Most players spend a lot of time fishing in Stardew Valley. Like pretty much everything in Stardew and much like in real-life, fishing can be a very relaxing way of spending some in-game time, gaining cash and food along the way.
The only problem with fishing is you never really know what you're going to get. It could be a minnow, or an old boot, or a can, or a stalk of seaweed. Or it might be the big one you've been waiting for. There's just no way to tell.
Until now. The Visible Fish Mod adds the ability to see just what's lurking beneath the surface of Stardew's pixelated water environments.
Courtesy of mod creator shekurika on NexusMods, the Visible Fish Mod uses in-game assets to show you what could potentially land on your line. It uses the same sprites as the fish tank to represent the fish currently available for capture. However, since it uses sprites that are only available in-game, any fish that haven't yet been given fish tank sprites won't be visible.
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The mod adds a couple of new menu options to configure your ideal view of fish. Maximum Fish shows how many fish could potentially be caught on the map, while Fish Density determines how many fish are visible per water tile. The Draw Shadow option determines whether you want that extra bit of realism with a shadow under each fish.
Visible Fish also has a few interactions with other mods worth noting. Star Valley Expanded has sprites for every fish, so if you're finding that the in-game sprites aren't providing enough underwater visibility, then try adding that mod as well. The Ridgeside Village mod doesn't have any sprites at all for its fish, so this mod won't work with Ridgeside Valley. And the More New Fish mod also doesn't have any fish tank sprites at the moment, but that's expected to be solved in a future update.
Lastly, this only works on the PC version at the moment as the mobile version hasn’t received the fish tank and its required sprites. But update 1.5 should be coming to mobile soon, so hang tight.
Thanks, PC Gamer!