Fish are catchable when fishing using a fishing pole. They can be found in the ocean, lake or river, and some are unique to either day or night or only appear when it rains. Fish are used in cooking and the fishing community center bundles. The length of each fish type is recorded, and viewable on the collection screen.
Fishing can be done near any body of water, but some places have lower rates of fish. These areas have a higher chance to reel in junk, which can be sold for a small profit or saved and turned into useful items with the recycling machine (which unlocks with level 4 fishing.)
When a fish is hooked a window appears with a fishing mini-game. The player must move the highlighted area up or down to keep the fish inside it. While the fish overlaps it the catch meter will fill, while the fish is not inside the area it will decrease. If the catch meter fills completely the fish is caught, if it becomes completely empty the fish escapes. If the fish does not leave the meter boundary once, you will receive a "perfect" notification.
When playing the fishing mini game with mouse and keyboard, when one presses the left mouse button down, the bar raises but lowers if the left mouse button is not pressed. This means that you want to use left mouse pulses to actually raise the bar, not merely clicking, as a moderately fast series of clicks will just hover the bar stationary.
There are 5 types of fish in the mini game:
Mixed: These fish use the basic movement pattern.
Smooth: These fish have a more steady movement pattern.
Sinker: These fish have a faster downwards acceleration.
Floater: These fish have a faster upwards acceleration.
Dart: These fish move more random with a [2 x difficulty]% higher possible amplitude in both directions, moving erratically up and down the fishing bar.
See the fishing page for more details about equipment, mechanics and things unlocked as the fishing skill levels up.
There are five fish in the game classified as 'legendary'. These fish are caught under specific circumstances and have high difficulty. With the exception of the Legend, legendary fish will not appear again after being caught once.
An upgraded pole, bait and quality tackle will make catching these fish easier.
Note: Please refer to the Discussion before editing Legend to all seasons.
Crab Pot Fish
Some fish are only catchable using a baited Crab Pot. All of these creatures can be used as components in the Crab Pot Bundle. All can be used in Cooking. Crabs also drop from Rock Crabs (15%) and Lava Crabs (25%). Clams, Cockles, Mussels and Oysters can also be foraged on the beach.
Between beach foraging and Rock Crab loot it is possible to complete the Crab Pot bundle without the use of a crab pot. Baiting the rewarded crab pots however, is not possible without first reaching level two in fishing.
Note that any fish dropped by monsters or foraged shellfish do not count towards the fish collection. They must be caught with a pole or in a crab pot.
All Crab Pot fishes are worth 5 XP.
Constantly filters water to find food. In the process, it removes dangerous toxins from the environment.
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40g
50g
60g
80g
Ocean
3.174444%
1/7
Other Catchables
There are some consumable non-junk catches players can reel in while fishing. They do not trigger the fishing mini-game, but are instead immediately picked up. All 3 can be used in cooking, most notably Seaweed in the Maki Roll recipe for the Chef's bundle.
Specialty Fish Bundle
Ocean Fish Bundle
Night Fishing Bundle
Lake Fish Bundle
Rain
River Fish Bundle
Chowder
Fish (1)
Seaweed (1)
Rice (1)
Sap (2)
