Sons of the Forest fish traps sure seem to be broken right now

1 year ago 137

Sons of the Forest - a player holds a spear while standing in a stream where a fish leaps out of the water towards a fish trap

(Image credit: Endnight Games)

Nope, it's not just you, the fish traps in Sons of the Forest seem to be bugged at launch. Finding a reliable food source is one of my first objectives in any survival game and slapping together a few fish traps seemed like the best choice on the island. After building more of them than I care to admit (hint: more than six) and standing around scratching my head with friends, I feel pretty confident telling you not to waste your time doing the same just yet.

So far as I—and lots of other players on Reddit (opens in new tab) and the SotF community Discord (opens in new tab)—can tell, the set-it-and-forget-it solution for fishing isn't working right now. Endnight Games hasn't made any official mention of this in its very first hotfix (opens in new tab), but it's an early access survival game so bugs were to be expected and will likely be on an upcoming fix list. I'll update you here once I get confirmation that these dang things are working as intended.

How to fish in Sons of the Forest

Sons of the Forest - Kelvin tosses a fish on the ground for the player

Build a fish trap in water with 25 sticks (currently bugged)
Carve a stick into a spear and use it in water
Ask Kelvin to fish for you (he's great at it)

Even without investing in a fishing operation, you can scrape together a fair few in just minutes by working alongside my best friend Kelvin (opens in new tab). If you want to catch fish on your own, use your inventory to combine two sticks, duct tape, and your knife to make a spear. This won't consume your knife; it's just for carving. Stab your new spear into any water spot where you can see fish swimming. My reliable location thus far has been the top of a stream leading into a lake where I can see salmon jumping upstream out of the water. It takes quite a few attempts to get a fish each time though, in my experience.

The even easier option is asking Kelvin to fish for you. In his command menu, tell Kelvin to "get fish and" either "drop here" or "give to me" and he'll begin fishing them out by hand from a nearby stream or pond. That's been the winning ticket to free dinners for me so far, because Kelvin manages to grab five or six in just a few minutes. That makes it easy for me to fry them up and hang on a drying rack while he works his magic.

Once you have your hunger meter under control, you can start taking on the bigger mysteries of the island by hunting down the rebreather location (opens in new tab) and rope gun location (opens in new tab) before going to uncover that elusive shovel location (opens in new tab) too.

Lauren started writing for PC Gamer as a freelancer in 2017 while chasing the Dark Souls fashion police and accepted her role as Associate Editor and Chief Minecraft Liker in 2021. She originally started her career in game development and is still fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long books, longer RPGs, multiplayer cryptids, and can't stop playing co-op crafting games.