TL;DR
- How to Fish is not a calm fishing simulator. You catch fish, kill them with weapons, and sell them for money to progress.
- Talk to every NPC first — quests drive island progression, not free exploration.
- Your fishing rod is a launch tool, not just a fishing tool. Throw fish in the air, then shoot them for bonus money.
- Upgrade your gun early. A better weapon makes money farming much faster than a better rod does.
- Do not gamble early. Casino is for after you have cleared your key upgrades.
- Always return boss trophies to the NPC who sent you. Do not eat or sell them by mistake.
- Seagulls will steal your catch. Keep a gun on you at all times.
What Is How to Fish? A Quick Beginner Overview
How to Fish launched on Steam on August 20, 2026, from Swedish indie studio Dazed Games. It hit 1 million sales in 48 hours and has been sitting at Overwhelmingly Positive reviews ever since. If you just picked it up and are wondering what to actually do — this guide is for you.
The setup is simple. You and up to three friends go drinking on a boat. The boat crashes on a small island. To get home, you need to fish your way through a chain of islands, each with tougher creatures, better gear, and boss fish guarding the way forward. It sounds calm. It is not. Within minutes you will be shooting fish out of the air with a handgun, performing trick shots for bonus money, dodging seagulls that want to steal your catch, and probably blowing something up by accident.
The game supports 1 to 4 players in online co-op. You can absolutely play solo, but it is built to be chaotic with friends. If you are still deciding whether it is worth picking up, check our full How to Fish review before reading on.
The Core Loop — How the Game Actually Works
Everything in How to Fish comes back to one simple loop: catch creatures, kill them, sell them, buy better gear, and progress to the next island. Understanding this loop clearly will save you a lot of early confusion.
Here is how each step works in practice:
- Catch: Use your fishing rod to hook creatures from the water. Hold the cast button to charge your throw, release to cast, then hold again to reel in when something bites.
- Kill: Once a creature is out of the water, you need to finish it with a weapon — knife, brass knuckles, pistol, shotgun, or whatever you have available. The way you kill it affects how much money it is worth.
- Sell: Take your kills to the merchant on the island and sell them for coins. Do not sit on your catches. Money in the bank is better than fish rotting in your inventory.
- Upgrade: Spend your coins on better fishing rods, weapons, and boat upgrades from the equipment board.
- Progress: Talk to NPCs, complete quests, and defeat boss fish to unlock access to new islands with better gear and tougher creatures.
That is the whole game, built on top of increasingly chaotic physics. Once you have this loop in your head, everything else makes sense.
What to Do First — Your First 30 Minutes
A lot of new players run straight to the water and start fishing without talking to anyone. This is a mistake. Here is the right order for your very first session.
Step 1: Talk to Every NPC on the Starting Island
As soon as you start, you will find a wooden cabin, an equipment board, the Lighthouse Keeper, and a character called Melvin in orange overalls. Speak to all of them. Some quest stages only continue after talking to a character again — so checking back with NPCs is part of the game, not just flavour. The whole progression system is driven by NPC quest chains, not by wandering around. If you skip talking to people, you will get stuck wondering why the next island is not unlocking.
Step 2: Make Your First Kill — Any Creature, Any Method
Your first objective is just to kill something. Your bare hands or the starting knife are enough. This unlocks the Getting Started achievement and sets you on the quest chain. Do not waste money on expensive equipment at this point. Get that first kill done and talk to the Lighthouse Keeper again afterward.
Step 3: Buy a Gun Before Upgrading Your Rod
This is the most important early decision in the game. Many players spend their first coins on a better fishing rod. That is the wrong call. A better gun makes money farming dramatically faster because it lets you perform better kills — and better kills mean bigger cash multipliers on every creature you sell. Buy the pistol as soon as you can afford it. The knife is fine for the very start, but having a real gun changes everything.
Step 4: Grab the Boat Engine Upgrade Early
The first boat engine upgrade is cheap and very important. It opens up your movement between islands and is one of the key gates for early progression. Do not ignore it while chasing weapon upgrades.
Step 5: Activate the Grill When You Find It
The grill is easy to miss on the starting island. Activating it early saves you a trip back later specifically for the Grillmaster achievement, and cooking catches before you sell them can add value multipliers. It takes almost no effort. Find it, activate it, move on.
How Trick Shots Work — And Why They Matter So Much
Trick shots are one of the biggest money multipliers in the game. The way you kill a creature directly affects how much it sells for. A boring 1x kill on a plain creature is wasted potential. Here is what you need to know.
Think of your fishing rod less as a fishing tool and more as a launch pad. The moment you reel a creature out of the water, you want to throw it into the air — and then kill it while it is airborne. That is where the money is.
Kills that earn bonus multipliers include:
- Airborne kills — killing a creature while it is in the air.
- Headshots — landing a shot on the head specifically.
- No-scope kills — firing without aiming down sights.
- 360-degree kills — spinning a full 360 degrees before firing.
- Bounce shots — casting your line so it ricochets off a surface before hooking a creature.
Stacking multiple trick shot types on a single kill compounds the multiplier. A 360 no-scope airborne headshot is worth much more than a straight kill. The game actively rewards you for being creative and ridiculous, which is exactly what makes it so fun to play with friends.
Trick shot multipliers for bounce casts are roughly 1.5x for one bounce, 2x for two bounces, and 3x or higher for three or more. Learn the bounce system early — it is the fastest way to earn money in the first few islands without needing expensive gear.
Upgrade Priority — What to Buy and When
Here is the simple upgrade priority for beginners, in order:
- First gun — Get the pistol as soon as possible. It opens up trick shots and kills much faster than melee.
- Boat engine upgrade — Cheap and critical for island progression.
- Fishing rod upgrade (Carbon Rod) — Skip the Wooden Rod. Save for the Carbon Rod, which has excellent catch rates for the mid-game price. It is the best value rod for the cost.
- Better weapons — Shotgun for close-range boss fights, assault rifle for sustained damage in late-game encounters.
- Radar — Buy this for around $10 when it becomes available. It gives you island coordinates and makes navigation much easier.
The simple rule is: gun first, boat second, then rod. Everything else follows from having money coming in consistently. A good weapon makes money farming easy. A good rod without a decent weapon is slow and frustrating.
Boss Fights — What Beginners Need to Know
Every island in How to Fish has a boss creature guarding the way to the next area. Bosses have large health pools, hit hard, and often have attack patterns you need to learn. Here is how to approach them as a beginner.
Do Not Start a Boss Fight Under-Geared
The most common beginner mistake is rushing a boss before you are ready. Clear your current island’s standard creatures first, build up your coins, buy the upgrades available to you, and then take on the boss. Bosses become significantly harder if you are fighting them with a knife and a basic rod.
The Spider Crab (First Boss)
The first boss you will encounter is the Spider Crab. Use a Beer Can as bait to summon it. The crab will try to jump at you — bait it into charging, step sideways to dodge, and hit it two to four times while it is stunned. Watch the white bar under its health pool — if it runs out, the boss escapes and you have to start over. Keep your cool, dodge cleanly, and counter when it is open. After killing it, take the quest item back to the Lighthouse Keeper. This gets you the boat keys and opens up the first new island.
Always Return Boss Trophies to the NPC Who Sent You
This is the single most common progression blocker for new players. Bosses drop distinctive items — shells, fins, skeletons, heads. These look like valuable loot. They are often quest items. If the next island is not unlocking after a boss kill, check your inventory. The NPC probably wants that specific trophy, not ordinary meat chunks. Return to every quest giver with your trophy before selling or eating anything unusual.
Upgrade Before Attempting the Pufferfish
The Pufferfish is a significant difficulty spike compared to earlier bosses. It rolls around the arena aggressively, becomes faster as the fight progresses, and can release a poisonous cloud. Do not attempt it with basic gear. A fully upgraded SMG or shotgun is the recommended minimum. Keep cooked food available so you can heal mid-fight. Most importantly — keep moving. Standing still against the Pufferfish will get you killed quickly.
How Seagulls Work — And Why You Should Always Have a Gun Ready
Seagulls are an environmental hazard that catches many new players off guard. They will actively swoop in and steal fish you have caught before you can sell them. If you turn your back on a valuable catch for too long, a seagull will take it.
Keep a gun in your hand at all times when you are not actively fishing. Shoot seagulls as they approach. In co-op, it helps to have one player specifically watching the skies while others focus on fishing and killing. One of the fun achievements in the game actually requires you to let a seagull pick you up and then shoot it mid-air — so they are not just an annoyance, they are part of the game’s chaos.
The Casino — When to Gamble and When to Stop
How to Fish has an in-game casino with roulette, slot machines, and table bets. You gamble with your coin earnings — no real money is involved. But the casino deserves a specific warning for beginners.
Do not gamble in the first hour. This cannot be overstated. In the early game, every coin matters. Gambling before you have cleared your island’s key upgrades — gun, boat, rod — is a reliable way to set yourself back significantly.
Trick shots are a much more consistent way to earn money than the casino. The casino’s house edge means it is not a reliable income source. It is a fun extra, not a progression strategy.
When is gambling acceptable? After you have bought your current island’s important upgrades and have surplus common fish you were going to sell for low value anyway. If you have coins you can genuinely afford to lose, the casino is a fun chaos injection. If you are grinding for a specific upgrade — skip it and fish instead.
In co-op, set a group rule about gambling before the session starts. Someone will bet the team’s boss-fight budget if you do not agree on limits first.
Co-op Tips — How to Play With Friends
How to Fish supports up to 4 players in online co-op. One player hosts the session and friends join through Steam’s friend list or a session code. All players share the same island and the same progression — money, quests, and boss unlocks apply to the whole group. If you want to know more about the game’s place in the broader friendslop landscape, our How to Fish vs. PEAK vs. Lethal Company comparison breaks down how it stacks up against similar co-op games.
Split Your Roles
The game plays much better when your group divides responsibilities rather than all four players doing the same thing. A natural split is one player focused on trick shot kills for money, one managing the boat and radar, one covering seagull defence, and one handling NPC quests and tracking boss trophies. You do not need to be rigid about this — but having someone consistently watching the skies and someone consistently tracking quest items prevents the most common disasters.
Coordinate Before Boss Fights
Do not start a boss encounter until everyone in the group is ready and geared up. In co-op, the boss has more targets to pick from — which makes the fight more chaotic but also more survivable if everyone is shooting at the same time. Make sure everyone has reloaded, nobody is low on health, and you all know who is returning the trophy to the NPC afterward.
Watch Out for Friendly Fire
Friendly fire is real in How to Fish. If someone lines up a 360 no-scope trick shot and you walk into it — that is on you. The game’s physics create genuine “accidental” team hits. Announce your trick shots verbally or on voice chat when you can. The funniest moments come from these accidents, but they are less funny mid-boss-fight.
Share Upgrade Priorities
When one player can afford a major upgrade that benefits the whole group — like a better boat engine — let them buy it first rather than spending coins on individual weapons simultaneously. The boat upgrade helps everyone. Pool your priorities in the early game and you will progress through islands much faster.
Common Beginner Mistakes to Avoid
- Skipping NPC conversations — Quest progression stalls if you do not talk to everyone available.
- Upgrading the rod before the gun — The gun drives your money-making more than the rod does early on.
- Selling boss trophies — Always check if an unusual boss drop is a quest item before selling it.
- Gambling before upgrading — The casino is for after you are set up, not before.
- Ignoring seagulls — They will steal your high-value catches if you turn your back on them.
- Starting boss fights under-geared — Farm the current island first, then fight the boss.
- Not using the grill — Cooking catches before selling adds value. Activate the grill early and use it.
- Hoarding fish — Sell regularly. Cash in hand is worth more than creatures sitting in your inventory.
A Note on Console and Steam Deck
How to Fish currently has full controller support and runs on Steam Deck with a Playable rating. If you are curious about whether it is coming to PS5, Xbox, or Nintendo Switch 2, we have a dedicated article covering everything Dazed Games has said about a How to Fish console release. The short version: it is confirmed to be planned, but no date or platform has been announced yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is How to Fish better solo or with friends?
Both work, but the game is designed to shine in co-op. Solo play is a complete experience and a good way to learn the game at your own pace. With friends, the physics chaos, friendly fire, and shared panic around boss fights create the funniest moments. If you have even one friend to play with, the co-op experience is noticeably better than going alone.
What is the fastest way to earn money early in How to Fish?
Trick shots. Land airborne kills, bounce shots, and headshots to multiply your earnings per creature. A boring straight kill might earn you a 1x payout. A well-executed airborne trick shot on the same creature can reach 3x to 5x or higher. Learn the bounce cast system and practice on common creatures in the first island. Trick shots beat grinding for volume every time once you get them working consistently.
What do I do if the next island is not unlocking after a boss fight?
Check your inventory. You are almost certainly carrying the quest item that needs to go back to an NPC. Bosses drop distinctive trophy pieces — shells, fins, skeletons — that look like vendor loot but are actually hand-in items. Return to the NPC who sent you after the boss and talk to them with the trophy still in your inventory. This is the most common progression blocker in the entire game.
How do I get the Steam Deck to work with How to Fish?
How to Fish currently has a Playable rating on Steam Deck rather than Verified, mainly because some in-game text is small on the Deck’s screen. The game runs without major issues for most players. Install it through Steam normally, use a controller configuration, and you should be up and running. Keep an eye on the official How to Fish Steam page for any updates to Steam Deck compatibility as the developers continue to patch the game.
