How to Kill the Pufferfish

How to kill the Pufferfish in How to Fish

The Pufferfish is the Desert Island story boss, and killing it takes two things: the right summon bait and the right gun. First finish a short quest chain to earn Carrot bait, then use the Carrot to draw the boss out and fight it with an upgraded SMG while circling the palm trees. It is a genuine difficulty spike that took multiple attempts in both solo and co-op runs. This page walks through the full chain, the two-phase fight, and how to unlock Island 4.

Earn the Carrot bait first

The Pufferfish will not bite ordinary bait, so you have to clear the island's quest before you can even start the fight. Speak to the swimmer in yellow floaties, the Tourist sitting on the Desert Island, to pick up the quest for Pufferfish bait. He wants you to bring him an endangered creature before he will hand over the snacks he uses as bait. That trade is the whole gate between you and the boss.

To catch an endangered fish, buy the new Fishing Rod ($3) and the Pink Standard Lure ($15), both prices as of 2026-08-28, then fish until you land one. You cannot tell an endangered catch just by looking, so inspect every fish with the F key before selling anything. The Needle Fish is the usual example, but the Bowl Fish and Sea Horse also count, so hand in whichever endangered species you land first. Feed it to the Tourist and he gives you the Carrot.

The Carrot is a progression item, not food and not something to sell. There is no confirmed way to replace it if you lose it, so leave it in your inventory until you are ready to fight. When you are set, use the Carrot as bait to summon the Pufferfish out of the ocean. Do not swap it for anything else, or you may soft-lock the quest.

Buy the SMG before you summon it

Weapons decide this fight more than reflexes do. The shotgun that carried you through the earlier islands is not enough here, and the PC Gamer writer never managed a shotgun kill before switching guns. Buy the SMG ($650 as of 2026-08-28) and stack as many bullet upgrades as you can afford before you summon the boss.

Food matters just as much, because healing is a supply problem in every How to Fish boss fight. Cook a large stack of fish, carry as many as your slots allow, and grab extra inventory and hotbar slots whenever they are offered. Eat to top off both health and hunger during the fight, since a full larder decides the late rounds more than aim does. The bosses hub covers how gear scales across the whole roster if you want the bigger picture.

One budgeting note before you spend: weapon upgrades appear to cost less on a solo save, while lures and guns seem to cost the same whether you play solo or in co-op. If you are farming cash for the SMG and its bullet upgrades, doing that grind solo may stretch your money a little further. Either way, arrive at the summon with a maxed weapon and a full food stack rather than expecting to improvise mid-fight.

Pufferfish fight, phase one

Once the boss is out, the golden rule is simple: do not stop moving. The Pufferfish rolls and charges at you, and it grows larger every time you land a hit. Keep running and gunning, and put as many palm trees between you and the boss as you can so its charge has to path around cover.

The Desert Island's sandy terrain and palm trees are your main dodging aid, so note where they stand before you start. One trick worth abusing is luring the Pufferfish around the merchant's shop, where it sometimes gets stuck cutting corners once it grows bigger. Those brief snags are almost the only safe moments to plant your feet and pour in damage. Encouragingly, the fight gets easier to read once the boss loses a little under half its health.

Phase two: the purple poison cloud

At roughly half health the fight changes. The Pufferfish starts trailing a purple poison cloud that follows it around the arena. Do not run into that cloud, because the damage tick turns lethal fast and backtracking across old trails is one of the quickest ways to die here.

The same circling strategy still works, but now you have to watch the ground as well as the boss. Keep leading it onto fresh terrain instead of retracing your own path, and keep eating fish whenever your health dips. Stay patient, since this half is a war of attrition rather than a burst-damage race.

Grab the drop and unlock Island 4

Killing the Pufferfish does not finish the quest on its own. The body leaves a half-fish trophy drop, which most guides call the Pufferfish Fin though a few say Tail, and you must physically pick it up. If you walk away without it, the quest stalls and the game can look bugged when it is working as designed.

Carry the drop back to the Tourist and hand it over. In return he gives you the coordinates for Island 4, which is the real reward for the whole chain and your ticket onward. If progress seems stuck after the kill, the missing step is almost always the pickup or the delivery, so check both before assuming a bug.

Common mistakes to avoid

Most Pufferfish roadblocks come from the quest's vague wording rather than the fight itself. Selling a catch before inspecting it can throw away the exact endangered fish you needed. Trying to hook the boss with the Standard Lure instead of the Carrot is another dead end, since the lure is only for catching the endangered fish.

In the fight, standing still or fighting out in the open makes the rolling charge far harder to dodge. Running back through your own poison trails in phase two is a frequent late-fight death. And after the kill, forgetting to grab or deliver the drop leaves the whole chain unfinished. Clear those and the Desert Island is done.

Co-op and what comes next

If the solo fight is grinding you down, the Pufferfish is very doable in co-op, and How to Fish supports online lobbies of up to 8 players who can revive one another instead of ending the run. More guns also mean the boss dies faster, so bringing a friend is a legitimate way to push past this difficulty spike. The core movement rules stay the same whether you play alone or in a group.

Once Island 4 is open, the next featured fight is the optional Blue Shark mini-boss, summoned with the $280 Standard Boss Lure. For the full lineup of island bosses and mini-bosses, head back to the bosses hub. These tactics come from guides written around patch 1.0.4 to 1.0.5, with the community wiki tracking patch 1.0.9 as of 2026-08-28, so treat live in-game values as final when a number differs.