Simple Bait
Consume · ConsumeFishingBait0★The basic lure for drawing Pals in, and a prerequisite for fishing at all.
This is where the crafting chain ends — nothing downstream consumes it, so a stockpile earns you nothing.
Details
It weighs almost nothing and stacks to 9,999, so there is no reason not to carry a full stack.
Simple Bait Crafting Recipe
Aquatic Pal Fluids
Red Berries
Flour×2
Wheat×6Crafting it takes 8 materials across 3 types. Each craft returns 10, so the real cost per unit is lower than the list suggests.
Where to Find Simple Bait
If you would rather just buy it, the cheapest seller is Desert Shop at 160 Gold, and 3 other shops stock it too.
It also shows up as world loot — chests in the Grasslands, chests in the Forest and chests in the Desert, and 3 more pools besides, usually 1–2 at a time. Higher-grade chests carry the better rolls, so the ones guarded by a camp are usually worth the detour.
| How | Where | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Merchant | Desert Shop | 160 Gold |
| Merchant | Village Shop | 160 Gold |
| Merchant | Volcano Shop | 160 Gold |
| Merchant | Wander Shop | 160 Gold |
| World loot | Chests in the Grasslands | Grade 1 · 25.0% chance · 1–2 at a time · also in Hillside Cavern, Isolated Island Cavern and Ravine Grotto |
| World loot | Chests in the Forest | Grade 3 · 25.0% chance · 2–3 at a time · also in Mountain Stream Grotto |
| World loot | Junk hauls while fishing in the Grasslands | Grade 1 · 25.0% chance · 2–3 at a time |
| World loot | Salvaging wrecks (rank 1) | Grade 1 · 25.0% chance · 2–3 at a time |
| World loot | Chests in the Desert | Grade 3 · 16.7% chance · 2–3 at a time · also in Cavern of the Dunes |
| World loot | Chests in the Mount Obsidian | Grade 3 · 8.3% chance · 2–3 at a time · also in Volcanic Cavern |
Using Simple Bait Well
Simple Bait is the yardstick, not a buff. The fishing table gives it 1.0 on every knob it could turn: bite chance, hit-bar width, and the struggle you gain on a good pull or lose on a bad one all sit at their unmodified values, and it adds nothing to the chance of a bonus drop from what you land. When another bait is described as "1.5x bite rate" or "wider bar", that multiplier is measured against a cast made with this. Using it costs you nothing and buys you nothing — it is the ticket that lets the rod work at all.
Nothing else in the bait line is close on throughput. A batch takes 1,200 work and yields 10, so 120 work per bait — against 400 per bait for High Quality Bait (High Quality Bait) and 3,500 per bait for Deluxe Bait (Deluxe Bait). It also needs no upgraded station: the Primitive Workbench crafts it, so a Handiwork Pal parked at your first bench can keep a stack of hundreds topped up from berries and fluid you already farm.
Buy it only when you are caught short at a spot. Merchants charge 160 Gold a piece, so ten off a vendor is 1,600 Gold for what one craft batch produces from 2 Aquatic Pal Fluids, 4 Red Berries and 2 Flour. Carrying it is free either way — at 0.025 weight, a thousand baits is 25 weight and the stack cap is 9,999, so there is no reason to leave home with fewer than a few hundred.
Two baits sit at the same tier and each beats it at one thing, if you have the salvage blueprint that unlocks them. Sweet Bait (Sweet Bait) carries 1.5x bite chance — the same search bonus High Quality Bait (High Quality Bait) gives, several tech tiers early. Beginner Bait (Beginner Bait) drops the struggle you lose on a missed pull to 0.68x, which is the forgiving option while you are still learning the minigame. Both use the same three ingredients but want 4 Aquatic Pal Fluids instead of 2 and come out one at a time instead of ten, so they are what you save for a specific spot; Simple Bait is what you burn through.
Alternatives and Upgrades
Other items at a similar tier, for when you want to weigh this against the rest of its class:
