Big Yummy Fish in How to Fish: The Forest Island Piranha Quest

The big yummy fish is the Giant Piranha, and the name comes from the Forest Island girl who asks you to kill it. Her request is the entire quest briefing: there is "this big yummy fish swimming around here, but I can't kill it without a gun. could you kill it for me?" She is not allowed weapons, so the killing is on you. The chain is short once you know it — pick leeches out of the island grass, turn them into Leech Bait, hook the piranha, kill it, hand over the meat, and collect the Island 3 coordinates.

Quick facts before the walkthrough:

• The bait: Leech Bait, listed at $1 in the shop data, with a 100% Giant Piranha hook rate
• The target: Giant Piranha, 2,500 HP, 32 contact damage, base value $11,000
• The reward: the coordinates to Island 3 — no cash changes hands
• Leeches: community guides disagree between 3 and 5; pick up every one you see

What the Big Yummy Fish Actually Is

It is a boss-class creature wearing a nickname. The girl's dialogue never says "Giant Piranha", which is exactly why players search the phrase and land on generic boss pages instead. The creature you want is the data-file entry with 2,500 HP — tougher than Bing Bong at 2,000 HP and more than three times the Spider Crab's 750, but well short of Tuna at 6,000 and Pufferfish at 18,000.

Do not confuse it with the ordinary Piranha. That one sits at 5 HP, deals 15 contact damage and sells for $4, so if the fish you shot died instantly it was not the quest target.

The Full Quest Chain

Two details matter more than the order. Leech Bait has a 100% hook rate on the Giant Piranha, so there is no luck in step 4 — if that bait is on the line, the piranha is what bites. And every boss bait is lost 100% of the time after the cast, so do not burn your last one while a full inventory of other lures sits unused.

Where to Find Leeches on Forest Island

Leeches are not fish and not water catches. They are small ground pickups in the grass along the island paths — a prompt appears when you walk over them, and the models sit low enough in the foliage that most players walk past the first few. Sweep the trails between the beach and the inland structures rather than staring at the shoreline.

This is also where the guides split. A Steam Community achievements guide counts three leeches; several full walkthroughs, including our own Forest Island page, say five. Both numbers are in circulation and the game shows no counter. Sweep the grass, pick up everything, hand over what you have. The turn-in completes when the girl has enough, and an extra leech in your inventory costs nothing.

Leech Bait: $1 for a Guaranteed Giant Piranha

Very few baits in How to Fish point at exactly one creature. Leech Bait does, and it is the cheapest forced hook in the game:

Compare that with the $40 Beginner Boss Lure, which only splits its odds between two mini-bosses, and the $1 price tag stops looking like a beginner item. What you pay for is certainty, and the certainty is one-shot: a missed reel costs the bait plus another walk through the grass.

Giant Piranha Stats and How to Kill It

That $11,000 base value is real data, and it is the highest creature value reachable this early — above the Spider Crab's $10,000, below only the late-game bosses. The meat the quest actually asks for is a separate and much cheaper item listed at $25, so hand the fish over before you sell anything and let the quest close.

Weapon math, using shop prices and damage from the game's data:

The Shotgun is the recommendation here, not the Pistol. A stock Pistol needs a hundred hits of patience against 2,500 HP, while the shotgun lands several pellets per trigger pull at close range. On Easy difficulty the creature's health is cut by 25% and its damage by 50%, which turns 2,500 HP into roughly 1,875 and makes a first attempt genuinely forgiving. Patch 1.0.12 rebalanced piranhas, and the official notes publish no new numbers, so treat exact damage values as version-sensitive.

Official source: How to Fish patch notes on Steam — the 1.0.12 entry documents the piranha rebalance, and 1.0.9 documents the Easy and Hard modifiers. The game itself is listed on the official Steam store page.

What You Get for Killing It

The reward is progression, not payment: the girl hands over the Island 3 coordinates, the desert. No cash, no weapon, no bait refund. If you are farming money, this quest is not the reason — the money farming guide is the better read.

What you also get is invisible: the island chain does not open until this hand-in happens. The Giant Piranha is the gate between the Forest and the Desert, and the full quest list shows the same pattern repeating on every island — one NPC request, one boss, one set of coordinates. How to Fish is a two-person project from Dazed Games, and the version history that moved this fight around is tracked on SteamDB's app page.

If You Cannot Kill It Yet

Three honest options, in order of how well they work:

1. Buy the Shotgun at $150. It is the cheapest weapon that kills 2,500 HP in a reasonable time.
2. Lower the difficulty. Since patch 1.0.9, Easy mode cuts enemy health by 25% and enemy damage by 50%. Nothing about the quest changes otherwise.
3. Bring the lobby. Patch 1.0.4 raised co-op lobbies from 4 to 8 players. One extra gun halves the fight, and the beginner guide covers the early gun unlock order if you are still deciding what to buy first.

What does not work is ignoring the quest and sailing off. The Island 3 coordinates come only from the hand-in, and no alternate route around it is documented anywhere in the game or the patch notes.

Why the Girl Cannot Do It Herself

Her dialogue is explicit: she cannot kill it without a gun, and she does not have one. The game frames that as a rule rather than a skill problem. Forest Island's NPCs hand you the things they cannot do themselves, and the same pattern runs through the whole game — the lighthouse keeper and his beer can, the grill master and his shark, the scientist and the whale. Reading her line as a weapon restriction also explains why no amount of fishing on her behalf counts. The fish has to die, and only you can do that.

Common Mistakes

• Selling the leeches. They are worth $4 each as items and $1 as bait, so the sale looks smart right up until the quest stalls.
• Fishing with the wrong lure. There is no percentage game to play. Leech Bait is 100% and everything else is a lottery.
• Killing the wrong piranha. The 5 HP ordinary Piranha drops a $4 body. If it died to one shot, it was not the quest target.
• Letting it reach you in the water. 32 contact damage is survivable once and lethal repeatedly.
• Upgrading a Pistol instead of buying a Shotgun. The Pistol's top tier costs thousands for 160 damage; the $150 shotgun plus shells finishes this job faster.

FAQ

What is the big yummy fish in How to Fish?

It is the Giant Piranha on Forest Island. The girl calls it "this big yummy fish" because her dialogue never names the species — 2,500 HP, 32 contact damage, caught with $1 Leech Bait.

How many leeches do I need?

Guides disagree: a Steam Community achievements guide says three, several walkthroughs say five. There is no in-game counter, so pick up every leech you cross and hand over the stack.

Can I skip the big yummy fish quest?

Not in any documented way. The Island 3 coordinates are the hand-in reward and this is the only place they come from. If the fight is the problem, lower the difficulty or buy the $150 Shotgun.

What do I get for killing it?

The Island 3 coordinates and quest progress. No cash and no item reward beyond the meat you hand over. The creature's base value is listed at $11,000 and the meat item at $25; the payout is the island, not the fish.

Do I need a gun to catch it?

No. The rod and the bait do the catching, and Leech Bait makes that part automatic. You need a gun for the killing, which is the part the girl cannot do.

Related Guides

• Forest Island Guide — the leech quest, the gun unlock and everything else on the island
• Giant Piranha Guide — the full boss fight with tactics and stats
• All Quests and Missions — where this chain sits in the island order
• Bait Guide: All Tiers — every lure, its cost and its forced hook rate
• How to Fish Walkthrough — the route through all five islands
• Beginner Guide — what to buy first if 2,500 HP sounds like a lot