All 28 Achievements and Bean Speedrun Route

All 28 Achievements and Bean Speedrun Route

You kill the Spider Crab, drop its Shell beside the boat to free one slot, and sail away feeling like the admiral of a very wet navy. Ten minutes later, the Radar has no new destination because the Lighthouse Keeper wanted that exact Shell. That is the How to Fish achievement experience: one tiny inventory choice becomes an ocean-wide walk of shame. Hand in each story item before selling, cooking, gambling, or feeding anything to the slot machine.

Do one relaxed story-and-cleanup save first. Use a separate fresh world for Bean. This keeps random Drip hunting, casino losses, stunt shots, and the bare-knuckle final hit away from the one-hour clock. When the route clicks, you go from selling clams to fighting an armed lava whale in less time than most crews spend arguing over who lost the boat.

Patch callout: Achievement and quest checks below match How to Fish v1.0.12 on September 15, 2026. The Bean splits come from a completed Easy solo route on v1.0.9. A separate two-player, ordered-island route finished in about 55 minutes. Patch 1.0.12 rebalanced piranha and slightly nerfed Tuna, so recheck the Forest and Rocks splits on your installed version. No sub-hour finish is guaranteed, old locked-island or dynamite behavior should not be treated as current, and later patches may change achievement checks.

All 28 achievement requirements

Island-by-island achievement safeguards

These are backtracking guards, not warnings that every optional task must be done immediately. The finished save keeps your gear and open travel. Story bait, bodies, and trophies are the dangerous items because progression waits for a specific hand-in, even when the achievement has already appeared.

1. Lighthouse — NPC: Lighthouse Keeper; required item: Beer, then Empty Beer Can; hand-in: Spider Crab Shell to the Lighthouse Keeper. Kill an opening catch for Getting started. Make a plain aimed body-shot kill for Noob before your gear starts adding accidental style bonuses. After the Spider Crab dies, pick up the Shell, hand it in, claim the Boat Keys, and buy the handheld Radar. Do not sail while the Shell is lying on the beach. Optional: put valuables down, die where a normal Seagull can reach you, do not respawn, and let it lift your dead body for Let me go.
2. Forest — NPC: woman beside the lake; required pickups: three ground Leeches for Leech Bait; hand-in: Giant Piranha Skeleton to the same woman. The Leeches are pickups in the grass, not rod catches. Finish Dinnertime before leaving. For less cleanup later, kill both Beginner Boss Lure results, Sunfish and The Old Pike, and eat one miniboss for Competitive eating. These fights are optional for story progress.
3. Desert — NPC: Tourist under the tree; required catch: one creature marked Endangered for the Carrot; hand-in: Pufferfish Fin to the Tourist. Inspect the catch before selling it. Needlefish, Bowlfish, or Seahorse can fill the request in this build. Optional but efficient: use the Standard Boss Lure for Blue Shark, kill and pick up the shark, hand its body to the Grillmaster, take the lighter, and ignite the grill for Grillmaster. Then leave an ordinary creature cooking until it burns and eat it for Yummy in my tummy. This prevents a full cooking-unlock return trip.
4. Rocks — NPC: the islander who warns you about the bird; required bait and catch: Professional Boss Lure for Tuna; hand-in: Albatross Head to that islander. Keep the whole dead Tuna and place it unheld in the Albatross encounter area. Selling the Tuna is a very profitable way to purchase another entire problem. Before leaving, consider clearing the Professional Boss Lure journal entry for Tuna. The Lucky Bait Casino is optional; never wager the Tuna, Albatross Head, or another progression item.
5. Volcano — NPC: yellow-suited Scientist; required catches: five accepted dead creatures that have been picked up; final hand-in: Mutated Bowhead Whale Fin to the Scientist. Take the Fish Bucket, use it for Bowhead Whale, keep the whole body, carry it up the wooden-plank path, and drop it into the volcano while it is unheld. Bowhead Whale and Mutated Bowhead Whale are separate journal entries. After the final fight, deliver the Fin, claim the final keys, switch to empty hands, and start the RHIB. Do not stop at the boss kill; the boat interaction completes We are so back and Bean.

If a boss trophy vanishes in the physics confetti, do not sail away. Circle the arena and follow its item dot before starting another activity. If the bait was consumed or the boss escaped, rebuild that island's bait chain and repeat the encounter. During a failed Bean attempt, keep going and turn the world into your story-and-cleanup save. The hour may be dead, but the fish crimes remain productive.

The eight achievements that need a deliberate setup

1. Bean: Use a fresh world. The achievement reads the world's accumulated playtime, not total Steam hours or a stopwatch started at the first boss. Treat the moment the new campaign begins as 0:00. Saving and reloading keeps the elapsed time, and pausing does not stop it. The run ends only after the Mutated Bowhead Whale Fin is handed to the Scientist, the final keys are claimed, and you switch to empty hands and start the RHIB.
2. Handyman: Fight the Mutated Bowhead Whale normally until its health is almost gone. Stop all gunfire and explosives, switch to empty hands, and let the finishing player land the killing punch. In v1.0.12, the check is the low-damage final blow; ordinary punches qualify. A melee weapon is not empty hands, and One Shot mode makes punches too strong for this check. In co-op, everyone else should holster weapons before the last sliver.
3. Easy: This does not mean selecting Easy difficulty. It requires a main boss to die within ten seconds of spawning. Return to Lighthouse with a strong, fully loaded gun, obtain another Empty Beer Can, stand near the Spider Crab spawn, cast, swap weapons at once, and fire as soon as the boss exists. Spider Crab, Giant Piranha, Pufferfish, Albatross, and Mutated Bowhead Whale qualify. Minibosses such as Blue Shark, Tuna, and the normal Bowhead Whale do not. Set up before casting because the clock starts with the encounter.
4. Impressive: Killscore is the multiplier shown after a stylish kill. Use a strong ranged weapon with a Laser Sight and weaken a normal creature first. Leave one round for the finish, move to long range, stay out of aim-down-sights, spin, and try for a headshot while either you or the target is airborne. Read the result labels and adjust one failed condition at a time. You need a displayed 5x total on one kill; cooking the body afterward does not count.
5. 360 no scope: Weaken an ordinary creature until one body shot will kill it. Stop aiming for at least a moment, turn through a full circle, reacquire the creature, and hip-fire immediately. The recognized-spin window is short. A spin followed by careful sightseeing will not count, and aiming down sights ruins the no-scope half.
6. Everyone's dream: Use a regular Seagull, not the Albatross boss. Drop an expendable dead fish beside Dynamite in an open area, back away, and shoot the Dynamite when a Seagull closes on the fish. Patch 1.0.11 made your own explosives hurt you even with friendly fire disabled, so clear the blast instead of posing beside it.
7. All in: Go to the roulette table in the Lucky Bait Casino on Rocks. Place an expendable item as the stake, choose green, and spin until green wins. The item is destroyed after a loss, so finish the Albatross hand-in first and never use a quest trophy. A valuable green payout can later help with Rich! Millionaire, but no spin is assured.
8. GOLD GOLD GOLD: Kill a rainbow-named Drip creature so its journal entry records, then feed its body to a Reel of Fortune slot machine. Repeat with new Drip catches until the machine awards any Legendary skin. This is random and has no dependable attempt count. The slot machine awards cosmetics; it is separate from the green-bet roulette table.

Collector and Fishipedia cleanup order

Open the journal with Tab before casting. Collector tracks 49 normal entries: 38 ordinary creatures plus 11 bosses and minibosses. Fishipedia tracks their Drip side. Seeing, hooking, or releasing a missing creature is not enough; kill it, then reopen Tab to confirm the entry.

1. Finish the story so every rod, lure tier, island, and required boss is available.
2. Clear the cheap ordinary pools first: use the Crab Fishing Rod with Ham for Brown Crab and Shrimp, then Hot Dog for Rock Crab and Lobster. Use the Fishing Rod with French Fry for Mackerel, Gar, and Pike, then clear the Beginner Lure pool. Clam, Leech, Seagull, Footsnail, and Bing Bong are not extra journal targets in v1.0.12.
3. Clear the Standard, Professional, and Scientific Lure pools in that order. Check Tab between pools so you do not burn costly bait on an entry that is already complete.
4. Audit the five optional minibosses: Beginner Boss Lure for Sunfish and The Old Pike, Standard Boss Lure for Blue Shark, Professional Boss Lure for Tuna, and Scientific Boss Lure for Goblin Shark.
5. Audit the six story encounters: Spider Crab, Giant Piranha, Pufferfish, Albatross, Bowhead Whale, and Mutated Bowhead Whale. Similar names are separate entries: Pike is not The Old Pike, Piranha is not Giant Piranha, and the two whales each count.
6. Once Collector unlocks, switch to the missing Drip column. Match each blank to the rod and lure used by its normal form. When the controls allow, release a non-Drip bite before landing it and keep the lure in the water for another result. Slow down when the rainbow name appears, land it, kill it, and verify the entry before changing pools.

The six story encounters and five minibosses fill both their normal and Drip journal checks when killed in v1.0.12, so do not hunt imaginary rainbow boss rematches. Patch 1.0.5 also removed the old bug that demanded one extra Drip after the list was complete. Ordinary Drip results are still random; this route reduces travel and lure waste, not the number of casts the fish gods may demand.

Bean route: v1.0.9 tested splits, v1.0.12 safety rules

Start a fresh world on Easy. Bean has no difficulty restriction in v1.0.12, although leaderboard categories may use separate rules. Rehearse all five hand-ins first, keep one inventory slot empty for each trophy, and avoid optional bosses, casino stops, Drip hunts, and Handyman. This route uses focused gun upgrades and no old island skip.

1. 0:00–5:00 — Lighthouse: Sell three Clams, buy the Crab Fishing Rod, and turn early catches into enough money for Hot Dogs, Brass Knuckles, and Beer. Give the Beer to the Lighthouse Keeper, take the Empty Beer Can, defeat Spider Crab, and hand back its Shell. Claim the Boat Keys, buy the Radar, and leave. If the keys and Radar are not aboard by about 5:00, the opener needs another practice lap.
2. 5:00–15:00 — Forest: Collect the three ground Leeches immediately and trade them to the lake woman. Upgrade to the normal Fishing Rod, earn money with Piranha catches, and buy extra inventory plus a Pistol. Put damage and a Laser Sight on that one gun instead of spreading cash across several weapons. Use the Leech Bait, control Giant Piranha's smaller adds, deliver the Skeleton, and leave near 15:00.
3. 15:00–30:00 — Desert: Buy Standard Lures and farm only enough money for more Pistol damage, an extended magazine, and an optic. Skip Blue Shark, the grill, and all collection detours. Inspect Standard-Lure catches until one reads Endangered, give it to the Tourist, take the Carrot, defeat Pufferfish, and hand in its Fin. Leave near 30:00.
4. 30:00–45:00 — Rocks: Buy Professional Lures and the Professional Boss Lure. Farm and defeat Tuna; repeat Tuna only if you still need a practiced amount of money for Pistol damage, a Compensator, and inventory room. Preserve one whole Tuna and place it unheld in the bird area. Kill Albatross, hand in its Head, and depart near 45:00. Do not visit the casino. The house has waited this long and can cope.
5. 45:00–under 60:00 — Volcano: Buy Scientific Lures and invest the income into one fast-firing weapon, such as the SMG, with damage, magazine, and muzzle upgrades. Give the Scientist five accepted dead catches that you have picked up and take the Fish Bucket. Sell the handheld Radar only after you no longer need it. Spawn Bowhead Whale, fight from the volcano side, secure the whole body before it slides away, carry it up the plank path, and drop it unheld into the crater. Defeat Mutated Bowhead Whale, grab its Fin, return it to the Scientist, claim the final keys, switch to empty hands, and start the RHIB before the world's saved time reaches one hour.

Solo and co-op timing

Solo: Boss health is lower, the wallet is yours to manage, and no teammate can accidentally sell the trophy. The cost is that every catch, shop visit, carry, and fight falls on one player. Use the tested 5/15/30/45-minute splits and reset early if the Lighthouse or Forest segment runs far over. A late wipe on Volcano is hard to recover from.

Co-op: The host world's clock controls the Bean check. Extra hands can gather Leeches, shop, fish, and prepare arenas at the same time, but boss health scales upward and the world has one shared wallet. A two-player crew has cleared the ordered route in about 55 minutes, but that run used a different shopping plan, so practice with your exact crew. Assign one shopper, one quest-item carrier, and one main damage player before starting. On Rocks, only the carrier handles Tuna and the Albatross Head. On Volcano, one player catches for the Scientist while another stages food and gear. Nobody buys novelty equipment without calling it out; the fastest way to lose a co-op split is four people funding separate fishing-based startup companies.