AFK Fishing Farm

Fishing has a genuine built-in AFK exploit. Casting a line and waiting for a bite works fine even if the player isn't doing anything else, which is the whole reason this farm exists. The hard part was never catching fish, it's automating the cast-wait-reel loop so you're not clicking every 10 to 30 seconds for an hour straight.

The classic setup has you looking down at a 1-block pool with a line cast into it, and an open trapdoor placed right at eye level in front of your face. Bobbing against the trapdoor at the right angle triggers the game's auto-jump interaction, which keeps re-casting the line without any real input from you beyond staying logged in.

The fully automated version drops the head-bob trick entirely. A dispenser holding a fishing rod can reel in a line on command, paired with a note block or comparator setup that detects the fish bobber's splash sound and re-triggers the cast, all funneling drops into a hopper. More work to wire correctly, but it keeps running even unattended, and it doesn't depend on an AFK trick that might get patched later.

Lure enchantment is the single biggest upgrade you can make here. Each level shortens the average wait between bites, and Lure III roughly halves it compared to a bare rod, meaning the same AFK session nets a lot more catches for free.

Beyond food, fishing is one of only two ways to get enchanted books without an enchanting table, the other being trading, and it's the only renewable source of saddles and name tags outside of specific farm loops. Plenty of well-fed players keep a fishing farm running purely for those treasure drops.