ACNH fish list

Here it is – our ACNH fish list. If you’re at a loose end on your island paradise adventure, why not fling some bait out and catch some fish? With our easily digestible list, you can fill out your entire encyclopedia by finding the location, time, and season that each ocean creature spawns. Open up Blathers, it’s donation time. Or, you can cook up some tasty recipes with what you catch – every so often, you’ll think of a recipe as you catch a new fish.

For more help getting your island up to scratch, we’ve got an ACNH flower breeding guide and an ACNH art guide. Plus, here are all the Animal Crossing amiibo cards available. If you feel like some light reading, check out our Animal Crossing history lesson, too!

Let’s see what we can catch with our ACNH fish list.

How do I fish in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

Fishing in Animal Crossing New Horizons is easy, it just takes a bit of patience and luck. Right from the start of the game, you can craft a flimsy fishing rod, or purchase one from Timmy and Tommy. This immediately opens up a world of possibilities. All you need to craft a flimsy rod is five tree branches. A bit later as you catch more fish and find more crafting recipes, you can get stronger rods.

Here’s a list of all the rods available in the game:

• Flimsy fishing rod
  • Craft with five tree branches or purchase for 400 bells
• Fishing rod
  • Craft with one flimsy fishing rod and an iron nugget
• Golden fishing rod
  • Craft with one fishing rod and a gold nugget
• Colorful fishing rod
  • Purchase from the upgraded Nook’s Cranny for 2,500 bells
• Fish fishing rod
  • Purchase from the upgraded Nook’s Cranny for 2,500 bells
• Outdoorsy fishing rod –
  • Purchase from the upgraded Nook’s Cranny for 2,500 bells

You can also purchase a wetsuit from the Nook Shopping catalog and from Nook’s Cranny for 3,000 bells, or the Nook Miles catalog for 800 miles – allowing you to dive underwater and catch all manner of deep-sea critters.

Now that you’re armed and ready, simply head to any body of water. While holding your rod, press A to cast the bobber out into the water. The trick is to get it right in front of a fish so that it’ll see the bobber and chomp onto it. After a couple of tastes, a fish will bite, so slam that A button again to grab it out of the water. It couldn’t be simpler.

To catch underwater things like crabs and sea slugs, you can walk straight into the water to start swimming, as long as you’re wearing your wetsuit. Float around a bit until you see bubbles rising from the deep – where there are bubbles, there’s a creature. When you’re on top of the bubbles, hit Y to dive down into the water. Sometimes the critters move, so move along with them, and you’ll automatically grab them.

Full ACNH fish list and where to find them

We’ve broken down all the fish and sea-dwelling critters into some easy tables, so you can figure out what you’re missing and when and where to catch them. Remember that Animal Crossing islands can have either Northern or Southern hemispheres, swapping the seasons around, so check which your island is first before hunting for some fish.

River

Terraforming in New Horizons means you can make rivers on three different levels, and some fish only spawn in certain locations. Unless otherwise mentioned, fish spawn all along the river.

Pond

Here are all the fish you can catch from ponds on your island.

Sea

The following fish spawn along the shoreline of your island, with the exception of four fish at the end of the table appearing only by the wooden pier where Kapp’n moors his boat.

Sea creatures

The following critters are all found while diving underwater – so grab your wetsuit!

There you go – every single fish, shark, and mollusk available for you to catch in Animal Crossing New Horizons. Now that your museum is brimming with fish, why not check out the best fishing games, or some gardening games, to further your outdoor adventures?