How to Fish Third Island (Desert)

What the third island actually is

The third island in How to Fish is the Desert, a stretch of sandy terrain dotted with palm trees. You land here after finishing the Forest island quest line, and the palms are worth noticing on your way in — they become your cover during the boss fight. Take a quick lap and note where they stand before you settle in.

The trouble with this island is the quest wording, not the difficulty. A tourist NPC — the swimmer in yellow floaties sitting on the shore — asks you to get rid of a menacing fish, then tells you nothing about what it is, where it lives, or what bait it wants. That deliberate vagueness is why the Desert generates so many confused Steam threads. The menacing fish is the Pufferfish boss, and it will not bite ordinary bait.

Because sources number the islands inconsistently, this wiki sticks to names. If you counted the Lighthouse as your first stop, the Desert is the third place you reach. For where it sits in the full route, see the How to Fish islands overview.

The quest chain at a glance

The whole island is one short chain, and knowing the shape of it up front saves a lot of wandering. You catch a specific kind of fish, trade it for a specific bait, use that bait to pull out the boss, win the fight, and deliver proof of the kill. Miss any link and the quest simply refuses to advance.

Step	Goal	How to do it
1	Catch an endangered fish	Fish with the Standard Lure and inspect every catch with F
2	Get the Carrot bait	Feed the endangered fish to the tourist on the island
3	Summon the Pufferfish	Use the Carrot as bait to draw the boss out
4	Beat the Pufferfish	Circle the palm trees and dodge its rolling charge
5	Unlock Island 4	Pick up the boss drop and hand it to the tourist

Step 1: catch an endangered fish

Your first real job is to land an endangered creature, and the confirmed tool is the Standard Lure — the pink one, priced $15 as of 2026-08-28. If you have been swapping bait around, switch back to it here. You also want the basic Fishing Rod ($3 as of 2026-08-28) if you somehow arrived without one.

Here is the part most players miss: you cannot tell an endangered fish apart just by catching it. You have to inspect the catch with the F key to see the "endangered creature" flag, so check every single fish before you sell or drop anything. Selling an uninspected catch can quietly bin the exact item you needed.

The Needle Fish is the usual example, but it does not have to be that species. The Bowl Fish and Sea Horse are both confirmed to work, so hand in whichever endangered fish you reel up first. For the wider bait picture, the How to Fish map page covers how catches and locations tie together.

Step 2: trade for the Carrot bait

Once you are holding an endangered fish, take it to the tourist and feed it to him. He explains he needs help slaying a scary fish and has spare snacks to use as bait — but he will not hand them over until you promise something in return, which is why he sends you fishing first. In exchange he gives you the Carrot.

Treat the Carrot exactly the way you treated the endangered fish: a progression item, not food and not something to sell. It is the only bait that summons the Pufferfish, and there is no confirmed way to replace it if you lose it. Leave it in your inventory until the moment you are ready to fight.

How to beat the Pufferfish boss

With the Carrot equipped, cast it into the water to draw the Pufferfish out. This is a real boss encounter and the hardest fight on the island, so top off your health and hunger by eating cooked seafood before you start. PC Gamer's writer could not finish it with the shotgun and had to buy the SMG ($650 as of 2026-08-28) with as many bullet upgrades as they could afford.

Movement wins this fight. Keep running and put palm trees and the island terrain between you and the boss instead of standing still to shoot. The Pufferfish's signature move is a rolling charge, and terrain gives you the room to dodge it. It also grows larger every time you hit it, which sounds bad but actually makes it easier to read and dodge once it has lost a little under half its health.

Phase two is where it turns nasty. At roughly half health the Pufferfish starts trailing a purple poison cloud that follows it around, and that damage tick turns lethal fast. The same circling strategy still works, but now you have to watch the ground as well as the boss — do not backtrack across your own poison trails. One handy trick: lure it around the merchant's shop, since it sometimes gets stuck cutting corners once it is large. Unlike the Lighthouse crab, this boss does not stun, so never stop to trade shots.

Claim the drop and unlock Island 4

Beating the Pufferfish is not the end of the quest — the island only counts as cleared once you deliver proof. After the kill, walk over the boss body and physically pick up its drop, the trophy piece most guides call the Pufferfish Fin (a couple of sources say Tail instead). Whatever your game labels it, it is the quest item, and you must grab it manually.

Carry that drop back to the tourist and hand it over. In return he gives you the coordinates for the next island, the Rocks, which is your ticket onward. If the quest seems frozen after the boss dies, the missing piece is almost always the pickup or the delivery, so check both before you assume a bug.

The whole chain is very doable in co-op — the original forum thread behind this island came from a duo — and How to Fish supports online lobbies of up to 8 players. Extra guns bring the Pufferfish down faster and teammates can revive each other instead of wiping.

Common mistakes on the Desert island

Almost every roadblock here comes from the vague quest text rather than real difficulty. Run this checklist before you decide the game is broken. Most of these cost people far more time than the boss itself does.

• Selling a catch before inspecting it with F, throwing away the endangered fish you needed.
• Trying to hook the Pufferfish with the Standard Lure — that lure is for the endangered fish; the Carrot summons the boss.
• Fighting out in the open with no palm trees between you and the boss, so the rolling charge is much harder to avoid.
• Running back across your own poison trails in phase two instead of circling onto fresh ground.
• Walking away after the kill without grabbing the drop, or picking it up but never delivering it to the tourist.

Clear those and the Desert is done. From the tourist's coordinates you sail to the Rocks; the How to Fish islands hub shows what waits there and where the Desert sits in the overall progression. Values here were recorded on a multiplayer save around version 1.0.4–1.0.9 and are current as of 2026-08-28, so treat live in-game prices as the final word after a patch.