How to Fish Guides & Tips
How To Fish More Players Mod
The "How to Fish More Players" mod on Nexus Mods lifts the co-op lobby cap from 4 players to 8 using a BepInEx install. It worked, and the tutorial videos around it are straightforward — but its reason to exist mostly evaporated when Patch 1.0.4 added official 8-player lobbies to the game. Whether the mod still functions on the latest patch is unconfirmed, so read this as history plus install reference, not a recommendation.
What the Mod Does
The tool is a third-party mod hosted on Nexus Mods under the game's section. Per the mod page and MySpaceGuide's tutorial, it raises the original 4-player cooperative limit to 8 so bigger friend groups can share a lobby. It is entirely unofficial — not made, endorsed, or supported by Dazed Games.
That unofficial status carries the standard modding fine print: check the mod page's version, dependencies, and user reports before installing anything. Game patches can break third-party tools silently. The mod's whole job description — raising a cap — is also the kind of thing an official patch can make redundant overnight, which is precisely what happened.
Do You Still Need It?
Short answer: almost certainly not. Patch 1.0.4's official announcement added 8-player lobbies natively, matching the mod's target number. The native support is stabler, survives updates, and involves no downloads outside Steam. If your goal is "eight friends on one boat," updating the game does it.
The nuance is for players on older game versions or with specific mod setups, where the calculus can differ. Even then, weigh what the mod adds against the risk of a broken install after the next patch. The announcements page is the tiebreaker: whatever it says about lobby sizes outranks both this page and the mod's description.
Installation Steps
For reference, here is the install flow from the tutorial, using BepInEx version 5.4.23.4. First, download and install BepInEx into the game's root folder — the game files live behind Steam's Manage > Browse local files menu. Second, run the game once so BepInEx generates its folder structure, then close it.
Third, drop the mod's DLL file into the BepInEx/plugins folder inside the game directory. Finally, make sure the host and every joining player run the same mod and game versions, because version mismatches are the top cause of failed joins in modded co-op. That version discipline is the tutorial's most-repeated warning, and it applies to every BepInEx setup, not just this one.
Risks and Version Checks
Mods inject code into the game, which means crashes, save oddities, and broken co-op sessions are possible outcomes, not hypotheticals. Before every game update, check the mod page for compatibility notes. After every game update, assume the mod is broken until proven otherwise.
Also keep expectations realistic about what a lobby-size mod fixes: it changes the cap, not the netcode's appetite for chaos. Eight-player sessions push the game harder than four-player ones, official or modded. If your group just wants reliability, smaller lobbies remain the safer evening.
The Official Alternative
The clean path to big lobbies today is simply keeping the game updated. Patch 1.0.4 delivered the 8-player cap along with multiplayer lobby fixes, and future announcements page updates will carry anything new. Our max players page tracks the current official ceiling.
The modding scene may still matter for this game later — quality-of-life tweaks, custom content, or caps beyond 8 if the community wants them. But for the specific question "more players," the developers have shipped the answer. Spend your modding energy elsewhere.
The Launch-Era Problem the Mod Solved
At launch, co-op capped at 4 players — the number the mod tutorial states as the original limit. Friend groups of five or more had no official path, which is the exact gap the Nexus tool filled by pushing the ceiling to 8. For a stretch of days, it was the only way to run big lobbies.
Then Patch 1.0.4 shipped 8-player lobbies natively, and the mod's job description disappeared. The history is worth knowing because it explains why so many videos and posts still recommend a tool that today mostly adds risk without adding capacity.
How BepInEx Loading Works
BepInEx is a modding framework that injects into the game at launch: the folders it creates on first run are the load structure, and plugins is where mod DLLs live. That is why the tutorial's steps are install, run once, then drop the DLL in. The pattern is identical across a huge range of Unity games.
Understanding the plumbing also explains the maintenance burden. Every game patch can shift the internals the framework hooks into, which is why modded installs break on updates until the framework or the mod catches up. The more patches a game ships, the more often this repeats.
Before You Install Anything
The mod-page checklist: confirm the mod's current version supports your game version, read its dependencies, and skim recent user reports for breakage warnings. Nexus Mods surfaces all three on the page itself. Two minutes of reading beats an evening of crash logs.
Back up your saves before injecting anything into the game folder — the folder you reach through Steam's Manage > Browse local files menu is the one you will be modifying. Restoring a backup is the difference between an experiment and a loss.
Disabling and Removing
To disable the mod, remove its DLL from the BepInEx plugins folder; to remove the whole framework, delete the BepInEx files from the game directory. Steam's verify-files feature can also reset the game folder to a clean state. None of this touches your Steam install itself.
Clean removal matters if you switch back to vanilla for an event night or a patch test. Keep the DLL file somewhere safe if you plan to return to it. And before any of that — check whether the current patch already does what you need.
Playing Modded Co-op Smoothly
The tutorial's version rule is the whole game: host and every joining player run the same game version and the same mod build. Mismatches surface as failed joins or desynced sessions, and they look exactly like the bugs the mod gets blamed for. Sync the stack before you blame the tool.
Schedule your mod updates around game updates. When a patch drops, expect a broken mod until the framework catches up, and plan the session for vanilla 8-player instead. Groups that plan for both modes never lose a game night to a patch.