pigeon or whatever! However, if you're playing on a modpack that doesn't have any sort of electricity generation, don't fret! There's a special setting in the config file that completely turns off the energy usage requirement! You can also adjust the amount of electricity consumed for a single fishing operation. Magic Modpack and Vanilla+ players rejoice!

Finally, you can sit back and watch it go to work! Fish will start accumulating in the internal inventory, and they can be extracted using whatever method you prefer. You can even use a hopper right below the actual Fisher block instead of a Cauldron! If you find that the speed at which ~~lobsters die~~ fish get caught in the machine is too high, you can adjust the time between fish in the config file! (Note: the additional sealife shown in the GUI below is NOT included in this mod. They have been added to the minecraft:gameplay/fishing/fish loot table via a separate mod/datapack.)

The Fisher GUI

However, it's not completely "set-it-and-forget-it" compatible. Every fish it catches will fill the internal (or external, if using a Create Fluid tank below the Fisher) tank with some amount of water (100mb by default). When this water fills up (the Fisher has a 5000mB internal tank), it won't be able to catch any more fish until the water is extracted! To remove the water, you can either pump it out using whatever flavor of fluid pipe you desire, or by pressing the manual "Purge" button in the GUI. Then, it's back to fishing all day, every day! If you find the amount of water added too annoying (or not annoying enough), you can adjust how much water is filled per fishing operation in the config file.

The Fisher naturally hooks (GET IT????) into the vanilla game's fish-specific fishing loot table, meaning any custom fish added to it will be fair game. However, because of this, it won't dredge up any items that aren't in that loot table. This unfortunately means no enchanted books, and no custom fish that have their own separate fish loot table. However! If demand is high enough, I may create a separate machine designed to dredge up this non-living undersea treasure! It will be added to this mod in the form of an update.

Oh, and if you're a fan of the Immersive Weathering Mod, you'll be happy to know that a little rust in your Iron Bars won't completely halt your fishing operation. However, if the bars get too rusty (beyond the point where the rust can be stripped off), you'll need to replace the bars entirely before the machine will work again. You can prevent this periodic problem by waxing your iron bars with a Honeycomb.

When to replace your iron bars

BUT WAIT!! THAT'S NOT ALL!! ~~CALL NOW~~ DOWNLOAD NOW AND WE'LL THROW IN A FLUID VOID BLOCK!!!

That's right, a FLUID VOID! This terminal tank is the final resting place for all those unwanted liquids. Pump them in, and you'll never see them again!

Take that, thermodynamics! (If you can't tell already, this mod also adds a Fluid Void block, so you have somewhere to pump the excess water if you don't want to use it or store it.)

Call now!

Well, I do believe that's all for this silly description. Download the mod, try it out, and see what ya think! Any issues? Leave 'em in the comments below and I'll work with you to try and solve them. Suggestions? I'd love to hear them! No promises that they'll make it into a future version, but your ideas are always welcome! Wanna use this in a modpack? Go right ahead! All I ask is that you link back to this page.

Thanks a bunch, and happy fishing!