CIT for Fishing Made Better: Custom Textures for Every Catch
Fishing in Minecraft has come a long way from simply pulling up cod and salmon. With mods like Fishing Made Better, Advanced Fishing, and Aquaculture, the waters are teeming with dozens of unique species. But what if the items in your inventory could reflect that diversity with custom textures that change based on what you’ve actually caught? That’s exactly where the CIT for Fishing Made Better resource pack shines. It uses Custom Item Textures (CIT) to dynamically alter the appearance of fish buckets and bait buckets, making your angling adventures more immersive than ever.
What Is CIT for Fishing Made Better?
This resource pack is a companion addon designed to work alongside the Fishing Made Better mod, as well as other popular fishing expansions. It leverages Optifine’s CIT feature to read NBT tags on items and apply matching textures. Instead of a generic bucket icon, you’ll see the specific fish you’ve stored inside, complete with emissive properties that keep glowing fish luminous even when confined. The pack also visually updates bait buckets to show their fill level, and it supports extra fish buckets added by the Localizator mod for lava and void fishing.
Key Features at a Glance
- Fish Bucket Textures: Each bucket displays the exact fish species it contains, from a Red Salmon to a Magmatic Jellyfish.
- Emissive Support: Glowing fish like the Glowfin or Fluorescent Slimefish continue to emit light inside the bucket, preserving the atmospheric effect.
- Bait Bucket Fill Level: The bait bucket’s texture changes depending on how much bait remains, offering a quick visual cue without opening the inventory.
- Extra Fish Buckets: With Localizator installed, lava and void fish buckets gain their own custom textures, expanding the pack’s coverage beyond standard water-based catches.
- Broad Mod Compatibility: The pack recognizes fish from Fishing Made Better, Advanced Fishing, and Aquaculture, covering over 70 species.
How Custom Item Textures Work with NBT Data
The magic behind this pack lies in NBT tags. Every fish bucket generated by Fishing Made Better carries a FishId tag that identifies the species. The CIT pack reads that tag and selects the appropriate texture from its library. This means even if you rename a fish or catch it in an unexpected liquid (like a Magmatic Jellyfish in water), the texture will still match correctly as long as the original FishId remains unchanged. For modpack creators, this is a powerful tool to maintain consistency while still allowing custom localization through Localizator’s language keys.
If you’ve ever struggled with manually configuring resource packs and mods, there’s a smoother way to handle everything. Many players now rely on the foxygame.net launcher to keep their Minecraft setup tidy—this modern launcher lets you download and install CIT packs like this one directly from its built-in menu, removing the need to dig through folder structures. It’s a flexible solution that keeps all your mods, resource packs, and worlds in one place without the usual headaches.
Installation and Setup
Before you can enjoy these dynamic textures, you need a few things in order. First, Optifine must be installed—this resource pack relies entirely on its CIT functionality. Once Optifine is running, place the CIT for Fishing Made Better pack in your resourcepacks folder and activate it. Then navigate to Options > Video Settings > Quality… and make sure Custom Items is set to ON. Without that toggle, the textures won’t apply.
Fixing Textures for Existing Worlds
If you add extra fish buckets (via Localizator) after a world has already been generated, you might notice the new buckets don’t display custom textures. This happens because Forge Mod Loader (FML) creates an item index when a world is first loaded, and any items added later receive new indices that don’t match the CIT pack’s targets. A simple reload of resource packs (F3+T) won’t fix it. Instead, you’ll need to reset the item registry for that world:
- Close Minecraft and open your instance folder.
- Navigate to saves > [your world name] and locate the level.dat file.
- Open it with NBTExplorer (a free NBT editor).
- Expand the FML key, then Registries.
- Select the minecraft:items key and delete it.
- Save the file, close NBTExplorer, and launch Minecraft.
This forces FML to rebuild the item index, now including your new buckets, and the CIT textures will work perfectly.
Supported Fish Species
The pack covers an impressive range of aquatic life from three major mods. Here’s a breakdown of what you can expect to see in your fish buckets:
Vanilla Minecraft
- Cod, Red Salmon, Clownfish, Pufferfish
Fishing Made Better
- Bluebottle Jellyfish, Magmatic Jellyfish, Mud Tuna, Frost Minnow, Mudskinned Piranha, Golden Koi, Specular Snapper, Carbonic Trout, Midnight Bream, Wrackke, Quartzander, Glowfin, Blazing Chichlid, Ender Synanceia, Pearlfish, Fruiting Voidfin, Nitric Crucian, Ruffe, Sparkling Eel, Angelfish, Prismatic Angler, Bluehead Porifcian, Snowy Walleye, Squid, Withered Crucian, Barred Sand Bass, Mandarin Dragonet, Red Fungalfin, Brown Fungalfin, Warthead, Green-Finned Plaice, Lazulicanth, Charged Bullhead, Abyssal Lurker, Sunfish, Glacier Anchovy, Brown Bullhead, Pike, Magikarp, Fluorescent Slimefish, Bonefish, Cursed Koi, Phantasmal Tetra
Advanced Fishing
- Bluegill, Perch, Gar, Bass, Muskellunge, Brown Trout, Catfish, Carp, Blowfish, Red Grouper, Arctic Salmon, Tuna, Swordfish, Shark, Whale, Giant Squid, Jellyfish, Frog, Turtle, Leech, Piranha, Electric Eel, Tambaqui, Arapaima, Polar Cod, Pollock, Herring, Halibut, Chinook Salmon, Rainbow Trout, Tautog, Capitaine, Boulti, Bagrid, Synodontis, Red Shrooma, Brown Shrooma, Goldfish
Tips for Modpack Creators
When building a modpack that includes Fishing Made Better and this CIT pack, avoid renaming fish through direct NBT edits. Instead, use Localizator to create translatable names and descriptions. This preserves the FishId values that the CIT pack depends on while still allowing you to customize the text players see. You can then override language keys in your pack’s resources folder for a fully localized experience without breaking the visual magic.
Testing your setup is straightforward with a few commands. For a standard fish bucket, use /give @s fishingmadebetter:fish_bucket 1 0 {FishId:"Red Salmon"}. For lava or void buckets added by Localizator, try /give @s fishingmadebetter:lava_fish_bucket 1 0 {FishId:"Magmatic Jellyfish"}. This lets you verify that every texture maps correctly before releasing your pack to players.
Why This CIT Pack Elevates Your Fishing Game
Minecraft’s charm often lies in the small details, and seeing a shimmering Glowfin inside a bucket instead of a generic icon adds a layer of satisfaction to every catch. The CIT for Fishing Made Better pack turns an inventory full of identical buckets into a colorful trophy case that reflects your angling prowess. Whether you’re a solo survivalist or a server admin curating a custom modded experience, this resource pack bridges the gap between functional storage and visual storytelling. With broad mod support, emissive retention, and fill-level indicators for bait, it’s an essential addition for anyone who takes their virtual fishing seriously.