In Minecraft, you can do pretty much anything, including fish. Oftentimes, fishing is overlooked though; it takes too long and the rare items are hard to come by. Fortunately, you can make your own AFK fishing farm.
Making an AFK fishing farm is incredibly easy, and the rewards are definitely worth it. In addition to getting fish, you will gain a lot of experience. Instead of spending a long time fishing, make this AFK fishing farm!
This design was inspired by YouTuber Illuminado. You can check out his tutorial for the farm here. This setup works in the 1.16 Minecraft update, however, as with every Minecraft update, it differs from older versions of the farm. The 1.16 update limits the amount of treasure you will receive from the AFK fishing farm, but you will still get plenty of fish and experience.
Materials Needed To Make An AFK Fishing Farm
To make the AFK fishing farm, you will need the following materials:
- Bucket of water
- Two note blocks
- Iron trapdoor
- Iron weighted pressure plate
- Hopper
- Fence
- Two chests
The second note block is a temporary block and won't be included in the final design, so you can substitute it with any block of your choosing instead.
All of this material is pretty easy to craft. You should be able to craft each item pretty early on in the game.
How To Make The AFK Fishing Farm
The process of making this AFK fishing farm is quite simple, so let's go over how to do it.
- Dig a 3x1 hole and place your double chest on the left side. In the image above, an additional row was cleared so you can see the setup.
- In the empty space, connect a hopper to the chests, and then place a single fence block on top. If you keep interacting with the chest or hopper, holding down shift will allow you to place items without interaction.
- Dig an additional hole directly in line with the hopper.
- Use your water bucket and place it directly on top of the fence. This should waterlog the fence as the excess water flows into the hole.
- Place a note block in line with the hole. Use a placeholder block and stack on top of the note block.
- Take the pressure plate and place it at the bottom ridge of the placeholder block. Check out the image below for placement. Once in position, destroy the placeholder block.
- Put the pressure plate on top of the fence post.
- That's all! Now, you have your very own AFK fishing farm.
To use this farm, all you have to do is equip a fishing rod and hold down the right mouse button while aiming at the note block. This will open the trapdoor and essentially put you in a 'loop' of fishing. Any caught fish will drop into the hopper that leads to the chest.
To make this farm AFK, you can either keep your mouse held down or download an auto clicker. It's also possible to just place a book or use a piece of tape to hold down your mouse.
Pressing F3 + T while in Minecraft will reload the game to refresh textures. If you do this while holding down the right mouse button, the game will reload and you will be automatically clicking. Doing this while fishing will essentially enable an auto-click. To end this, just click the right mouse button again.
Tips For AFK Fishing
Going AFK in Minecraft may sound counter-intuitive. With this fishing farm though, placement is important. There are plenty of other farms in Minecraft that require you to be nearby. For example, a gunpower/Creeper farm requires you to be nearby so that the Creepers will spawn.
Waiting around a Creeper farm isn't the most exciting, which is where our AFK fishing farm comes in handy. Building this farm nearby will earn you fish, experience, and gunpowder. Basically, place your AFK fishing farm near other farms that only work when you are nearby.
As mentioned above, the 1.16 update completely changed the way AFK fishing works. With the update, you will only be able to receive treasure from water sources that are at least 5x5x4. Don't let this discourage you though! Our simple AFK fishing farm may not get you rare loot, but you still gain experience without even moving.
Additionally, fish is helpful when trading with villagers. The fisherman villager will trade emeralds for fish, and this farm will give you tons of it. You can use this fish to eat, or trade for emeralds. Trading with villagers gives you some experience as well!
Now, you know all about a basic AFK fishing farm. This farm is a perfect beginner project; it's not too hard and can introduce you to the world of Minecraft farms. After building this, head over to our guide on automatic farms that everyone needs.