Recommended companions

The mod runs fine on its own, but it's balanced around two optional add-ons:

Serene Seasons — unlocks the full seasonal bite (spring spawns, winter slow-down).
Biomes O' Plenty — richer biomes for the habitat/biome factor to shine.

River Fishing 🎣

A deep, realistic river & ice-fishing simulator built as a modpack-anchor activity. Fishing is a process, not a click on the water: assemble a rod from a blank + reel + line + rig + hook, match bait and groundbait to the fish you want, read the water, cast, and outsmart 29 species that each live by their own rules. Success = how well your whole setup matches a given fish under the current conditions.

Currently Forge 1.20.1. A Fabric port + newer Minecraft versions are on the way.

Four ways to fish

Float fishing — the classic pole (stick / bamboo / pole rods). Set the float depth, watch it plunge, and strike on the timing mini-game. Best for panfish and silver fish up close.
Spinning — active lure fishing (ultralight / spinning rods). Cast and retrieve a spinner, spoon, wobbler or soft-plastic to trigger predators — pike, zander, perch, asp. A steel leader is a must.
Long-cast bottom fishing — feeder / bottom / carp rods reach far water and sit on the bottom with a loaded groundbait feeder. Patient, but where the big bream, tench, carp and catfish come from.
Ice fishing — drill a hole with the auger, drop a short winter rod, and work the mormyshka in a steady rhythm to draw fish up through the ice. A whole winter mode of its own.

What makes it different

Nothing bites by luck. A data-driven bite engine weighs more than a dozen factors — both your tackle and the world around you — to decide what bites and how fast:

The world: water body (river / lake / pond / swamp), depth, width, biome (climate + terrain), season, time of day, weather, and barometric pressure (with a trending glass), plus feeding-frenzy windows and how hard the spot has been fished.
Your setup: rod blank & test, reel size, line type / diameter / visibility, hook size, rig, bait, groundbait, leader and float depth.

Mismatched gear won't catch, reels only spool line within their working range, and a line that's too visible spooks small, wary fish while a big one barely notices.

Highlights

Rod assembly GUI with live rod ↔ reel ↔ line compatibility checks and gear wear.
A tension fight mini-game — over-pull and the line snaps; a realistic breaking-strain model means big fish demand the right line and a strong drag.
A living population — over-fish a species and it thins out; it recovers over time (faster in spring).
Progression: a bestiary journal, angler levels + a 6-perk skill tree, a 6-stage quest chain, and hand-crafted advancements (including tricky and funny ones).
A fisherman villager who trades tackle and buys your prime catches.
Ice fishing — drill a hole with the auger, drop a winter rod, work the mormyshka in a rhythm game.
Bait farms (worms & maggots), a live-bait trap, a display aquarium, a trophy stand, cooking & fillets.

⚠️ Freshwater only, for now — rivers, lakes and ponds. Ocean / sea fishing isn't supported yet.

How to play (the beginner loop)

Get bait. Dig dirt / grass / sand with a shovel — worms drop (~10%). Later you can breed your own with a worm farm / maggot farm, gather live bait in a bait trap, or buy bait from the fisherman villager.
Craft tackle.
- Stick Rod — 3 sticks (diagonal).
- Hooks — 1 iron nugget → 2 small hooks (№16, shapeless). Refine to a bigger hook by adding an iron nugget (№16 → №14 → №12 …); a bigger number = a smaller hook.
- Line — a ring of 8 string makes the thinnest mono (0.10 mm). To thicken it a step, put a line in the centre with 8 string around it. Braid adds a phantom membrane, fluorocarbon an amethyst shard, to the base ring.
Assemble the rod. Hold the rod and sneak + right-click to open the assembly GUI. Reel-less rods (stick / bamboo / pole) just take a line; a reeled rod adds a reel first (line spools onto the reel), and bottom rods add a swappable rig. Incompatible parts are rejected with a reason shown in the window (reel size ↔ rod, line diameter ↔ reel).
Load the rig. In the same GUI, drop a hook and bait (worm, maggot…) into the rig's inline slots. Predators (pike / zander / perch on spinning gear) take artificial lures (spinner / spoon / wobbler / soft-plastic), not natural bait; fit a predator rig with a steel leader or they bite through a bare line.
(Optional) Feed the spot. Right-click water while holding groundbait to create a fed zone that decays over ~10 minutes. The groundbait type decides which fish it pulls in.
Cast. Hold right-click to charge the power bar, release to cast that far. An under-loaded blank can't throw as far (shown as a dead zone on the bar).
Watch the float — silently. There's no "Bite!" text: the float plunges / the line twitches. Float rods run a small timing mini-game — strike (right-click) while the marker is in the green.
Fight it. A boss bar shows the fish. Tap right-click to reel (raises tension); ease off to give line. When it runs, over-tension snaps the line and you lose the rig — a strong enough line + drag for that fish is what lets you land it. Land it and you get a unique item carrying the species, weight and length.

Read the fishing journal for a per-species "how to catch", or scan the water with the echo sounder to see what's biting and how the pressure is trending.

Admin commands (ops)

/rffish unlockall — fill the journal (all species, trophies, XP) so every quest goal is met.
/rffish reset — wipe your records, XP and quests.