As Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been out for almost a week now, players are finding more and more to do on their deserted islands. This includes outlandish and creative things like recreating scenes from The Lighthouse, a critically acclaimed black and white horror film from 2019.
Yet, one of the series’ most famous activities – fishing – has already captured plenty New Horizons players, as there are plenty of fish that are hard to get. Maybe the king among these rare and hard to catch fish is the elusive deep sea coelacanth, also known as the living fossil.
Catching the Coelacanth
There are plenty of side activities in Animal Crossing: New Horizons to keep players occupied. Activities like gardening, paying off moving fees or home loans, and catching bugs and fish. Players wanting to fill up their museums quickly are going to need to know when the rarest fish spawn and under what conditions. Conditions like time of day and area determine where certain fish will spawn.
However, one of the game’s rarest deep sea fish known as the coelacanth is affected not by the game’s current time, but by the game’s current weather. The coelacanth can only be caught during rainy weather in the sea. That means that players wanting to donate fish to Blathers in his museum once it’s finally open are going to need to have rain on their islands first.
Unlike other deep sea fish such as the various sharks players can catch in New Horizons, the coelacanth can be caught during any time of day provided it is raining. The coelacanth is only found in the sea, so players should naturally avoid searching in rivers. Finally, the coelacanth’s shadow when found in the ocean will be a large fish shadow without a fin. Unfortunately, this means distinguishing from fish like olive flounders or the dreaded sea bass is impossible.
The best way to get a coelacanth is by using fishing bait. Fishing bait can be crafted by digging up manila clams on the beach. Using bait to spawn a large fish shadow in the ocean is going to be the fastest way to catch a coelacanth as the fish is extremely rare. Players may also want to try fishing on the pier as it’s a great way to catch to catch other rare fish that only spawn there. Regardless, players need only fish in the ocean during rainy weather to catch the coelacanth, but it will most likely be a test of patience.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now, exclusively for Nintendo Switch.