How to Fish (Dazed Games) Hidden Achievements Guide: 100% Walkthrough

If you told me before playing How to Fish that I would spend hours worrying about fish weight, strange monsters, sacrificial altars, and the correct way to shoot a fish with a sniper rifle, I probably would have laughed. Dazed Games clearly had other plans.

What looks at first like a goofy fishing game quickly turns into one of those wonderfully chaotic indie experiences where every session produces at least one ridiculous story. You fish, upgrade your equipment, make money, survive another day, and then suddenly you’re chasing an alligator through a swamp or wondering why there is a gigantic bone behind your house.

And then there are the Steam achievements.

There are 28 achievements in total, and while several will unlock naturally as you play, some are deliberately hidden behind obscure interactions and bizarre challenges. A few are so uncommon that seeing them on another player’s profile feels like spotting a legendary fish yourself.

This How to Fish hidden achievements guide is based on my experience with the game and focuses on the secrets that are easiest to miss, the milestones worth planning for, and the achievements that can turn a casual playthrough into a full-blown completionist project.

How to Approach 100% Completion

My biggest piece of advice is simple: don’t try to force every achievement immediately.

How to Fish becomes much easier once your character and equipment are properly developed. Some secrets are tied to specific maps, rare creatures, or late-game progression, while others are practically impossible to miss once you know what you’re looking for.

The general progression loop is straightforward:

• Fish and sell your catches to build up money.
• Upgrade your rod, line, hooks, and storage.
• Explore the different maps and learn their hazards.
• Complete survival milestones.
• Watch for unusual creatures and environmental secrets.
• Return to the Quota Altar regularly.
• Leave the most demanding completion tasks for the late game.

I personally found this approach much less frustrating than constantly checking an achievement list after every five minutes of gameplay.

The Easy Achievements You Should Get Naturally

Before hunting for secrets, there are several achievements that simply reward you for playing.

Survival Milestones

The island keeps track of how long you can survive, with achievements tied to specific days.

These are essentially your long-term progression markers. If you’re playing normally and keeping your boat, equipment, and resources under control, they should arrive without much effort.

That said, don’t underestimate Day 35. The further you get, the more familiar you become with the island’s hazards, but one careless decision can still ruin a perfectly good run.

“So You Think You Can Fish…”

This one is almost embarrassingly easy to miss because players can simply skip the tutorial.

Go back to the main menu, select the tutorial, and complete it. That’s all there is to it.

If you’re chasing 100%, check this achievement early rather than wondering later why your list isn’t complete.

Getting Your Gear Ready

A lot of the late-game achievement hunting becomes dramatically easier with upgraded equipment.

The important thresholds are:

• Rod: Level 24 / Tier 5
• Fishing Line: Level 24
• Fishing Hook: Level 24
• Fish Tank: Level 10, providing 50 storage slots

There are additional upgrade levels available for some equipment, but the important thing for achievement progression is reaching the game’s recognized full-upgrade threshold.

For me, the biggest quality-of-life upgrade is the fish tank. Having enough room to keep valuable catches means less time running back and forth and more time actually fishing.

If you’re serious about 100%, upgrade your equipment instead of hoarding money forever. The investment pays off later.

The Hidden Achievements You Really Need to Watch

This is where How to Fish starts showing its personality.

“You Met Quota”

The Quota Altar is one of the game’s strangest mechanics, and this achievement is directly connected to it.

Take your catches back to the altar near your cabin and place enough fish on it until its flames change from their normal orange color to bright blue.

Once that happens, go straight to bed.

The achievement is awarded during the following morning transition.

The important part is not just filling the altar. You need to recognize the visual change and then actually finish the day by sleeping. If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably notice the blue flames, get distracted by something else, and forget what you were supposed to do.

Don’t.

“Mans Best Friend”

This achievement has one of those requirements that makes perfect sense only after you’ve discovered it.

Behind your starting house is a large skeleton bone hidden in the grass. Pick it up and carry it to the Quota Altar.

Then throw the bone into the altar’s flames.

Yes, really.

It’s one of the best examples of How to Fish rewarding players for simply experimenting with the environment. If you are cleaning up achievements, make sure you check behind your house before spending dozens of hours elsewhere.

“Oh Right You Can’t Swim”

This is probably the most straightforward hidden achievement on the list.

Your character may be capable of fishing, shooting, boating, and surviving all sorts of ridiculous situations, but apparently swimming is beyond their skill set.

Enter deep water without proper protection and allow your character to drown.

It sounds obvious, but because the game constantly encourages you to experiment with movement, it’s surprisingly easy to forget that the ocean is not your friend.

“Did You Feed It A Fish”

This is one of the achievements where patience matters more than skill.

Head to either the Swamp or Jungle map and keep fishing while listening carefully to the environment.

Eventually, a strange creature known as the Terrsorist can appear. If you encounter it, don’t immediately attack it or run away.

Instead, catch a fish, hold it, and approach the creature.

Feed it.

That’s the trick.

The encounter is random enough that I wouldn’t recommend building an entire session around it. Just keep this achievement in the back of your mind while you’re fishing in the appropriate areas.

“Who Stole My Beer”

This one feels more like a tiny side quest than a traditional achievement.

You’ll receive a situation involving the lighthouse keeper and a missing beer stash. Investigate the area around the lighthouse and identify the creature responsible.

Take down the culprit, retrieve the stolen item, and return it to the lighthouse keeper.

It’s a nice example of the game’s ability to turn a completely ordinary objective into something slightly ridiculous.

“Happy Birthday Curtis”

This achievement is basically a reward for being nosy.

Explore the sandbox environments carefully and look for hidden environmental writing or graffiti containing the message “Happy birthday Curtis.”

Get close enough to the hidden message and the achievement should trigger.

This is exactly the sort of secret I love in indie games. There is no huge quest marker screaming at you to investigate. You simply have to explore.

“Hello Alligator”

If you’re working through the achievement list, don’t forget about the Swamp.

Take your boat through the swamp’s narrow waterways until you find an alligator. Get close enough to attract its attention and provoke an aggressive response.

The achievement triggers when the alligator enters its chase behavior.

My advice? Don’t overcomplicate it. You don’t need an elaborate combat strategy here. You’re essentially trying to annoy a swamp predator enough for the game to recognize the encounter.

“Getting Started” and “Drip”

These two are easy to confuse because they both involve hostile creatures.

“Getting Started” is awarded for defeating your first hostile creature.

“Drip” requires you to find and defeat the special drip creature variant.

The first one should happen naturally. The second is more dependent on finding the right enemy, so don’t panic if it doesn’t appear during your first few hours.

Rare Fish And The Weirdest Catches

Some achievements are connected directly to the game’s bizarre aquatic creatures.

These are among the reasons I recommend exploring different maps instead of treating your starting fishing location as your permanent home.

The Jungle and Swamp become particularly important when you’re hunting unusual catches and deeper-water creatures. Late-night fishing can also be valuable when you’re searching for the rarer species.

And here’s the fun part: catching an enormous fish can help you clean up multiple weight-related milestones at once. If you land something above 3,000 lbs, you’re potentially knocking out several progression requirements in a single ridiculous catch.

There is something deeply satisfying about watching a fish larger than your boat become another line on your Steam profile.

The Hardest 0.1% Achievements

Now we reach the achievements that separate casual players from the people who apparently have decided that How to Fish is their second job.

Three achievements stand out in particular:

Handyman, Fishipedia, and Bean.

These are the ones I’d leave until you’re comfortable with the game’s systems.

Handyman

Handyman is all about squeezing as much value as possible from the game’s upgrade and crafting systems.

You’ll need to work through the available secondary attachments, perks, crafting options, and boat improvements rather than simply focusing on fishing gear.

A few perks are especially useful during the grind:

• Son of a Banker
• Duplicating Bait??
• You Can Now Store Extra Tackle

Collect scrap and other crafting materials whenever you encounter them. Seagulls and hostile shoreline creatures can be annoying, but the materials they leave behind become useful when you’re building toward full completion.

The main mistake is treating crafting as optional. For this achievement, it isn’t.

Fishipedia

Fishipedia is the achievement for players who truly want to know everything that swims around the game’s world.

You need to complete your fishing index by catching the different species and rarities available across the maps.

That means common fish aren’t enough. You’ll eventually need to track down the unusual, rare, epic, and legendary catches too.

My recommendation is to leave the final cleanup for the end game.

After progressing far enough and dealing with the hidden Kraken encounter, you gain access to a more useful filtering option in the game’s interface. Being able to narrow your search by fish rarity makes missing entries much easier to identify.

Without that kind of organization, Fishipedia can become a frustrating guessing game.

Bean: The Achievement That Made Me Sweat

If I had to choose one achievement that feels designed specifically to test a player’s patience, it would be Bean.

The challenge revolves around completing the required progression under demanding conditions, so efficiency matters much more than simply surviving.

For a serious attempt, movement and money management become critical.

The “You Tread Lightly” and “You’ve Trained For This Moment” perks can help make the run more efficient. Avoid unnecessary fights, prioritize valuable fish, and don’t waste time on activities that don’t move you toward the objective.

And yes, your trick-shot skills matter.

If you’re already comfortable launching fish into the air and landing those ridiculous 360 no-scope multipliers, this is where that practice finally starts paying off.

I wouldn’t attempt Bean casually. Build your knowledge first, then make the dedicated run.

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My Recommended 100% Order

If I were starting a fresh save specifically to complete every achievement, I’d tackle the game in this order:

1. Complete the tutorial.
2. Upgrade your basic fishing equipment.
3. Work through the Day 7–35 survival milestones.
4. Explore the starting island thoroughly, including the area behind the house.
5. Visit the Swamp and Jungle regularly.
6. Watch for the Terrsorist and rare creature encounters.
7. Complete the Quota Altar requirements.
8. Hunt the unusual fish and cryptids.
9. Finish your major upgrades and crafting options.
10. Use the late-game tools to clean up Fishipedia.
11. Leave Bean for a focused final challenge run.

This order avoids one of the biggest traps in achievement hunting: trying to force random events before you’ve actually progressed far enough to make them worthwhile.

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Final Thoughts

The thing I like most about How to Fish is that its achievement list actually matches the game’s personality.

It isn’t just “kill 100 enemies” and “collect 500 fish.” Instead, the game constantly asks you to experiment. Feed a strange creature. Throw a giant bone into a mysterious altar. Annoy an alligator. Find a bizarre fish. Investigate somebody’s missing beer.

And then, somehow, all of that sits alongside serious fishing progression and brutally difficult completionist challenges.

If you’re going for the full How to Fish 100% achievement completion, don’t rush it. Upgrade your equipment, explore every map, pay attention to weird environmental details, and keep a mental checklist of the rare encounters.

The hidden achievements are at their best when you discover them naturally. But once you’re chasing that final 100%, knowing exactly where to look can save an absurd amount of time.

So grab the rod, load up your boat, keep an eye on the seagulls, and prepare to do things to fish that no peaceful fishing simulator should ever allow.

How to Fish isn’t really about relaxing by the water. It’s about discovering just how much chaos one fish can cause.

How to Fish is an Unhinged Game