How to Fish Walkthrough: All Islands and Bosses

Each island follows the same structure: an NPC request points you at a specific bait, the bait summons a boss or rare catch, and the quest item you carve out of it gets traded for the coordinates of the next island. You cannot skip steps with free exploration alone, because the boss bait and the turn-in items only exist inside the chain. The route below was completed on a single-player save, but co-op players can follow the identical quest line.

Because the game is a sandbox, a full clear is not the only way to roll credits. Skilled players can rush the final boss in under one hour for the Bean achievement, but that skips most locations and the entire creature collection. If this is your first save, take the scenic route below instead, and check the Beginner Guide if the opening hour still feels unclear.

Everyone starts at the Lighthouse. Speak with the Lighthouse Keeper to learn the basics, then pick up a Clam and eat it to satisfy your hunger. Throwing clams at the Keeper with the cue button feeds him, and he pays you cash in return — that is your starter income. Your first purchase is the Basic Fishing Rod at $3, and with the free lure you can land a few easy species that need no weapon to subdue.

Keep selling catches until you can buy a Knife (Brass Knuckles work too, but the Knife is the better pick), then sharpen it at the anvil by the lighthouse door to push its damage up to 20. Bigger catches pay more, so stock up on the Hotdog Lure at $1 each and keep grinding. When your wallet is ready, buy the Beer Can and feed it to the Keeper — he hands back the empty can, and that empty can is the bait that summons the Spider Crab, the first and easiest boss.

Bait the Spider Crab into its charge attack, sidestep, and punish the stun with two to four hits, then reposition and repeat; do not wander far or it starts jumping around and wasting your time. Kill it, feed the meat to the Keeper, and the first quest completes with the Boat Keys as your reward. Buy the Radar from him for $10 before you sail, and note that by this point you will have caught every crustacean type available at the Lighthouse.

The second island sits to the northwest of the Lighthouse. It offers more fish species, better lures, and your first real weapons — buy the Shotgun here, because it is one of the best weapons in the game. The shop also sells a lure for beginner bosses and Dynamite; skip both, since you will not need them, and put the money toward the Shotgun instead.

The quest giver is the lady sitting by the lake. Feed her three Leeches — the Leeches page covers where to get them — and she returns a modified lure. Attach it to your fishing rod, cast, and reel in to trigger the second boss fight against the Giant Piranha.

The Giant Piranha does not fight alone, so clear its minions first; they are hard to dodge but deal only modest damage. Once the boss is down, pick up its skeleton and feed it to the lady, and she hands over the coordinates for Island 3.

Head northwest from Island 2 to reach the desert island, which holds two quests and a handful of new creatures that the Standard Lure will add to your collection. The first quest is hunting the Blue Shark (confirmed name — one source caption's "Bluefin Shark" is a typo) to activate the island's Grill. Buy the Standard Lure to draw it out of the water; it is an easy fight as long as you watch for its spiral attacks.

After the kill, speak with the NPC beside the Grill and he gives you a lighter. From then on you can cook your catches, and cooked fish sell with a 1.5x multiplier — a permanent boost to every future payday, and the Money Guide explains how to squeeze it further.

The second quest comes from a tourist sitting under a tree who refuses to enter the water because he fears a fish. Catch a Needlefish and feed it to him, and he gifts you a Carrot. Use the Carrot as bait to start the Puffer Fish hunt: this boss is genuinely dangerous and rolls after you like a wrecking ball, so keep your distance, shoot twice, then immediately relocate in the opposite direction and repeat. Deliver the Puffer Fish's fin to the tourist to receive the coordinates for Island 4.

Before leaving for the rocky fourth island, buy the Radar upgrade for your boat. It lets you mount the Radar in a stationary position on board, so you no longer have to keep it equipped while sailing. On the island itself you will find the Professional Lure, which fills out the local collection, and a single quest: the shop NPC warns you about a large bird, and catching that bird first requires a Tuna.

Buy the Professional Boss Lure to hook the Tuna. The Tuna attacks by throwing itself at you — dodge the leap, then answer with the Shotgun, which is the best weapon against it. Once it is defeated, pick the Tuna up and lay it on the ground, then wait a couple of seconds for the Albatross to arrive.

Swap to the Uzi (or the Sniper Rifle) for this fight, and leave the Shotgun holstered — the Albatross flies at long range and a Shotgun will whiff most shots. Stay under cover while it circles at distance, because its droppings genuinely deal damage, and open fire when it reloads. Take its head once it falls and feed it to the NPC for the coordinates to the final island.

The Volcano lies directly north of Island 4, and your Radar makes the trip trivial. On arrival you meet an NPC in a yellow hazmat suit, and his request is simple: catch five fish native to the Volcano using the Scientific Lure and feed them to him, one at a time. The fifth hand-in earns you the Fish Bucket, the item used to draw out the Whale boss.

Before you summon it, buy the Assault Rifle and get at least a couple of upgrades into it. The Whale itself is not very dangerous, but run as far as you can whenever it launches into the air. Once it is dead, stash the carcass in your inventory, climb the wooden planks to the top of the volcano, equip the carcass, and throw it into the crater — that is what starts the final boss fight.

The Mutated Bowhead Whale is bigger, far tougher, and kills you in a couple of hits, and it spits lava while you fight. Stock up on healing items at the military base before committing, then whittle it down, take its fin, and feed the fin to the hazmat NPC. He rewards you with the key to the military boat, and boarding that boat carries you to the mainland and rolls the endgame credits.

Finishing the story does not wipe your save. You can keep playing on the same file with every purchase and weapon upgrade intact, which is the perfect setup for completing the fish collection (see the Fish Guide) and chasing new skins from the roulette. Most failed runs, though, come from a short list of avoidable errors:

• Letting the white escape bar under a boss's health pool expire, which resets the entire fight.
• Selling a quest item — meat, skeleton, fin, head, or carcass — instead of turning it in.
• Bringing the Shotgun to the Albatross fight, where its short range is useless.
• Skipping the Radar boat upgrade before Island 4 and sailing blind.
• Facing the Mutated Bowhead Whale without a stack of healing items.

Follow the chain in order — Lighthouse, Forest, Desert, Rocks, Volcano — and How to Fish is a steady string of upgrades, bosses, and paydays that ends at the mainland with your collection already well underway. For deeper boss-specific tactics, the Bosses hub breaks down each fight on its own page.