How to Fish All Islands: Unlock Order and What Gates Each One

How to Fish has five islands, and the game never clearly tells you how any of them open. The pattern is always the same — kill the island's boss, keep its trophy, hand it to the right NPC — but which trophy goes where is exactly the detail players miss, especially after selling a "useless" drop. Here is the full map.

Island List at a Glance

The same chain carries a 50-fold health ramp. Exact boss stats:

Official source: the How to Fish store page describes the island progression loop and the official patch notes record every balance pass behind these islands — ordinary meat never advances the story; only named trophies do.

Island 1 — Lighthouse

Everything starts here: clams, the $3 rod, and a lighthouse keeper with an appetite. He pays for thrown clams, teaches the basics, and eventually hands you the Beer Can that summons the Spider Crab — beat it with the sidestep-and-punish loop and bring the reward back for the boat keys. No boat keys, no archipelago. The Lighthouse island guide covers the clamming loop and every pickup on the starting rock.

What to do before leaving:

• Buy the Radar ($10) — coordinates are useless without it
• Sharpen your knife up the $14/$28/$36 ladder (damage 16→18→20→22) or sell it if you are going gun-only
• Stock Hotdog Lures at $1 each; they stay useful into the Forest

Island 2 — Forest

The Forest introduces leeches that latch onto you, thicker terrain, and — critically — the gun shop. Pistol ($50, 25 base damage), Shotgun ($150, 3 damage per pellet). Buy the shotgun, ignore the pistol, and hunt the Giant Piranha — a 2,500 HP gatekeeper that hits for 32 on contact. Its drop unlocks the Island 3 coordinates once handed in.

The Forest is also where money starts flowing properly: bigger catches plus trick-shot multipliers make the leech annoyance worth enduring. Our Forest island guide maps the leech spawns and the girl's quest chain that hands you the Island 3 coordinates.

Island 3 — Desert

Tropical waters, tougher creatures, and the SMG ($650, 24 base damage) on the shelf. Fit a compensator before you fight — recoil control matters more here than anywhere earlier. The Pufferfish guards this island — an 18,000 HP wrecking ball with a 34-damage contact hit — and its tail is the ticket to Island 4.

This is the cooking island. Cooked catches outsell raw consistently enough that building the cooking routine here funds the rest of the run per GamesHub's tips breakdown. Everything the Desert gates sits in the Desert island guide, from the grill master's shark to the tourist's carrot bait.

Island 4 — Rocks

Rocky terrain shifts combat skyward: the bird encounter rewards precision over spray. The Sniper Rifle arrives in this tier and pairs perfectly with the fight — highest precision damage plus the best trick-shot multipliers in the game. Win, take the bird head, trade it for the Volcano radar coordinates. The Terrorizing Bird guide breaks down the Tuna-on-grass summon and the fight itself.

Island 5 — Military Volcano

The endgame. A military-themed island guarding the final encounter — the giant whale that community guides call the lava whale, magma whale, or Mutated Bowhead Whale depending on which guide you read. Bring the Assault Rifle ($20,000) fully attached; this fight punishes underinvestment more than any prior boss. Delivering the whale into the volcano completes the story.

Speedrunners hit this point inside an hour for the achievement; completionists will want every side quest and Fishipedia entry first. Our boss guide breaks down each fight's mechanics individually, and the Magma Whale boss guide handles the final encounter shot by shot — note that killing the whale is not the ending; delivering it into the volcano is.

The Hidden Mini-Bosses on Every Island

The five story bosses are not the whole archipelago. Six summonable bosses are never mentioned in dialogue or quest text — the only way to find out they exist is to buy a boss lure and cast it. None of them appears anywhere in the main progression chain, which is why so many players finish the game without ever seeing one.

Broken out by island, the summon economy looks like this:

• Island 1 — Lighthouse. The $8 Empty Beer Can is the only boss bait in the starting economy, and it is a story item you get back from the keeper after handing him a beer. Its target is the 750 HP Spider Crab.
• Island 2 — Forest. Two hidden bosses live here. The $1 Leech Bait is the cheapest boss summon in the game and converts 100% into the 2,500 HP Giant Piranha the girl asks you to kill. The $40 Beginner Boss Lure is the odd one out: it is a straight coin flip between the 1,500 HP Sunfish and the 1,000 HP The Old Pike, and the game never tells you which one you bought it for.
• Island 3 — Desert. The $280 Standard Boss Lure summons the 2,300 HP Blue Shark, which shows up in the mid-map water around the Forest side of the archipelago. The story boss here, the 18,000 HP Pufferfish, runs off the $100 Carrot instead.
• Island 4 — Rocks. The $1,200 Professional Boss Lure hooks the 6,000 HP Tuna. Tuna is not really a boss fight — it is the key to one: lay the Tuna on the grass and the 7,800 HP Albatross (the Terrorizing Bird) comes down to eat it.
• Island 5 — Military Volcano. The Fish Bucket is a quest reward rather than a purchase, and it summons the 20,000 HP Bowhead Whale that the Scientist wants delivered.

Two of these are pure money and the rest are not, and the arithmetic is unforgiving:

• Spider Crab is the best return in the game — $8 of bait for a $10,000 base-value trophy. It is also strictly once-only, so it cannot be farmed.
• Bing Bong is a net loss on paper — a $350 Coconut for a $300 base-value body — but it is the cheapest 2,000 HP punching bag in the game and the community uses it to test loadouts.
• The $40 Beginner Boss Lure is the worst bait in the game for income. Its two outcomes are worth $50 and $80. Buy it to fill Fishipedia entries, not to make money.
• The Blue Shark margin is $20 before ammo and repairs, on a $280 purchase. The Tuna margin is $800 and the Goblin Shark margin is $400, which is why the Scientific Boss Lure is only a farming tool for players who already have endgame weapons.

Official source: How to Fish on Steam confirms the five-island structure and the shop tiers, and the official patch notes record the balance passes that moved several of these creatures. SteamDB tracks the build history if you need to date a change.

Preparing for Each Island: A Loadout Checklist

Walking into an island under-geared is how white escape bars get wasted. Before sailing, match your loadout to the destination:

Two universal items belong on every list: the Radar ($10 — coordinates are dead weight without it), and a lure stock one tier above the local water. Running out of lures mid-island means a forced shopping trip back across the map.

Common Island Progression Mistakes

Selling the trophy early. Worth repeating because it is half of all stalled runs: the uniquely named drop is the key. Ordinary fish fund the trip; the trophy opens the next door.

Fighting bosses under-geared to "save money." Every lost boss attempt burns lures, ammo and the white-bar timer. One correct weapon purchase is cheaper than five failed attempts.

Skipping NPC conversations. Hand-in targets are rarely marked aggressively. If an island seems complete but nothing unlocked, walk the settlement and talk to everyone — someone is holding the next quest step.

Ignoring cooking until late. Players who build the habit at the Desert arrive at the Volcano with thousands more coins than those who start cooking at the Rocks.

Sailing Smart: Radar, Coordinates and Travel

Island travel has its own small skill tree. The radar ($10) reads NPC coordinates, and later boat upgrades mount it permanently so it stops consuming an equipment slot each sail. Until then, equip it manually before every crossing — the number of players stuck staring at valid coordinates with no radar equipped is not small.

Fuel-and-speed boat parts exist, but treat them as late purchases: the standard boat reaches every island fine, and coins routed to weapons shorten every future fight instead.

What Changes at Each Island: Difficulty Curve

The difficulty steps are mechanical, not just numeric:

• Forest: leeches latch on and chip health during fights; melee range gets riskier
• Desert: creature health pools jump enough that spray weapons start feeling weak
• Rocks: enemies move vertically, rewarding precision over volume
• Volcano: military-grade opposition expects endgame loadouts and full attachments

Each island also upgrades its shopping tier, which is why the unlock order doubles as the weapon progression order — the game gates its arsenal behind the same chain as its map.

FAQ

How many islands are in How to Fish?

Five: Lighthouse, Forest, Desert, Rocks and the Military Volcano.

Why won't the next island unlock?

You either have not beaten the current island's boss, sold its trophy, or have not found the NPC waiting for it. Check your inventory first — the item is usually already in it.

Can you sail back to earlier islands?

Yes. Once unlocked, earlier islands remain accessible by boat for farming catches and finishing leftover quests.