🗺️ How to Fish Walkthrough: All Five Islands

How to Fish runs five islands in a fixed chain — Lighthouse, Forest, Desert, Rocks, and the Volcano/Military area. Each island ends with a boss whose special loot (a fin, skeleton, head or similar trophy) must be handed to a specific NPC, and that hand-in is what reveals the next island's coordinates. The single most important rule in the game: never sell or cook boss loot — ordinary meat is safe, mission items are not. Beat the final boss, the Mutated Bowhead Whale, hand over its fin for the Military Ship Key, and the ending plays; the save then continues with all your gear and upgrades for collection, casino and achievement cleanup.

💡 The game is sandbox-style — you can explore freely, but island unlocks only move when the previous island's loot is delivered.

• The ship and Radar ($10) from the Lighthouse chain — without the Radar there is no green mark to follow
• A reliable weapon: the Shotgun is the early-to-mid workhorse and the first big buy on the Forest island
• Budget for each island's lures — bosses are summoned with specific bait, not found in the wild
• Free bag space for boss drops, and the discipline to never sell or grill them (skeleton, fin, head and other odd shapes are hand-in items)
• Know the white escape bar: below a boss's health bar is a countdown — if it expires the boss flees and must be re-summoned

The Lighthouse route is the first hour of the game: clams for the Keeper, the $3 rod and Free Lure, the Knife ground to 20 damage on the Anvil, a Beer Can traded for the Empty Beer Can, and the Spider Crab — stay close, sidestep its charge, punish with 2-4 hits while it is stunned, and do not pull it too far or it jumps. Feed the meat to the Keeper for the Ship Key, buy the Radar ($10), and follow the green mark northwest.

• Forest priority purchase: the Shotgun — one of the strongest early-to-mid weapons; skip the Beginner Boss Lure and Dynamite for now
• Find the Lady by the lake, then collect the 3 Leeches (water bugs) on the ground and feed all of them to her → she gives you the Modified Leech
• Use the Modified Leech to catch the Giant Piranha — it summons small fish, so clear the adds first, then focus the boss (the Shotgun works well)
• Hand the skeleton to the Lady → Island 3 coordinates

💡 Optional detour: the Beginner Boss Lure can summon The Old Pike instead — an easier fight that mostly telegraphs tail strikes.

The Desert (west of the Forest) hands you two things: the grill, which quietly transforms your entire economy, and the hardest boss so far. Do the grill first.

• Buy the Standard Boss Lure (about $280) and summon the Blue Shark — its spiral attack is easy to avoid; beat it and talk to the NPC beside the grill for the Lighter, which lets you cook creatures for up to roughly 1.5x their selling price
• Main quest: find the Tourist under the tree — he is afraid of a certain fish
• Catch the Needlefish and feed it to him → he gives you a Carrot
• Use the Carrot to summon the Pufferfish: keep your distance, shoot twice, and immediately run the opposite way — it chases like a rolling destruction ball
• Hand the fin / trophy to the Tourist → Island 4 coordinates

💡 From this island on, cooking catches to about 1.5x before selling is the default — raw fish is leaving money on the table (details in our Money guide).

Rocks is a two-boss island with a chain: the Tuna is both a fight and the bait for the Albatross.

• Before departure, upgrade the ship's Radar — the upgraded version mounts on the ship instead of being held
• Buy the Professional Lure / Professional Boss Lure and catch the Tuna — it pounces at you; avoid the jump and kill it with the Shotgun
• Place the Tuna corpse on the ground and wait a few seconds → it summons the Albatross, an airborne boss
• The Shotgun's range falls short here: switch to an Uzi/SMG or a Sniper Rifle, hide behind cover against its droppings (they deal damage), and shoot when it pauses
• Hand the head to the NPC → the final island's coordinates

North of Rocks, the volcano area is the endgame: the Scientists' Fish Bucket summons an ordinary Bowhead Whale, and that whale's corpse is literally the offering the volcano wants.

• Find the Hazmat NPC (the Scientist in yellow protective gear) and buy the Scientific Lure; catch 5 native fish from the fire-mountain area and feed all of them to him → the Fish Bucket
• Strongly recommended: buy and upgrade an Assault Rifle, including several ammo levels
• Use the Fish Bucket to summon the ordinary Bowhead Whale, defeat it, and keep the corpse
• Build a path up the crater with wooden boards and throw the whale corpse into the volcano → the final boss, the Mutated Bowhead Whale (Lava Whale), rises
• Final fight: stockpile healing items at the military base first — it is huge, hits hard enough to drop you in a few hits, and spits lava. Keep moving, output with the Assault Rifle, heal immediately, and do not drag it far into open water or it may reset
• Hand the fin to the Hazmat NPC → the Military Ship Key; take the military ship to the mainland and the ending plays

💡 After the credits you can continue the same save — all equipment and upgrades are retained for collection, casino skins and achievement cleanup.

• Never sell or grill mission loot — it is the key to the next island
• A fled boss (white escape bar expired) must be re-summoned with the same bait
• In co-op, the player carrying a quest item must be present to hand it in
• Save via the menu's Save / Main Menu / Quit — the post-patch save system also autosaves every minute
• Radar not pointing anywhere? First check that it is equipped and the quest is actually complete, then check for patch notes