Which fish does each lure catch?
One community list carries the species tables; the rule that the lure and not the island decides the catch traces back to a single credited correction.
For Dazed Games’ How to Fish, released on Steam on 20 August 2026 (app 4001890) — not real-world fishing.
Quick Answer
The lure you have equipped decides what you can catch, not the island you are fishing from. SneakyDingo's list gives the tiers as follows. Basic: rock crab, shrimp, mackerel, gar, pike, goldfish. Beginner: pike, cod, goldfish, perch, triggerfish, golby. Standard: angelfish, yellow boxfish, bowlfish, catfish, sea urchin, seahorse, clownfish, bluegill, salmon, needlefish. Professional: parrotfish, voxelfish, bass, halibut, eel, tigerfish, flying fish, sengarat, red snapper, dripper. Scientific: anglerfish, blobfish, oarfish, superdwarf fish, stonefish. The hot dog bait pulls rock crab, lobster and piranha.
Steps
- Decide which species you are missing. Charlie Pork's route notes that the Tab encyclopedia tracks every creature and every drip variant separately and shows the gaps, though it does not tell you what to use.
- Equip the lure tier that lists the species you want, using the tables above.
- Fish anywhere you can reach. Because the lure and not the location decides the catch, you do not need to travel to a particular island for a particular species.
- For boss and mini-boss summons, use the separate boss lure line rather than these lures.
Requirements / Limits
- The species tables come from SneakyDingo alone. No second public list has been found to check them against, so they are published with that attribution and nothing more.
- The rule that the lure rather than the island determines the catch appears in Charlie Pork's route as an explicit correction credited to Kads. That is one origin reported twice, not two independent findings, and this page does not present it as corroborated.
- The regular lures listed here are a different product line from the boss lures, which are priced and used separately.
- SneakyDingo does not stamp the list with a game version, so it is dated by its 22 August 2026 posting rather than by a build.
Common Mistakes
- Travelling to a specific island to find a specific fish. Both sources point the other way: change the lure instead.
- Confusing the Basic, Beginner, Standard, Professional and Scientific lures with the Beginner, Standard, Professional and Scientific boss lures, which cost far more and summon fights.
- Reading the hot dog as a lure tier. It is a bait item with its own short list.
- Assuming the tables are exhaustive. They are one player's list, and no source checked here claims to cover every species.
Sources Checked
- Community guideSteam guide: Lure Guide — SneakyDingo
Sole source for the per-tier species tables and the hot dog list.
Accessed 23 Aug 2026 - Community guideSteam guide: All 28 Achievements + Post-Game Route — Charlie Pork
States that the lure rather than the island determines the catch, in a section explicitly correcting an earlier claim and crediting Kads; also the source for the Tab encyclopedia tracking gaps.
Accessed 23 Aug 2026 - Community guideSteam guide: Bean (1 hour) achievement tips — Kads
Named as the origin of the lure-over-island correction inside Charlie Pork's route; cited so that the single origin of that claim is visible rather than hidden behind a second citation.
Accessed 22 Aug 2026
Still Unverified
- Whether each lure's list is complete, whether tiers overlap beyond the species shown, and whether any lure is required for a species not listed at all, is unverified.
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