the guide · the resort’s other dex
The Fishing Journal
fifty-five species keyed to where you stand, what hour it is, what the sky is doing and — on the sea — what the tide is doing. you can fish anywhere on the island that holds thirty centimetres of water, which is most of it.
01 · the cast
how one cast goes
seven beats, about twenty seconds, and every one of them is readable before it happens. nothing in here is a dice roll you are shown the result of.
stand where water is
any WaterBody with depth is fishable from any bank, deck or pier — the sea, the lagoon, the resort pools, the park creek, a cave pool, and the one body of water in the sky that has no business being there. thirty centimetres is the whole requirement. an aim ring in front of you says yes or no before you commit.
hold to power, swing to aim
hold F and a power meter ping-pongs full travel in 0.8 seconds; A and D swing the aim. release to cast. the stock rod reaches between 3 and 15 metres, and the better rods reach further — the cast is the one part of this that is entirely your fault.
the bobber rides the real surface
it flies for 0.9 seconds and then sits on the water — the actual water, re-asked every frame, so it rides the waves and it rides the tide. nothing here is a flat blue plane with a float parented to it.
a shadow swims in
a dark silhouette comes toward the hook with a bubble trail running ahead of it, and its shape tells you what it is before you know what it is. long is an eel. round is a grouper or a puffer. boot-shaped is a boot. big is a big deal. it moves with intent — an eased approach, a lateral wander scaled to how twitchy the species is, a nose that faces travel and a slow tail sway. sprats zig. sturgeon do not.
the tease, then the bite
uncommon and up will nibble first — a small dip, one or two of them, 0.45 to 0.8 seconds apart. pull on a nibble and you were greedy. the bite is a sharp deep dip with a short window: 0.9 seconds on a common, 0.5 on a legendary, times whatever your rod does for it.
the tension fight
hold to reel, let go when it runs, keep the needle inside the band. peg the tension for 0.55 seconds and the line gives. sit outside the band for 3.5 seconds and it loses interest. a common is landed in 1.6 seconds of in-band reeling and a legendary in 4.2 — the fight is short on purpose, because this is a thing you do between other things.
the bucket, the shack, the journal
what you land goes in the bucket, and the bucket is what the otter at the counter buys — every named spot has one, so a full bucket is never a walk back across the island. J opens the journal: first catch, biggest catch, and the line it wrote about you. walk more than 3.5 metres from your own cast and you have walked away from it.
the shadow sits on the water, not under it. a few centimetres above the surface, because the depth shader is lightest right at the waterline and a silhouette drawn underneath would vanish behind an opaque sea. on the surface it blends dark over whatever the water already drew, so it reads in the lagoon, in the sea at night, and in a cave pool lit from below.
02 · the journal
all fifty-five
each water holds eight to fourteen of its own, and only three species swim between rosters — Pebble Gill, Drizzlecod and Storm Eel, because those three would. coins are the base sale value at a middling size; a bigger one is worth more. the sizes are the real range the game rolls between.
a gate is a condition, not a rarity tier: Moonkelt is a rare that only comes up at night, and Wandering Sunfish wants daylight, clear sky and a falling tide at once, which is about as narrow as this gets.
wide table — scroll it sideways for the journal lines; the name column stays put
| # | fish | waters | rarity | shadow | size | bites when | coins | the journal line |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Sunfin Dart | ocean | Common | finned | 12 cm–24 cm | day, clear | 8 | caught mid-dart. it seems fine with how things went. |
| 02 | Glass Sprat | ocean | Common | sprat | 6 cm–12 cm | any time | 7 | transparent about everything. mostly plankton. |
| 03 | Kelp Ribbon | ocean | Common | long | 30 cm–70 cm | any time | 9 | a fish shaped like an opinion about kelp. |
| 04 | Pebble Gill | ocean river | Common | round | 8 cm–16 cm | any time | 6 | mostly gravel by weight. still counts. |
| 05 | Copper Snapper | ocean | Uncommon | finned | 25 cm–45 cm | day | 16 | snaps at nothing in particular. relatable energy. |
| 06 | Buoy Bass | ocean | Uncommon | finned | 30 cm–55 cm | high tide | 18 | comes in on the high tide. has a schedule. sticks to it. |
| 07 | Tidewatch Flounder | ocean | Uncommon | flat | 20 cm–40 cm | low tide | 15 | lies flat on the sandbar when the tide leaves. waits. so do we. |
| 08 | Drizzlecod | ocean river lagoon | Uncommon | finned | 30 cm–60 cm | rain | 18 | only shows up once the sky commits to rain. |
| 09 | Foghorn Grouper | ocean | Rare | round | 50 cm–90 cm | overcast | 34 | hums one low note in the fog. the ferry answers. neither means anything by it. |
| 10 | Moonkelt | ocean | Rare | finned | 40 cm–80 cm | night | 40 | silver, quiet, keeps night hours. respect it. |
| 11 | Inkling Lamp | ocean | Rare | blob | 25 cm–50 cm | night, clear | 36 | lights itself up at night, then acts like it didn't. |
| 12 | Wandering Sunfish | ocean | Rare | round | 1 m–2 m | day, clear, a falling tide | 45 | enormous, round, headed nowhere in particular. leaves with the tide. |
| 13 | Storm Eel | ocean river | Rare | long | 80 cm–1.6 m | night, rain | 55 | felt like a bad idea. landed like one too. |
| 14 | Gilded Marlow key rod | ocean | Legendary | finned | 1.2 m–2.2 m | any time | 100 | the ferry captain says it's a myth. go tell him. |
| 15 | Lagoon Guppy | lagoon | Common | sprat | 4 cm–9 cm | any time | 6 | the lagoon's whole economy, individually. |
| 16 | Hibiscus Tang | lagoon | Common | finned | 12 cm–22 cm | day | 9 | matches the planters. probably not on purpose. |
| 17 | Mimosa Minnow | lagoon | Common | sprat | 5 cm–10 cm | morning, clear | 8 | brunch hours only. |
| 18 | Poolside Puffer | lagoon | Uncommon | round | 14 cm–28 cm | any time | 15 | inflates when startled. the lagoon has startled it a lot. |
| 19 | Cabana Carp | lagoon | Uncommon | round | 35 cm–65 cm | day | 17 | has a reserved lounger. will not say which. |
| 20 | Sunset Wrasse | lagoon | Uncommon | finned | 18 cm–32 cm | evening | 19 | shows up for golden hour and leaves before the bill. |
| 21 | Umbrella Ray | lagoon | Rare | flat | 60 cm–1.1 m | day, clear | 38 | flat, round, and shade for anything under it. the lagoon's only amenity that swims. |
| 22 | Velvet Koi | lagoon | Rare | finned | 40 cm–75 cm | night | 42 | keeps to the deep end after dark. the deep end is one point six metres. |
| 23 | Concierge Gar key rod | lagoon | Legendary | long | 1.1 m–1.9 m | night | 95 | knows your room number. nobody told it. |
| 24 | Old Boot | pool | Common | boot | 28 cm–32 cm | any time | 1 | size ten. broken in. arguably the real catch. |
| 25 | Soggy Coupon | pool | Common | flat | 10 cm–16 cm | any time | 2 | expired. redeemable for nothing. laminated, though. |
| 26 | Lost Sunglasses | pool | Common | flat | 13 cm–15 cm | day | 3 | polarised. they saw this coming. |
| 27 | Deck Chair Sardine | pool | Uncommon | sprat | 8 cm–14 cm | day, clear | 6 | tiny. reclines. |
| 28 | Pool Noodle Eel | pool | Uncommon | long | 90 cm–1.5 m | any time | 7 | hollow, foam, forty percent of the way to being an eel. |
| 29 | Chlorine Cod | pool | Uncommon | finned | 30 cm–50 cm | day | 12 | smells like the deep end. tastes like a rule. |
| 30 | Filter Trout | pool | Rare | finned | 25 cm–45 cm | night | 30 | lives in the pump room. comes out when the lights go off. the pump does not judge. |
| 31 | The Lifeguard's Whistle | pool | Legendary | boot | 5 cm–6 cm | any time | 60 | still works. don't. |
| 32 | Creek Darter | river | Common | sprat | 8 cm–14 cm | day | 9 | the creek's fastest resident. past tense. |
| 33 | Riffle Char | river | Common | finned | 15 cm–30 cm | any time | 10 | lives in the fast bit. thinks the slow bit is for tourists. |
| 34 | Mossling Trout | river | Uncommon | finned | 25 cm–45 cm | any time | 15 | grows its own shade. very self-sufficient. |
| 35 | Pinecone Perch | river | Uncommon | round | 15 cm–28 cm | any time | 13 | eats what falls in. mostly pinecones. it's fine with that. |
| 36 | Cairn Loach | river | Uncommon | long | 12 cm–22 cm | overcast | 14 | stacks pebbles when nobody's looking. somebody is always looking. it manages. |
| 37 | Switchback Salmon | river | Rare | finned | 55 cm–95 cm | day, rain | 36 | climbs the creek in the rain. nine switchbacks. does not count them. |
| 38 | Lantern Grayling | river | Rare | finned | 30 cm–50 cm | night, clear | 33 | silver under the moon. under cloud it's just a grayling. it knows. |
| 39 | Old Ridge Sturgeon key rod | river | Legendary | long | 1.4 m–2.4 m | any time | 90 | older than the trail. the trail agrees. |
| 40 | Pale Blindfish | cave pool | Common | finned | 8 cm–16 cm | any time | 8 | no eyes. no complaints. |
| 41 | Glowgill | cave pool | Common | sprat | 6 cm–12 cm | any time | 9 | lights the pool from underneath. the pool would rather it didn't. |
| 42 | Miner's Thermos | cave pool | Common | boot | 24 cm–28 cm | any time | 3 | still warm. that's the unsettling part. |
| 43 | Drip Sculpin | cave pool | Uncommon | round | 10 cm–20 cm | any time | 14 | sits under the drip. has for years. very committed to the drip. |
| 44 | Emberway Cinderfin | cave pool | Uncommon | finned | 20 cm–38 cm | any time | 20 | warm to the touch. don't touch. |
| 45 | Lanternvein Lampeel | cave pool | Rare | long | 70 cm–1.3 m | any time | 40 | a line of light along the ceiling turns out to be a fish in the water. mirrors, apparently. |
| 46 | Stillwater Ghostcarp | cave pool | Rare | round | 40 cm–70 cm | any time | 38 | you're not sure you saw it. it's sure. |
| 47 | The Deep Nobody key rod | cave pool | Legendary | blob | 90 cm–1.6 m | any time | 110 | the divers named it. the divers left. |
| 48 | Cloud Guppy | sky | Common | sprat | 5 cm–10 cm | any time | 8 | swims in the cloud. the cloud allows it. |
| 49 | Lost Kite | sky | Common | flat | 60 cm–90 cm | day | 4 | somebody's. was. |
| 50 | Cumulus Cod | sky | Uncommon | round | 30 cm–55 cm | day, clear | 16 | puffy, white, barely a fish. |
| 51 | Updraft Eel | sky | Uncommon | long | 60 cm–1.2 m | any time | 18 | rides thermals sideways. nobody taught it. |
| 52 | Prism Sprat | sky | Uncommon | sprat | 6 cm–11 cm | day, clear | 15 | refracts light on purpose. showing off, respectfully. |
| 53 | Thunder Perch | sky | Rare | finned | 25 cm–45 cm | overcast or rain | 38 | arrives with the weather. leaves with it. has never been rained on. |
| 54 | Nimbus Koi | sky | Rare | finned | 40 cm–80 cm | night | 42 | you can see the moon through it. it can see the moon through you. |
| 55 | The Weathervane key rod | sky | Legendary | flat | 80 cm–1.4 m | any time | 100 | points where the wind's going. the wind checks with it first. |
tide conditions only apply on the sea. a lagoon does not have a tide, and neither does a swimming pool.
03 · the waters
six waters, and they are all real
every body of water on the island is a wave mesh on a depth-coloured shader sitting over a real bed with a collider, so depth is geometry rather than a colour. you fall in, you swim, you dive with a sixteen-second breath meter, and you climb out at any bank under 1.15 metres. that is why a cast can be refused: the game actually knows how deep it is in front of you.
shallow turquoise to deep teal, fresnel on the surface, sun and moon glint, foam at every waterline and on every crest. where you fish changes which roster you are rolling against, full stop — a rod in the lagoon cannot raise an ocean fish.
| water | species | what it is | its legend |
|---|---|---|---|
| ocean | 14 | the sea all the way round the island — the beach ring, the pier, the otter docks, the roost shelf under the gull cliff. the only water with a tide, and the only one where the tide gates anything. | Gilded Marlow |
| lagoon | 10 | the big lagoon pool at the centre of the resort, and the steps down into it. still, warm and slow, and the koi have opinions about you. | Concierge Gar |
| pool | 8 | the resort’s swimming pools. it holds an Old Boot, a Soggy Coupon, a pair of Lost Sunglasses and, at the bottom of the rarity table, The Lifeguard’s Whistle — six centimetres, sixty coins, and a legend. | The Lifeguard's Whistle |
| river | 11 | the park creek: a chain of knee-deep fords with three swimmable ponds in it. cold, quick, and the trout prefer the quiet bend. | Old Ridge Sturgeon |
| cave pool | 8 | the water inside the three cave networks — the stillwater’s drowned gallery, the lanternvein’s rimstone pool, the emberway’s warm seep. lit from underneath, mostly. | The Deep Nobody |
| sky | 8 | the cloud pool above the sky islands. water that should not be there, in a place you can only reach by gliding to it, and it has a full roster like everywhere else. | The Weathervane |
the same water carries a surf break. on the south shore a swell shoals as the bottom comes up and breaks toward the sand: drop in, cut back, snap, floater, kick out, and every one of those banks style the same way a rail does. you can fish it. you will be doing it in the whitewater.
a deck over water reads as dry ground, on purpose — the depth query answers zero when you are standing on planks, so the pier does not think you are swimming. the swimming code asks the bed directly instead of asking the depth.
04 · the tide
the sea keeps a real tide
two highs and two lows a lunar day
a coast like this one runs mixed semidiurnal: a principal lunar term of 12h 25m 14s, with a once-a-day term riding underneath it at 23h 56m that makes one of the day’s two highs taller than the other. that is exactly what runs here, on the game clock, so the highs drift about fifty minutes later each day the way real ones do.
the moon already hanging over the island is what decides how big they are: springs at full and new, neaps at the quarters. and the island’s clock persists — the day, the hour, the weather and how long that weather has left are all saved — so a tide you do not like cannot be rerolled by quitting.
| what | number | why it is that number |
|---|---|---|
| principal lunar period | 12h 25m 14s | the real M2 constituent. two highs a lunar day, and the lunar day is not 24 hours. |
| diurnal period | 23h 56m | weighted at 0.30. this is the term that makes the two highs unequal. |
| spring half-range | ±0.18 m | at full and new moon, when the two pulls line up. |
| neap half-range | ±0.10 m | at the quarters, when they do not. |
| the waterline walks | 10 m | the beach face climbs at 3.5%, so a 0.36 m swing moves the edge of the sea ten metres up and down the beach over a game day. |
| highest crest of the month | 0.00 m | spring high plus the 0.12 m wave. the flat sand sits at +0.04, which is what stops a sheet of water showing through the beach at every spring high. |
the amplitude was picked against the beach, not against the ocean. the boardwalk at 0.16, the pier deck at 0.20, the otter planks at 0.18 and the offshore isle at 0.15 all stay dry at every tide of every month, and that is not luck — it is what the half-ranges were solved for.
four fish care. Buoy Bass wants a high tide, Tidewatch Flounder wants a low one, Wandering Sunfish wants a falling tide in clear daylight. there is a tide board at the end of the pier that reads the current state, because a system nobody can see is a system nobody plays with.
05 · the gear
eight rods, six baits, one bucket
the tackle shack out on the pier is the only place that sells gear, and it is a trip you make on purpose. a rod changes five numbers, and most rods are a specialist rather than an upgrade — the Creek Switch is worse than the freebie in the sea and it costs 450 coins.
wide table — scroll it sideways for the rest of the multipliers. a dash means the rod leaves that number alone.
| rod | coins | tension band | wait | rare odds | bite window | reach | speaks for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Driftwood Rod found leaning on the shack. it holds. |
free | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Fiberglass Flick bends, forgives, moves things along. |
300 | ×1.4 | ×0.8 | — | ×1.2 | — | — |
| Reef Whip built for open water. tolerates the lagoon. |
450 | ×1.15 | ×0.9 | — | — | ×1.3 | ocean |
| Creek Switch short, quick, no time for the sea. |
450 | ×1.25 | ×0.9 | — | ×1.1 | ×0.8 | river |
| Lagoon Long for still water and long afternoons. |
550 | ×1.3 | — | — | ×1.15 | ×1.1 | lagoon |
| Lantern Rod glows a little. the cave fish respect that. |
750 | ×1.2 | ×0.85 | — | — | — | cave pool |
| Gilded Gale the myth-catcher. rare fish quit pretending. |
900 | ×1.4 | ×0.65 | ×2 | ×1.1 | ×1.15 | every water |
| Skyhook for water that shouldn’t be there. |
1200 | ×1.5 | ×0.7 | — | ×1.3 | ×1.4 | sky |
a wider tension band is more forgiving in the fight. a lower wait is a faster bite. a specialist also gets much better rare odds and a faster bite in its own water — the Lantern Rod nearly doubles a cave pool’s rare roll and cuts the wait by forty percent, and does nothing at all on the beach.
bait
bought in packs, spent one per cast. the last four only work in one kind of water; elsewhere they are decoration.
| bait | coins | per pack | wait | rare odds | works in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dough Ball next cast bites in seconds. carbs. |
50 | 5 | ×0.5 | — | anywhere |
| Wiggler Deluxe fast bite, and rare fish get curious. |
75 | 3 | ×0.5 | ×1.5 | anywhere |
| Kelp Curl ocean only. elsewhere it’s seaweed on a hook. |
90 | 3 | ×0.7 | ×2.2 | ocean |
| Fizz Tab pool only. the filter trout has opinions. |
60 | 3 | ×0.6 | ×3 | pool |
| Glowgrub cave only, mostly. it glows. that’s the pitch. |
110 | 3 | ×0.7 | ×2.5 | cave pool |
| Cloud Wisp sky only. keep the jar shut. |
120 | 2 | ×0.6 | ×2.5 | sky |
the bucket
what you have landed and not yet sold. fill it and you stop being able to keep things.
| tier | holds | coins |
|---|---|---|
| the bucket | 10 | free |
| Bigger Bucket | 18 | 200 |
| Otter’s Cooler | 30 | 500 |
06 · the spots
seven places worth walking to
a named spot is a stake, a sign, and an otter behind a plank counter who will buy your bucket. what it actually gives you is a weighted roster — the listed species come up several times more often standing here than standing anywhere else in the same water.
end of the dock
the otter docks are a floating village on the sea, and the spine of them is kept clear of props for exactly one reason: it is the classic end-of-the-dock spot and it had to stay standable. Inkling Lamp and Buoy Bass come up twice as often out here, and a Glass Sprat half again.
every spot has a counter like this one. the otter behind it buys the whole bucket at the same rate the shack’s till does, so the two can never disagree about what a bucket was worth.
| spot | water | what it favours |
|---|---|---|
| the pier end deep water. the myth lives here, allegedly. |
ocean | Gilded Marlow ×3 · Copper Snapper ×1.5 · Buoy Bass ×1.5 |
| the lagoon steps mind the koi. it minds you. |
lagoon | Velvet Koi ×2 · Umbrella Ray ×1.6 · Concierge Gar ×2 |
| the river bend quiet. the trout prefer it. |
river | Mossling Trout ×1.6 · Switchback Salmon ×2 · Old Ridge Sturgeon ×2 |
| end of the dock the otters fish here. they let you. |
ocean | Inkling Lamp ×2 · Buoy Bass ×2 · Glass Sprat ×1.5 |
| turtle cove sheltered. the flounder agree. |
ocean | Tidewatch Flounder ×2.5 · Foghorn Grouper ×2 · Pebble Gill ×1.5 |
| the roost shelf long drop. longer fish. |
ocean | Moonkelt ×2.5 · Storm Eel ×2 · Wandering Sunfish ×2 |
| the tide pool small water. small fish. one boot. |
pool | Old Boot ×4 · Tidewatch Flounder ×2 · Pebble Gill ×2 · Poolside Puffer ×1.5 |
a spot has to be castable
each spot declares its position and the game asks the ground for the rest: a raycast seats the stake, then sixteen bearings are tested at the stock rod’s reach to check that a guest standing there could actually get a line into water of the right kind. a declaration that cannot succeed refuses out loud rather than standing a sign on dry sand.
which is what caught turtle cove. it used to be declared twenty-seven metres inland of its own water, on a beach slab turned thirty-eight degrees, and it answered no on sixteen bearings out of sixteen at low, mean and high water. a sign nobody could fish from looked completely fine to “is there water near here”. moving it three metres in from the seaward corner took it to twenty-six of thirty-two across the tide.
07 · the last five
the key rod
five species — the legendary of the ocean, the lagoon, the river, the cave and the sky — will not come up for a rod that does not speak for their water. it is not a new system: it is the affinity the rods already carry, promoted from “better odds here” to “the only rod that raises this one”.
the Gilded Gale is the rod with no affinity of its own, which is exactly what makes it the master key: it answers for every water instead of for one. it is priced under the Skyhook on purpose, so the last myth is never hostage to the most expensive rod on the wall.
| legend | water | opened by | coins | size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gilded Marlow the ferry captain says it's a myth. go tell him. |
ocean | Reef Whip or the Gilded Gale | 100 | 1.2 m–2.2 m |
| Concierge Gar knows your room number. nobody told it. |
lagoon | Lagoon Long or the Gilded Gale | 95 | 1.1 m–1.9 m |
| Old Ridge Sturgeon older than the trail. the trail agrees. |
river | Creek Switch or the Gilded Gale | 90 | 1.4 m–2.4 m |
| The Deep Nobody the divers named it. the divers left. |
cave pool | Lantern Rod or the Gilded Gale | 110 | 90 cm–1.6 m |
| The Weathervane points where the wind's going. the wind checks with it first. |
sky | Skyhook or the Gilded Gale | 100 | 80 cm–1.4 m |
three rules this had to hold, and does.
only legendaries are gated. a gate on a common is a wall; a gate on a myth is a goal, and the other fifty species stay open to the rod you found leaning on the shack.
nothing funds its own key. every gated fish is a legendary, and no legendary is needed to afford any rod — each water pays for its own specialist out of its ungated commons and rares.
the gate holds in the fallback. the roll has a last-resort path that deliberately ignores the weather gates, and it must not ignore this one.
the pool’s legend is the exception, and it is ungated. no rod specialises in a swimming pool, so a gate there would have been the master key or nothing — and The Lifeguard’s Whistle is six centimetres long.
next
the rest of the island
the park field guide
the other dex, and the bigger one: 150 species with stats, sizes, abilities and full learnsets, the fifteen-type chart, 146 moves, eight biome tiers, seven gyms and three cave networks.
read on →the world
the resort itself: the hillside, the pier, the range behind it, the three animal enclaves and the living day that runs over all of it.
read on →the systems
skating, combos, the three currencies, and what a bucket of fish is actually worth against the other two.
read on →the list
tell me when it ships
one email, when there is something to play. no newsletter, no schedule, nothing else, ever.