Fishing Rod

Fishing Rods are tools that are used for obtaining fish. This can be very useful, as fish are an unlimited resource, though the rod has limited durability.

Crafting
A fishing rod can be crafted from three sticks and two pieces of string. This makes fishing rods a renewable resource.

Usage

 * Right-click to cast the line into a body of water. Your position doesn't matter: You can be in the water, sitting in a boat, or standing on adjacent land.
 * The bobber must be watched closely. Small splashes can be seen around the bobber. When a fish is getting ready to bite, a small trail will head towards the bobber (unseen if Particles are set to Minimal). When it dips below the surface, immediately right-click again to reel in the line. The window for reeling in when a fish bites is about half a second. If a bite is missed, the line can be left in the water to wait for another bite.
 * A successful reel-in causes a fish to fly through the air towards the player. Normally, the fish will fly directly to you, but if there are blocks in the way, it may bounce off at an angle.
 * Upon catching a fish, you are awarded 1-3 experience points immediately, whether or not you actually pick up the fish.

The line will disappear if the player wanders 35 blocks away from the bobber.

Fish can be caught just as readily in small, shallow, and/or player-created pools, but the fishing rod's durability will diminish heavily if the hook collides with solid blocks. When using small pools, casting directly upwards and allowing the hook to fall into the water may help avoid collision with blocks.

Catching fish
The current algorithm:
 * Using a regular fishing rod, a random integer from 100 to 900 is selected. The game then counts down each tick to 0 at which time the fish's water particles appear. At 20 ticks per second, this amounts to a random wait time between 5-45 seconds.
 * Using the lure enchantment on a fishing rod decreases the random integer picked by 100 per level (thus, a wait-time reduction of 5 seconds per level).
 * The countdown tick itself is affected by various conditions:
 * If the bobber "cannot see the sky" (fishing indoors or underground), the tick has a 50% chance of not decrementing the count, so the wait time is doubled.
 * If the bobber's block is being rained (or snowed) on, each tick has a 25% chance of counting down 2 instead of 1, so the wait time will be cut by about 20%.
 * Upon reeling in you may receive a raw fish, salmon, pufferfish, clownfish, junk, or treasure.

The older algorithm (up through 1.6.4):
 * Each tick has a 1/500 chance of catching a fish, unless it's raining, in which case it's a 1/300 chance instead. Rain reduces the average time between catches from 346 ticks to 207 ticks, a 40% decrease.

Junk and treasures
You can occasionally catch treasure or junk instead of fish. An unenchanted fishing rod has an 85% chance of catching fish, a 10% chance of junk, and a 5% chance of treasure. Each level of the Luck of the Sea enchantment decreases the chance of junk by 2.5%, and increases the chance of treasure by 1%. Each level of the Lure enchantment decreases the chance of both junk and treasure by 1%. The best rod (by chance only) for treasure has Luck of the Sea III, the best rod for catching fish has both Luck of the Sea III and Lure III, and the best rod for junk is unenchanted.

Non-fishing uses
The fishing rod can be used to hook mobs and other entities (but will take 3 points from the durability by doing so), which drags them towards the player at a fast rate. This counts as an attack, so entities will react as if attacked, but it causes no actual damage by itself. Secondary damage can come from fall distance if the entity is hooked from sufficient height (though some mobs do not take fall damage). Enemies can also be dragged into lava. Hooking an enderman can be a little tricky, as they will teleport away as soon as it is hit by the rod, but will still be stuck on it. This can be used to easily tell where they teleported, and if they are still in range they can be pulled great distances. Even ghast's fireballs can be hooked with the fishing rod, and redirected with a second click.

Use on villagers will lower the player's popularity and cause any naturally-spawned iron golem nearby to attack. Players cannot be pulled in PvP.

The fishing rod can be used to grab onto boats and minecarts and pull them towards the player, but a boat will often break in the process. The hook can also be used to activate wooden pressure plates or even knock down paintings from a distance. This aspect can be commonly seen in public puzzle maps, where the player is required to aim and activate the input.

Durability

 * The rod can be used 65 times before breaking, or more so if the unbreaking enchantment is applied.
 * Casting in water and reeling it up without a catch, reeling before the cast is complete, or missing a bite and leaving the line in the water does not reduce durability.
 * A double-durability penalty applies if the hook lands in solid blocks, either under water or on dry blocks (if this occurs under water a fish may still be caught).
 * A triple-durability penalty applies if hooking an entity.

Durability cost occurs on reel-in, rather than on impact, so penalties can be avoided by switching to another item instead of reeling in.

Trivia

 * Skeletons can be pulled into their own arrows.
 * Using a fishing rod while in a minecart aimed at the minecart's front wall will cause the minecart to stop immediately and the player to exit it. No damage is done to either player or cart.
 * Fishing rods and carrots on sticks are currently the only items in the game that is displayed mirrored when in the player's hand.
 * When casting the rod into a portal, the bobber may stick to it like a normal block, go through and travel in the nether, or stop on the next block behind the portal.
 * If you cast the bobber into a waterfall, the bobber will float up the waterfall until it reaches the top where it will stay until the player pulls it back in or until a fish is caught on the line. If a fish is caught on the line, the bobber will then fall off from the waterfall making it much easier to visualize when to reel in.
 * If you are underwater, or if you stand right next to the bobber, you can still catch fish.
 * Endermen will teleport when hooked, if the enderman teleports close enough to the player, it will still be hooked.
 * If you stand directly in front of a column and cast your line onto a block above you, the line will fall downwards.
 * Casting the rod onto a wooden pressure plate will trigger it.
 * If the bobber hits a painting, the painting will break.
 * You can cast the line, then switch to another fishing rod without disturbing the line.
 * If you cast the line into an End Portal, the line and bobber will disappear.
 * You can switch from one fishing rod to another, at any time, even after hooking a fish or snagging something. This means that you can hook a fish with one rod, and reel it in with another. When you reel it in the new rod will take the durability cost.
 * Mobs can fly when you reel them in from above. If you are high enough, they will die from fall damage.
 * Fishing rods will not prevent fall damage; If you hook a mob into the air, it will not reset its fall damage.
 * A Lure enchantment of 9 or more will actually make it take longer to catch anything.
 * The player can get into bed after casting a line, and the line will remain in the water till the player wakes up and reels it in.
 * If the player has not yet gotten the Cow Tipper achievement and catches a piece of leather with a fishing rod, said achievement will be granted.
 * When enchanting a fishing rod with level 2 or below, the enchantment will "fail", meaning that clicking on the level will do nothing. Enchanting with level 3 may fail, as there is about a 1.8% chance that you will get the only enchantment, Unbreaking 1.