How to Fish Weapons Unlock Guide: Every Gun, Its Price and Its Island

How to Fish gates its entire arsenal behind island progression, and never clearly tells you what unlocks where or for how much. The result is a predictable pattern: players buy the wrong gun at the wrong shop, then cannot afford the right one one island later. Here is every weapon, its confirmed price, its unlock point and what it is actually for.

The Unlock Map

All prices corroborated across TposeGaming's gun guide ($50/$150/$650/$20,000), Destructoid's items breakdown (dynamite $25) and Maingamers' purchase-priority notes.

Island 1: No Guns, By Design

The Lighthouse sells zero firearms. Melee carries the whole island:

• Knife ($45) + its anvil ladder: three early sharpenings ($14 / $28 / $36) lift it from 16 base damage to 22; the full tree ends at 120
• Brass knuckles ($24) are the slot-free alternative, scaling 5 → 60 across 16 tiers
• The Spider Crab dies to max-sharpened melee through its self-stun punish windows

The knife is also disposable — sell it before sailing if the shotgun fund needs the boost. Guns replace melee completely from the next island onward.

Island 2: Pistol and Shotgun

The Forest's shop introduces firearms. The correct read of its two options:

• Shotgun ($150): buy immediately. Wide spread catches fast approaches, burst damage punishes the Giant Piranha, and it remains serviceable into mid-game
• Pistol ($50): skip on any normal run — per TposeGaming, it costs a third of the shotgun and hits far softer. Its one niche is co-op speedruns where one player pours upgrades into it as a hand-off weapon

Island 3: The SMG Tier

The Desert adds the SMG ($650) — the workhorse for Islands 3 and 4 including the Pufferfish fight. Critical caveat from every guide that tested it bare: recoil is rough, so a compensator or suppressor is close to mandatory before boss work. Fit attachments when you buy the gun, not after losing a fight to spray.

This island's shop is also where attachment categories (laser, red-dot, compensator/suppressor, extended magazine) become the real upgrade path — stability first, magazine second.

Island 4: Sniper Rifle

The Rocks tier brings the precision option:

• Highest per-shot damage and the game's largest trick-shot multipliers
• Built for the Terrorizing Bird's vertical movement
• Turns mid-air kills into the most profitable action available at this stage

Late: The $20,000 Assault Rifle

The endgame tax. Per TposeGaming, you need the assault rifle "fully attached before the lava whale" — partial kits extend the final fight toward the white escape bar's limit. Start saving when Island 4 opens; the price does not negotiate.

Dynamite: The Off-Books Option

$25 per stick from early shops onward. Not ammo-efficient against bosses, but per Destructoid it is "one of the laziest and most effective ways to fish" — clustered shallows clear instantly, and it doubles as an emergency phase-resetter during bad fights.

Purchase Priority Across a Run

1. Radar ($10) — coordinates beat firepower until you have a destination
2. Shotgun ($150) + shells
3. SMG ($650) + compensator/suppressor
4. Attachment kit completion
5. Assault Rifle savings fund (start early, finish fully attached)
6. Boat parts last

Ammo Economics Per Weapon

Purchase price is only the down payment; each gun carries its own supply curve:

Upgrade ladders compound this: pushing the sniper to its 500-damage ceiling costs $10,000 across all steps on top of the $3,800 gun, while the assault rifle's full 40→100 path runs just $5,800 on top of $20,000 — making the rifle's upgrades the cheapest endgame damage per dollar.

Budget-minded runners track ammo like bait: count what the last session actually spent and buy forward from there. The players who run dry mid-boss are almost always the ones who bought exactly enough for the attempt rather than the attempt plus its mistakes.

What About the Fists?

Pure-fist runs are a real community challenge — viable through Island 1, heroic through the Forest, and functionally a different game afterward. The brass-knuckles-only Spider Crab kill remains a popular speedrun constraint. For everyone else, melee's retirement at Island 2 is permanent; the shops exist because fists stop scaling there.

Reading Shop Stock Like a Pro

Island shops stock progressively, and knowing the pattern prevents both panic buys and missed windows:

• Each island's shop carries its tier plus previous tiers — the Desert still sells shotguns if yours broke
• Attachments appear alongside their weapons — buying the SMG without checking attachment stock means a return trip
• Ammo restocks everywhere guns do — but prices assume you buy in bulk, not in emergencies

One habit separates efficient runs from chaotic ones: visit every new shop fully before spending anywhere. The Desert player who buys the SMG immediately often discovers the attachment shelf ten minutes later and pays for a second trip's worth of regret.

FAQ

When do guns unlock in How to Fish?

Island 2 — the Forest. Island 1 has no gun shop at all; melee carries the entire tutorial rock.

What is the best weapon order to buy?

Shotgun → SMG with attachments → Sniper (for the bird tier) → fully-attached Assault Rifle. Skip the pistol unless speedrunning.

How much is the best weapon?

The Assault Rifle at $20,000, required fully attached for the final boss. It is the single largest purchase in the game.