How to Fish is a solo and co-op indie game from Dazed Games where you shoot, grill, sell, and gamble your way through a fishing career that gets progressively less normal. Its Steam achievement list runs to 28 entries, and the split is uneven — roughly half fall into your lap during a first playthrough, while the rest demand a speedrun, a full bestiary, or a boss fight with no weapons at all.
Quick answer: Play the story to completion and you will pick up most of the 28 automatically. The four that need dedicated attempts are Collector (kill every creature), Fishipedia (kill every drip creature), Bean (finish the whole game in under an hour), and Handyman (beat the final boss using only your fists).
Achievements you unlock just by playing
These trigger during normal play, usually within the first hour. Noob is the only one worth thinking about, since it requires a kill while no score multiplier is running — easiest to grab at the very start before you build any chain.
| Achievement | Unlock condition |
|---|---|
| Getting started | Kill your first creature. |
| Drip | Kill any drip creature for the first time. |
| Noob | Get a kill while no kill score multiplier is active. |
| Grillmaster | Start the grill for the first time. |
| Getting an upgrade | Upgrade your boat’s engine. |
| We are so back | Finish the main storyline. |
Kill-style and stunt achievements
This group is about how you get a kill rather than what you kill. Impressive needs a 5x multiplier live at the moment of the kill, so build the chain first and save the shot for the right window. Let me go is the one people miss most often — you have to let a seagull grab you instead of shooting it out of the air.
| Achievement | Unlock condition |
|---|---|
| Impressive | Land a kill with a 5x kill score multiplier active. |
| 360 no scope | Kill a creature with a 360 spin and no scope. |
| Let me go | Allow a seagull to pick you up instead of shooting it first. |
| Everyone’s dream | Kill a seagull using dynamite. |
| I’m the bird now | Make your boat catch air. The strongest engine makes this far easier. |
| Yummy in my tummy | Leave a creature on the grill until it burns, then eat it. |
| Competitive eating | Kill a mini-boss, then eat it. |
NPC and side-story achievements
Several characters run their own small plots, and each one carries an achievement. Dinnertime is a two-part job — you need to grill your catch before handing it over to the lady in the forest, not deliver it raw. Vacation hinges on keeping a tourist who cannot swim alive, so treat it as an escort task rather than a delivery.
| Achievement | Unlock condition |
|---|---|
| Who stole my beer | Track down and kill the culprit, then bring the body to the lighthouse keeper. |
| Dinnertime | Catch a creature, grill it, and deliver it to the lady in the forest. |
| Vacation | Help the tourist through his vacation without letting him drown. |
| Terrorizing bird | Defend the islanders from the terrorizing birds. |
| Deadliest catch | Join the military operation and take down the large creature they locate. |
Money, gear, and gambling achievements
Two of these are pure luck. All in requires you to bet on green at roulette and win, and Gold Gold Gold requires a legendary result from the slot machine. Neither has a trick beyond keeping enough cash on hand to pull repeatedly. The rest come down to spending.
| Achievement | Unlock condition |
|---|---|
| I am speed | Buy the best engine available for your boat. |
| Fully equipped | Apply every available attachment to a single weapon. |
| Rich! Millionaire | Sell anything worth 100,000 or more. |
| All in | Bet on green at roulette and win. |
| Gold Gold Gold | Pull a legendary reward from the slot machine. |
Note: Rich! Millionaire and I am speed tend to arrive together, since the payout that clears 100,000 is usually what funds the top-tier engine.
The hard ones: collection and challenge runs
The back half of the list is where completion slows down. Collector and Fishipedia are long grinds that require you to find and kill every creature and every drip variant respectively, which means covering every area and every spawn condition. Bean and Handyman are the opposite problem — they need a clean, planned run rather than patience.
| Achievement | Unlock condition |
|---|---|
| Collector | Find and kill every creature in the game. |
| Fishipedia | Find and kill every drip creature in the game. |
| Easy | Kill a boss in under 10 seconds. |
| Bean | Complete the entire game within one hour. |
| Handyman | Defeat the final boss using only your fists. |
Bean and Handyman pull in opposite directions, so do not try to stack them. A sub-hour run leaves no room to fight the final boss bare-handed, and a fists-only final boss fight will almost certainly blow past the timer. Run them separately.
Why an achievement did not pop
Most failed attempts come down to a condition being broken at the exact moment of the trigger, not to a bug. The usual culprits:
- Noob will not fire if any kill score multiplier is active when the creature dies.
- Impressive needs the multiplier at 5x during the kill, not before or after it.
- Let me go fails if you shoot the seagull before it lifts you off the ground.
- Yummy in my tummy needs the food fully burnt — taking it off the grill early leaves it edible but not burnt.
- Handyman fails the moment you use any weapon during the final boss fight.
- Dinnertime requires the catch to be grilled before you hand it to the lady in the forest.
You can confirm anything you have earned on the game’s Steam achievements page, which tracks all 28 entries and shows exactly which ones are still outstanding. Almost every achievement here can be completed solo, though the escort and defense objectives — Vacation, Terrorizing bird, and Deadliest catch — go noticeably faster with a second player covering the angles you cannot.
