How to Fish: The Complete Guide (Tips and Tricks for All Players)

Every now and then, a game comes out of nowhere and takes the world by storm. This is exactly what happened with How to Fish, a pretty basic game with straightforward mechanics, but with a lot of character.

While it reminds me of Megabonk, it’s fun character becomes a challenge soon after your first minutes in the game and you realize that there might be some complexity and challenge hidden behind the zany style.

And that’s what I am here to help you with: all the How to Fish tips and tricks you need to know to fully master the game, from unlocking achievements, boosting revenue and maximizing your weapons to boss kills and everything in between. Let’s begin!

The main gameplay loop

If I am to oversimplify everything, here’s how the game looks like:

1. Get the Fish: Use your rod to hook a creature and fling it out of the water. Alternatively, use dynamite to blast a cluster of fish onto the surface.
2. Kill It with Style: Once it’s airborne, swap to your weapon and finish it off. The way you kill it matters for points: headshots, no-scopes, 360s.
3. Cook It (Optional but Recommended): Once you unlock the grill, cooking an item increases its value up to 1.5x. This applies to fish and weapons.
4. Sell the Corpse: Turn your stylishly-killed, perfectly-cooked catch into cash.
5. Invest and Progress: Use that money to buy better weapons, boat engines, and gear. Talk to every NPC you encounter, complete their quests, travel to new islands and defeat all bosses.

On a very basic level, this is what How to Fish is all about. Of course, things are a bit more complicated, so let’s get more in-depth below!

The $10 Purchase to Buy Early

Buy the radar as soon as possible. It costs ten dollars at the Lighthouse and is one of the cheapest and most useful items in the entire game.

NPCs will start giving you coordinates for other islands, and without the radar, you can’t do anything with them.

Buy it, forget about it, and later on you can upgrade your boat setup so the radar stays permanently mounted instead of something you have to keep re-equipping.

The Killscore System – How to Turn Fish into Fortune

The Killscore system is the most important mechanic for your economy. A creature’s final value is determined by its base price multiplied by your kill’s “score.”

A mid-tier fish killed with a 5x multiplier will sell for as much as a late-game fish killed with a 1x, so it’s worth dealing with them in style.

Understanding Multipliers

You can stack multipliers by performing specific actions during each kill, and you should try to do them when casually playing (as opposed to fighting bosses):

• Airborne: The creature must be in the air when it dies. This is why launching fish with your rod is so important – it sets up the opportunity for every other multiplier.
• Headshot: Self-explanatory, but critical for bosses and high-health targets. A standard pistol shot might do 33 damage, but a headshot deals 50.
• Noscope: You must be firing from the hip, not aiming down sights. Scoping cancels the noscope multiplier.
• 360: You must perform a full spin before firing. This is the hardest multiplier to land consistently.
• One-Shot: The creature must die in a single hit. This is easier with powerful weapons like the Shotgun or upgraded rifles.

Focus on Melee first

There’s an anvil sitting next to the lighthouse on the starting island, and it sharpens your melee weapons.

The cost climbs every time you use it, but each upgrade adds a few points of damage, and if the first boss is giving you trouble, this is worth doing before you throw more money at guns.

Your knife and knuckles aren’t just backup weapons either. They’re what you need for the Noob achievement, for taking down sharks up close, and for progress toward the Handyman achievement, which is specifically about melee kills.

Get a Gun as Soon as Possible

While melee weapons are fun and can be very useful, nothing beats an actual gun.

The pistol from the board is a fine starter weapon, but your real goal is the Shotgun, which costs $150 and becomes available on the second island.

The Shotgun is one of the most useful weapons in the entire game and can carry you through a large portion of the story. It deals massive damage at close range, which is perfect for the airborne fish you’ll be launching. It also excels at killing bosses when combined with headshots.

You should also upgrade it smartly. There are four attachment categories: extended magazine, laser sight, optic, and muzzle. Focus your upgrades on a single weapon or two, instead of trying to max out everything.

After the Shotgun, the Assault Rifle is the best in-game weapon once you unlock it.

Also read: How to Fish: Bing Bong Guide

Dynamite Is Worth It

Once you’ve reached the Forest Island, dynamite becomes available for $25, and it’s a great weapon, especially for boss fights.

But you can also throw a stick into the water and kill several creatures at once, leaving their bodies floating on the surface, ready to be scooped up.

As your gear improves, properly caught kills combined with stacked Killscore multipliers and cooking bonuses will earn more than dynamite alone.

But you will surely need some for seagulls, clustered fish, the Terrorizing Bird boss and basically any boss in the game. Speaking of which, make sure to check out my guide on how to defeat the Pufferfish in How to Fish.

Match Your Bait to the Island

Species are tied to specific islands, specific rods, and specific bait, and if nothing is biting, you most likely use the wrong things.

Spend your first few dollars on hot dogs. They’re used as bait for crustaceans, which sell for noticeably more than the crabs you catch on default bait, and that early cash difference is what lets you buy better gear faster.

The broad island progression looks like this:

• Lighthouse: Crab Fishing Rod, paired with basic or junk bait
• Forest: Fishing Rod, paired with early lure tiers
• Desert: improved lure tiers
• Rocks: Professional Lure
• Volcano: Scientific Lure

Certain bosses ignore all of that and demand their own unique bait. For example, the Spider Crab can be summoned with the Empty Beer Can, while the Giant Piranha needs a Modified Leech.

You can check out my guide to defeating the Giant Piranha in How to Fish here.

Boats and Engines: A Waste of Money (Mostly)

OK, this might sound strange, but the truth is that you don’t need all the engine upgrades to do well in How to Fish.

Get a few good ones and you’re set. The first good one is available on the Forest Island for $230, and later, Island 4 offers the Dual Motors setup for $860, the fastest engine in the game.

So instead of wasting your cash on all boat upgrades, save it for guns and upgrading them.

The Grill Is Your Best Friend

The grill is one of the biggest economic upgrades in the game and becomes available once you reach the island with the Grillmaster (Island 3).

The grill works by increasing an item’s cooking multiplier up to 1.5x its normal value. The process is simple but requires attention:

1. Hold a sellable item over the grill.
2. Watch the cooking multiplier rise.
3. Remove it when it hits 1.5x.
4. If you leave it too long, the item turns black and its value collapses.

Cooking isn’t limited to seafood either. Weapons and other sellable items can go on the grill too, gaining up to that same 1.5x boost

Keep in mind that when you reach the Volcano Island, you can skip the timing entirely and just cook fish in the lava itself, automatically hitting the full 1.5x value.

But the idea is that once you have the grill, selling valuable raw fish or items is basically throwing money away.

Seagulls: Small, Evil, and Always Watching

Anything that lies on the ground in How to Fish is a target for seagulls. So make sure to pick up everything of value ASAP, otherwise the birds will take it.

This gets easier once you’ve reached the second island and have a gun in hand, since killing the seagulls means you can drop fish without worrying about theft.

You can also shoot a seagull after it’s already stolen something to get your catch back, though be ready to swim or take the boat out, because the fish usually falls into the ocean.

The Correct Way to Spend Your Money in How to Fish

Cash is tight early on, and it’s easy to spend it on the wrong things. Here’s how I recommend spending it:

• Hot dogs first, so your bait actually pays for itself
• The radar immediately after
• A good weapon before a prettier rod
• The Shotgun once you can afford it
• Dynamite when it’s useful, but don’t stockpile it (also, keep in mind that it damages fellow teammates too)
• The first real boat engine on the Forest island
• The Island 3 grill unlock, which changes your entire income
• Attachments focusing on one main weapon instead of spread across several
• The Assault Rifle heading into the late game
• Dual Motors and casino money only once you’re not relying on either to survive

Wrapping up

How to Fish is an insanely fun game that rewards clever play and offers a bit of chaos. The physics system will punish you half the time and create hilarious, unforgettable moments the other half, which is a major part of its appeal.

But when in doubt, remember the golden rule: Launch, style, cook, sell, repeat.

If you have additional tips and tricks for fellow players, don’t hesitate to share them in the comments down below!