I spent over 12 hours fishing and caught over 500 fish before I managed to catch a snail in New World. Yes, really, I reached fishing level 50 before managing to get one.
This was frustrating as I’d manage to find Clams almost straight away; the other half of the quest you’re probably looking to complete.
But I’ve got good news for you:
I was making a huge mistake whilst trying to catch a snail — I was fishing in a location that didn’t have any snails.
The tricky thing about this game is it sometimes give you a little bit of guidance, but not quite enough to let you know exactly what you need to do. And that’s what happened to me here.
I knew I needed to catch a snail in fresh water for a quest, but that’s all I knew.
What was yet to be established was whether different sources of fresh water matter; do you find snails in rivers on New World? Or a lake? Or maybe even a pond?
Thanks to a helpful comment on my guide to fishing in New World, my New World snail fishing efforts finally paid off.
Continue reading to learn how to catch a snail in New World for yourself.
If you’re looking for where to find a snail in New World, here’s everything I learned.
Where Not to Go
Don’t make the mistake I did here, which was to fish at the Broad Fishing Hotspot in Windsward, west of the Greenhaven settlement.
That’s the one that’s here:
You will not (unless I had the worst RNG in the history of life, which I doubt) catch snails in New World here.
Instead, it seems you have a few different options — a few people say rivers or ponds in certain places — but the only place I’ve been able to verify (i.e. I caught one) is…
Where to Catch Snails
First Light Broad Fishing Hotspot
The place I finally managed to answer the question of where to find snails in New World was actually a different Broad Fishing Hotspot — the one located in First Light.
Note: you should probably also make sure you’re level 15+ or be willing to risk respawning a few times as you try to run through some dangerous areas to get to First Light in the first place.
If you’ve not visited First Light previously and you therefore don’t have landmarks and locations visible on your map, you should locate the small body of water that’s north-west of the settlement.
Depending on where you’re standing, this location will either show on you screen as ‘Broad Fishing Hotspot’ or it may show as ‘Hatchburg Fishery’.
Either way, it was the Hatchburg Fishery that finally allowed me to get my hands on the elusive snail.
I was surprised to see that in game the item is actually called Aquatic Snail — after hunting for one for so long, I nearly missed it when I caught it!
Aquatic Snails are green, uncommon items, which means that you’ll probably them slightly more frequently if you’re using bait.
A better fishing line than the standard wooden rod might help too, though I caught mine using the free one that Master Fisher Michael Shield gives you. I’ve since upgraded my fishing line, finally, but I wanted to ensure you could catch these with the most basic rod — you can.
My New World snail was caught using the wooden fishing line and Firefly Bait. If you don’t have bait, just search through Bulrush and Briar plants that surround every Broad Fishing Hotspot.
Windsward Secret Fishing Hotspot
Another place I’ve now managed to catch a snail in New World is in the Secret Fishing Hotspot, located in a river that separates Windsward and Monarch’s Bluffs.
If you’ve not visited here before then all you need to do is walk directly west out of Grenville and you should reach it in no time.
This is also a location where you can find Rivercress Stems.
This is a 3-star fishing hotspot which should hopefully mean more rare catches.
I managed to catch an Aquatic Snail here fairly quickly using Firefly Bait and an Aged Wooden Fishing Line (tier 2) that I crafted myself.
I hope this has helped!
