Fishing Rods are tools that are used for obtaining Fish. When first added, they did not function and were useless. In Alpha 1.2.0, the Halloween Update, fishing rods were updated to be able to catch fish from any body of water.
Crafting[]
A fishing rod can be crafted from three sticks and two pieces of string. This makes fishing rods a Renewable Resources. Fishing Rods are the only current way to catch fish, so if you're on peaceful, you probably cant get one very easily.
Usage[]
Players can cast the line using the right mouse button. Right-clicking again will reel the line in. The rod can be cast and reeled in 33 times before it will break. Casting it in water and reeling it up without a catch or reeling it up before it reaches its destination does not reduce its durability. The line will be reeled in automatically if the player wanders more than 34 blocks away from the place the bobber is stuck in. If the line is cast in any sort of water. whether player made or naturally formed, after a while, the bobber on the end of the line will sink briefly before bobbing back up to the surface and will play the splash sound. The line must be reeled in at that precise moment otherwise the catch will escape. The line can be left there to wait for another catch opportunity as long as needed. If successful, a Raw Fish will fly out of the water and land somewhere around the fisher, although it can sometimes fly over the player's head and landing far behind them. The line will disappear after 60 seconds if nothing gets hooked, although this timer is reset every time the hook is cast in the water.
If the bobber is cast and collides with a solid block, it will get stuck and not be able to catch fish. This means player-made fishing pools need to be built accordingly. At minimum, the body of water should be 1 block by about 10 for casting distance. The water can be 1×1, but this requires the player to cast upwards so that the bobber will land in the water. This ensures the bobber's initial velocity is wasted moving up, so that it does not hit any blocks falling back down.
Usage on Entities[]
Fishing Rods can hook any mob and drag it towards the player. (although Mobs in Water or Lava will not move far due to the slowdown of the fluid) Although the hurt animation plays, it deals no damage to the mob. Fishing Rods take triple durability damage when reeling a mob. Reeling it up will cause the mob to be pulled towards the caster at a very fast rate. Players can take advantage of this to impart vertical momentum onto the mob when reeled at great height, dealing enough fall damage for a guaranteed death (except for chickens as they do not take falling damage). The fishing rod can also be used on tamed wolves to act as a sort of leash, although it won't move the wolf anywhere for long. Bobbers can be hooked onto a wolf and if it teleports back to the player, the bobber will still be present.
It can be assumed this functionality is for pulling future Fish Mobs out of water. Strangely enough, the fishing rod can also hook on to a ghast's fireball/ A bobber cast into fire will stick on the fire and be in mid-air when the fire extinguishes.===Reeling Problems=== The player should try to fish with a large obstruction behind him or her, or from a platform above the water. Fish fly towards the player with considerable speed when reeled in and may launch over the player, which can cause them to get lost. Fishing from 4 blocks (4 has been tested, but other heights may also work) above the water will make the fish fly directly to the player. It is also recommended to have the fishing platform at least 8 blocks long and 4 blocks deep, as the hook will snag on any block it hits. The closer the player is to the bobber, the less the fish will fly.
If the fishing rod bobber lands on a wall/ground and is then reeled in, it will count as a double durability use (although this damage can be avoided by switching to another item instead of reeling in the bobber), while successfully reeling a fish counts as one use. Reeling the bobber in while in water, but before a fish has been caught will not count as a use.