This December and January, as sharks slink away from your island waters and summer slips to autumn and winter, there are tons of new, exciting, and expensive fish coming to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Players in the northern hemisphere have a huge variety of fish making their triumphant return to your island, while the southern hemisphere has a whole lot of summer fun in store. So while southern hemisphere players will be swimming with sharks - all six species with their distinctive shadows are available in the summer months, and most of them sell for over 10,000 Bells (and look really cool on display) - the northern hemisphere will be hunting different kinds of pointy-nosed poisson. First up, the sturgeon is one pricey catch to land, but you’ll likely be spending a lot of time down at the pier to try your hand with the giant blue marlin with its distinctive, sword-like, bill. On top of that, you can still try to catch your own piece of history by hooking the deep sea Barreleye and ancient Coelacanth. With the addition of the new Kapp’n Island tour feature though, players can get a chance at catching out-of-season fish once a day - so be sure to take the trip every day! On your regular island though, the rivers are teeming with new life too: as well as the aforementioned sturgeon at the river mouth, you can try to surface some of Animal Crossing’s most valuable and blingy fish, the Golden Trout and Stringfish. Let’s not neglect the (relatively) small fry, however: you can also celebrate the return of the mitten crab and pike(river); and the blowfish, tuna, and football fish (sea) over the winter. As for departures, wave goodbye to most of the exotic and tropical sealife that you’ve grown accustomed to in warmer weather. As the needle drops, they - along with sharks of all stripes - will swim off in search of milder temperatures. While there’s no Fishing Tourney scheduled for the rest of this year, there will be one on the second Saturday in January, January 8. Make a note in your diary and consider making a start on crafting all the fish bait you’ll be needing to net yourself a trophy. Whichever fish remain on your to-catch list this autumn/winter, this full guide is here to help — covering where and when to find each and every fish in the game, when they unlock, and including a handy list of the fish prices in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, so you know which to prioritise for selling. There are also month-to-month tables, so you can start to plan ahead for the rest of the year. Before you can stuff any wriggling fish into your waiting pockets, you’ll need a fishing rod. Unlock the crafting recipe by completing the campfire orientation with Tom Nook at the very start of the game, then speaking to him in Resident Services for a DIY workshop. Once you’ve learned the recipe you can craft a fishing rod at a DIY bench, or at Tom Nook’s work bench in Resident Services. If you’re out and about on another island, speak to Wilbur and he can put in a requisition order for tools – but will charge you in Nook Miles. Alternatively, if Nook’s Cranny has been upgraded at least once on your island, you can fork over a few of your hard-earned Bells and buy a ready-made fishing rod from the cabinet. As you acquire more DIY recipes, you’ll gain access to better tools. However, if you want the best of the best, you’ll need to make Golden Tools - which we have a full page on how to make here. Click the links below to skip to different sections in this page:

Where to find fish in Animal Crossing: New Horizons Catch rare spawning fish – like the Mahi-Mahi or Giant Trevally – with fish bait Animal Crossing: New Horizons Fish Prices List January Fish Prices February Fish Prices March Fish Prices April Fish Prices May Fish Prices June Fish Prices July Fish Prices August Fish Prices September Fish Prices October Fish Prices November Fish Prices December Fish Prices

Where to find fish in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

The fish in Animal Crossing: New Horizons appear as shadows in the water in a variety of places. This includes the sea around your island, in rivers, as well as in-land ponds. Ponds are the small self-contained bodies of water which don’t lead anywhere else. That’s not all you have to contend with though. Some fish can only be found in ponds and rivers on cliff tops you reach with a ladder. The critterpedia specifies a different between clifftop rivers and ponds - however anecdotal evidence suggests you can find clifftop fish in any elevated water. As for fish that are found at the river mouth, this is where the running water meets the sea at the edge of your island. While some of the priciest fish can only be caught off the wooden piers that jut out onto the ocean.

Catch rare spawning fish – like the Mahi-Mahi or Giant Trevally – with fish bait

For this month’s most rare and valuable spawns, head to the pier for a chance to catch the Mahi-Mahi and the Giant Trevally. Both of these elusive critters have arrived on your island for the long haul, sticking around until October. While not the most valuable to sell they’re not cheap either, and are also two of the rarest catches in the game, so you might want to make the most of that time. Be sure to look for them if you still need to add either to your Critterpedia. While you can know where to find a fish, making it appear is another question entirely. Dig up the spouts of water you see on beaches to collect Manilla Clams. These are used to craft fish bait. Next, scatter the fish bait in the area you know the rare fish can spawn and be persistent. It probably won’t work first time, but with persistence you will eventually see results; and it’s definitely quicker than waiting for rare fish to spawn on their own. Below is a list of all 80 species of fish you can catch in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, including the time of day they’re active, where on islands they pop up, and the months of the year they reveal themselves. Not all of the fish look the same when they’re underwater though. There are 6 types of shadow size, with a couple of variants. Eels are uniquely long and thin, whereas you can see the fin of big sharks and ocean sunfish. Otherwise, the sizes go in order of: tiny, small, medium, large, XL, and XXL. Our lists focus on where we live in the northern hemisphere. If you live in the southern hemisphere, you need to add six months onto the dates to find your fish prices. This data comes from the embedded YouTube video by BeardBear, so if you want a visual representation of what all of the fish look like when you catch them, start the following video from 6:43: Check out their channel, and the rest of the video for a list of all the bugs in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. If for whatever reason you can’t watch the video, the information is also in a table below. The additional price data comes from the Animal Crossing wiki community under CC-BY-SA license, which means you can also use and remix the data as you wish. According to the Animal Crossing Official Companion, some fish only unlock after you’ve caught a certain amount of other fish. We’ve updated the table to reflect this.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Fish Prices List

If you’d prefer a fish price list that’s split up by what you can find in your game right now, then here are the month-by-month breakdowns of the fish in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons January Fish Prices

These are all the fish you can catch in the winter month of January.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons February Fish Prices

February is similar to January in terms of the fish population of your island.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons March Fish Prices

We see a couple of changes in the types of fish you can catch in the transitional month of March.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons April Fish Prices

At the start of cherry blossom season, you’ll see some interesting changes in the fish stocks on your island.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons May Fish Prices

As we get closer to summer, more varieties of fish become available in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons June Fish Prices

Summer is getting into gear, and with it some new fish appear to collect and sell.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons July Fish Prices

Tons of large and expensive fish start to fill the water in July, so grab a rod.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons August Fish Prices

The high price fish bonanza doesn’t let up in August!

Animal Crossing: New Horizons September Fish Prices

While you can still get a lot of great summer fish, even more varieties pop up in the transitional month of September.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons October Fish Prices

As fall settles in, some of the big ticket fish are replaced with new types.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons November Fish Prices

Now getting towards winter, the fish stocks around your island are starting to shrink, but at least some types you haven’t seen for a while return.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons December Fish Prices

Like the previous month, while there are a few returning fish, there’s not the biggest selection.

For more information on Animal Crossing: New Horizons, check out our full guide.