Animal Crossing New Horizons’s most valuable and rare fish is the Oarfish. This guide will provide helpful in capturing this beautiful and elusive sea creature. In Animal Crossing New Horizons, one of the biggest features and most time consuming is completing the Critterpedia, an encyclopedia containing information regarding every creature the player can collect in the game. Players can go around catching and selling bugs and fish at the Nook shops for Bells to help pay off their debts or buy something they’ve been eyeing in the shops for a while or submit them to be on display at Blathers museum. At the museum, these creatures are displayed in beautiful recreations of their ecosystems in which players can explore and interact with. Players can also bring along friends to flex the collection they’ve created on their island adventure. Although, not every critter is cut from the same cloth. Some are rarer than others, some can only be captured during a specific time of year, in a specific part of the island, at a specific hemisphere of the world. The Oarfish is amongst one of the rarest fish to collect in this game. This guide will help players make the necessary steps to get closer to capturing the Oarfish.
As with many of the fish in Animal Crossing New Horizons, the Oarfish is actually a real-world fish. This fish is usually found in tropical oceans and is even a rare encounter in the real world. They stretch over 20 feet long and that still applies to the game itself. When pulling the fish out of the sea, its large length easily trumps the size of our tiny villager character. Normally when fishing around the streams or in the sea, players will begin to encounter the same fish over and over. There’s only so many times when the player can run into a Sea Bass and get introduced with a bad pun. There are certain preparations that are required before attempting to capture this creature. For starters, the player should have collected the DIY recipe for better tools. This list provides for a solid shovel, net, ax, slingshot, and most importantly, the fishing rod. Players will want the better fishing rod so it doesn’t collapse as often, since capturing the Oarfish may take a while. Here is the best way to capture an Oarfish in Animal Crossing New Horizons.
The Oarfish has certain requirements that need to be met before it can appear. For example, the Oarfish can only be captured in these months.
- January
- February
- March
- April
- May
- December
The Oarfish will not spawn any other month of the year. If it is not these months of the year, there is an easy fix. Players can enter the Nintendo Switch system settings and change the date and time to one of the months above. This can potentially change some other settings in the game if the player is going forward in time, so it is recommended to only pick a month in the past or change the year to a previous year. Fortunately, the Oarfish can be captured at any time, day or night. The Oarfish can also only be caught at the sea, meaning the best and the only location would be to capture it by the beach. This applies to the player’s very own island, other players’ islands or by participating on a Nook Tour to other islands.
Before heading to the ocean with the fishing rod, it is important to grind for some Fish Bait. Fish Bait is a helpful item for capturing the Oarfish, as it instantly spawns a fish in the water rather than having to wait for one to appear. To grind for Fish Bait, search around the beach until the player notices sand moving on the ground. Using the shovel, dig in the location where the sand moved and it will pull out a clam. Heading to a crafting bench will allow the player to turn the clam into the bait. It only takes one clam per each bait, fortunately. Now that the player has the bait and the fishing rod, head back onto the beach.
The best place to fish for the Oarfish would be on the dock. The dock has a good elevation point for determining where to place the bait. Use the bait and wait for a fish to spawn. The Oarfish shows a massive shadow when it appears in the water. Keep fishing and using bait until the Oarfish appears. It appears randomly and may take some time. To help the time pass, bring along the portable radio to listen to some tunes (or just play something online). Fishing is always about patience, but eventually, the Oarfish will appear and the player can sell it for 9000 Bells or submit it to the museum for collection purposes.
Animal Crossing New Horizons has a huge emphasis on being patient. From creating structures, capturing bugs and fish, the game builds tons of its feature behind a time wall (or players can time skip if they don’t wish to wait around). The Oarfish is one of the most beautiful and exotic fish in the game. Different types of fish appear in the game depending on which hemisphere the player decided to pick at the beginning of the game and as the year goes by, new fish are cycled in and out. Once the player unlocks the ability to Terraform (an ability that allows players to change the landscape of their island), they can add new ponds for fish like Koi fish to spawn in. Animal Crossing New Horizons rewards players who take their time and grasp everything the game has to offer. There is no game like this and no game players would be totally content with sitting on the beach and doing absolutely nothing with. Collecting fruit, building a home, and capturing fish are just the tip of the iceberg with what Animal Crossing New Horizons has accomplished.
Animal Crossing New Horizons is available now on the Nintendo Switch.
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