Farming the Old Pike and Sunfish with the Beginner Boss Lure on Island 3 is one of the fastest early money loops in How to Fish: each $40 lure reliably summons one of the two bosses, and a clean kill sells back for far more than the lure cost.
The whole farm runs off one cheap consumable and one weapon. You buy a Beginner Boss Lure for $40, cast it off the Island 3 shoreline, and reel in either The Old Pike or a Sunfish — then you gun it down and sell the corpse back for more than you paid. Island 3 is the spot to run it because the upgrade station here lets you push your shotgun’s bullet damage higher than earlier stops, so the bosses drop faster and the loop keeps spinning.
How to farm the Old Pike and Sunfish on Island 3 in How to Fish
The loop is short and endlessly repeatable — upgrade the shotgun, buy a lure, hook a boss, drop it, and sell it back for a profit.
STEP 1/5
Upgrade your shotgun damage
Visit the upgrade station and pour money into bullet damage — the Upgrade Bullets tier here costs $300 and takes the shotgun from 8 to 9, which drops both bosses noticeably faster.
STEP 2/5
Buy a Beginner Boss Lure
Grab the Beginner Boss Lure from the shop board for $40; its card reads “catches beginner mini-bosses,” and equipping it guarantees one of the two spawns on your next cast.
STEP 3/5
Cast with the lure equipped
Walk to the shoreline, equip the rod with the lure on, and cast — reeling in the hooked catch spawns either The Old Pike or a Sunfish at random.
STEP 4/5
Shoot the boss down
Switch to the shotgun and open fire: The Old Pike leaps around the beach, so chase a little and shoot it on every jump, while the Sunfish just floats in place and takes shots until its bar empties.
STEP 5/5
Sell the catch, then re-lure
Carry the dead boss to the shopkeeper and sell it for a clean profit over the $40 lure, then buy another lure and cast again.
Video help
The Old Pike versus the Sunfish sell value in How to Fish
| Boss | How it fights | Sell value |
|---|---|---|
| The Old Pike | Jumps and moves across the beach; shoot it on each leap, ~1 minute to finish | ~$90–180 |
| Sunfish | Stands still in the shallows like a shooting dummy; the easiest kill | ~$80 |
The lure’s spawn is a coin flip between the two, and they fight nothing alike. The Old Pike is the money maker but it refuses to hold still — it hops across the sand, so you run after it a step or two and put a shell into it on every leap, and a full kill can take around a minute. The Sunfish is the opposite temperament entirely: it parks in the shallows like a shooting dummy and eats rounds until its health bar drains, which makes it the safer, faster kill even though it pays less back.
Those numbers are what came back in an actual run, not fixed vendor prices — the Sunfish at around $80 is roughly $40 of profit over the lure, and the Old Pike swings a lot wider, which comes down to how you finish it.
Pushing the payout higher with Killscore
Sell value isn’t a set number — it climbs with how stylishly you land the kill. The game’s Killscore system hands out a higher sell multiplier for trick shots, 360s, headshots and last-bullet finishers, and you can watch it move the price. The same Old Pike that sells for around $90 on a plain kill jumped to $180 on a clean, showy finish in one showcase run, with other kills on the same boss landing at $96, $151 and $152 — all from the identical loop, just shot differently.
The trick is timing the flashy part. Chip the boss down to almost dead first, back off to create some distance, and only then set up the fancy shot for the finisher — trying to pull a 360 while you’re still dumping the magazine into an angry fish just gets you killed, and you never want to waste a stylish attempt on a boss you just paid to summon. When you do spend earnings, put them into the weapon before anything else so every future kill lands harder.
Damage the boss to almost dead, retreat to open some space, then line up your trick-shot finisher — saving the stylish kill for last is what turns a $90 Old Pike into a $180 one without risking the fight.
Staying alive between casts
Keep a stack of ordinary fish on your hotbar — slot 5 works well — so you can eat one mid-fight and claw HP back without breaking off the boss. The Old Pike’s jumps and tail swats chip away at you over that minute-long fight, and a quick bite buys the seconds to keep firing instead of retreating.
Just budget for the running cost. Every cast burns one $40 lure, so read your real profit as the sell price minus that forty. Even the Sunfish clears the bar, and a well-shot Old Pike clears it many times over.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can I choose whether the Beginner Boss Lure gives me the Old Pike or the Sunfish?
No — the spawn is random, and every cast with the lure equipped hands you one of the two. There’s no way to force a specific boss; across four back-to-back casts you’ll simply get a mix of both, so if you’re chasing the bigger Old Pike payouts you just keep casting through the pool until it shows up.
Do I have to buy a new lure every run?
Yes. The Beginner Boss Lure is a single-use bait, spent the moment you hook a boss — there’s no reusable version at this tier, so you swing back to the shop board and buy a fresh one for $40 before each cast. Treat it as the standing cost of the farm.
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