Many Animal Crossing players treat Nintendo’s adorable life sim as a chill, play-at-your-own-pace experience. Then there are the rest of us, desperate to fill out our collections of fossils, bugs, fish, and furnishings at all costs. Nothing less than 100% will do, for we must lord our complete collections over our friends and enemies.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons players are feeling that pinch right now, as the end of March approaches, and some species of sea life and bugs transition out of the game — some of which won’t return for months. For players in the northern hemisphere, that means catching the elusive stringfish. Some players, still stringfish-less and with little time to spare, are taking desperate measures.
Some are taking extra Dodo Airlines trips to islands via the Nook Miles ticket, while other are stocking up on lots and lots of bait.
Your reign of terror ends tonight, Stringfish pic.twitter.com/Twke03RUuZ
— Matt / Maddy Thorson (@MattThorson) March 29, 2020
Sometimes to no avail...
Before and after: another 114 bait down the drain, and still the stringfish eludes me... #AnimalCrossing #ACNH pic.twitter.com/ih32TgZjTU
— John Ricciardi (@johntv) March 30, 2020
16 sturgeons, 14 cherry salmons, 2 golden trout, 5 fishing rods, and ZERO stringfish later pic.twitter.com/o5aScK6fxb
— Hitmonvers ✨ (@MilkmanNick) March 30, 2020
Others are pursuing a more ... arcane approach.
to catch the stringfish
— C.M. Galdre (@CMGaldre) March 28, 2020
i must become the stringfish
i am ready
#AnimalCrossing #ACNH #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/XO2oqdTzOC
Failure is weighing heavily on many players, who simply cannot find a blessing from Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ cruel god of randomness.
fuck you you fucking fat fuck fish i hate you pic.twitter.com/cLBN5ZivRf
— mia (@lullver) March 26, 2020
Guess who still hasn’t caught a Stringfish #AnimalCrossing pic.twitter.com/QsuWFu2CQO
— Alex, but online (@Alex_but_online) March 28, 2020
good morning to everyone except stringfish pic.twitter.com/nE3TVjRRrL
— chloe (@wisptheghost) March 27, 2020
my villager walking back to the beach to get clams after wasting 80 fish bait and not getting any stringfish pic.twitter.com/CLKa5wpb0Q
— erin₁₂₇ acnh (@deadlybearhug) March 25, 2020
But despite the odds, there is hope (as evidenced by Polygon’s own stringfish hunter, Nicole Carpenter) out there.
lol i just spent two hours digging up an absurd amount of clams for my stringfish hunt and it was just ... sitting there ... the first fish and i didn’t have to use any bait!!!! pic.twitter.com/u1eWi20NUa
— Nicole Carpenter (@sweetpotatoes) March 30, 2020
about 18 hrs, 200 clams, 6 golden trout, 3 sturgeon, a tuna and a coelacanth later... i caught the bastard stringfish! #AnimalCrossing #ACNH pic.twitter.com/4hSL0g3C4x
— sam (@samsaprat) March 30, 2020
Things might be going a little better for some of us if, say, manila clams would stack. Or Animal Crossing: New Horizons would let us batch craft fish bait. Or that damned stringfish wasn’t all the way at the top of the cliff. Or that just once — just ONCE — I could get what I want — nay, deserve — in this life.
I’m OK. It’s OK. We’re all going to be OK. Maybe. Anyway, have you checked out Polygon’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons guides? They’re very good.
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