Animal Crossing New Horizons: All fish spawns, locations, shadows, more

One of the primary activities in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is fishing. To avoid repetitive catches, it’s helpful to know the spawn rates of different fish.

As a staple activity in New Horizons, fishing is one of the first things you’ll engage in. Being aware of the spawn rates for each fish can make your fishing adventures more varied and rewarding.

Fish can be caught in the sea, in a pond, off the edge of a pier, and other spots, but it can become quite repetitive if you’re looking for a different catch of the day. Obviously, catching fish means you can earn plenty of Bells, but you could be waiting for months to see something other than a Black Bass.

Fish can be used for Bells or to fill out the Museum.

For fishing, there are some key decisions that you have to make early on in Animal Crossing. Depending on whether your island is situated in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere will change up your spawn rates.

This is because islands in the Northern Hemisphere work on a different timeline to Southern. Summer in the north is Winter in the south, for example. Don’t fret, however, because we’ve broken down the differences.

• Spring: Northern (March, April, May) Southern (September, October, November)
• Summer: Northern (June, July, August) Southern (December, January, February)
• Autumn: Northern (September, October, November) Southern (March, April, May)
• Winter: Northern (December, January, February) Southern (June, July, August)

Animal Crossing fishing spawns guide

Even though things are slightly different when it comes to the time of year for things to spawn, the amount of Bells you’ll get for selling them to Nook’s Cranny stays the same. This is also the case for the time of day for their potential spawns. Here’s a full list of all the fishing spawn locations in the Animal Crossing New Horizons.

Animal Crossing fishing shadows guide

The biggest difference in finding the different fish are the shadows that you’ll see in the water. Smaller fish will have smaller shadows while bigger fish might even show their fins above the surface rather than just having a shadow.

Bigger fish can be seen by the bigger shadows.

Now, if you’ve already set up your island to be in the Northern Hemisphere and you don’t want to time skip in order to get some fish that won’t appear until later in the year, you can travel to a Southern Hemisphere island – provided you know a friend who has one.

If you catch a fish on an island in a different hemisphere, it will stay in your pockets while you travel back to your own island. This is ideal for filling up your museum or getting a huge number of Bells.