Fishing in Moonfrost starts on the Mountain, where Ronen hands you the blueprint for a Fishing Rod. There are 18 fish to catch across four places: the river on your farm, five lakes on the Mountain, the water at the Cemetery, and the river and pond in the Neighbourhood. Most fish only live in one or two of them, so it pays to know where to look before you head out.
Getting a Fishing Rod
Head to the Mountain and talk to Ronen, the stranger fishing at its lakes. He gives you the Fishing Rod blueprint and asks you to build one so he can show you how it’s done. Craft it at the Tools Workbench.
| Tool | Materials | Requires | Lasts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Fishing Rod | 5 Birchwood, 5 Stone | Level 5 | 75 casts |
The recipe stays locked until you reach Level 5, so you may need to level up before you can finish Ronen’s request.
Every cast into the water uses up one of the rod’s 75 uses, whether or not anything bites, and the rod breaks when the last one is gone. Each cast also costs 3 stamina, so bring something to eat for a long session at the lakes. The materials are cheap, so keep 5 Birchwood and 5 Stone on hand for a spare. There’s only one rod to craft, and it doesn’t change which fish bite or how hard they fight.
How to Fish
Fishing happens in fishing spots: patches of water where you can see fish shadows swimming. Each shadow is one fish waiting to be caught.
Casting
- Equip the Fishing Rod and stand at the edge of a fishing spot. If the water right in front of you isn’t part of the spot, the game tells you to move closer.
- Hold Left Click to charge the cast. The longer you hold, the farther the float flies, up to full distance after about a second.
- Release to cast. If the float lands outside the fishing spot, the cast is wasted.
Aim right next to the shadow you want. A fish only goes for the float when it’s swimming close to where the float lands, and if several fish are that close, any one of them might take it. The other fish keep swimming, so if nothing is in range, one may still wander over while you wait.
Hooking a Fish
Once a fish notices the float, it takes a few seconds to swim over, then nibbles for up to 3 seconds. When it bites, the float dives under and an exclamation mark pops up. Left Click while the float is under to hook the fish.
Timing matters on both sides. Clicking before the float dives ends the attempt, and so does waiting too long. The fish stays in the water either way, so you can cast at it again.
Bigger fish give you less time to react. The size of the shadow tells you which group a fish belongs to:
| Shadow size | Fish | Time to click after the float dives |
|---|---|---|
| Small | Perch, Bullhead, Minnow | 1 to 1.5 sec |
| Medium | Chub, Grayling, Angler Fish, Mutant Goldfish, Crayfish, Trout, Roach, Chicken Fish | 0.75 to 1.25 sec |
| Large | Pike, Carp, Eel, Salmon, Catfish, Frog, Viperfish | 0.5 to 1 sec |
Reeling It In
After the hook, a target circle appears on the water and the fish starts darting around. The fish is pulled toward your cursor, so move the cursor to steer it into the circle and keep it there.
- Inside the circle, the catch progresses. The circle drifts from side to side and shrinks as the fish gets closer to you, so keep adjusting.
- Outside the circle, your progress slips back and the fish starts working loose. Leave it well outside for a little under two seconds and you’ll see “The fish escaped!”
- Click to tug when the fish fights its way out. Each tug yanks it toward your cursor but adds tension to the line. Tension drains on its own, but about ten quick tugs in a row snap the line (“The line snapped!”). Two tugs a second is roughly as fast as you can keep going.
A clean fight, with the fish in the circle the whole time, takes 11 to 16.5 seconds depending on the fish. The Chicken Fish takes the longest, followed by Roach. Caught fish go straight into your inventory. If it’s full, the fish drops on the ground next to you.
Where to Fish
You can fish in four places: the river on your farm, the lakes on The Mountain, the water at The Cemetery and The Neighbourhood. The Mountain has five lakes. This guide numbers them from Lake 1, the lake beside Ronen’s fishing spot near where you arrive, out to Lake 5, the farthest one.
The Neighbourhood is the north-eastern part of the Village, where you build homes for villagers. Alba first asks you to meet her there in A Home For the Siblings. It has a river with two fishing spots and a pond with two more, and the tables below list the river and the pond separately because they hold very different fish.
Each fishing spot holds a limited number of fish. The first time you visit, every spot is fully stocked. After that, a spot gets one new fish at a time while you’re on that map, until it’s full again. The clock stops during cutscenes and doesn’t make up the lost time afterwards. If a spot has no shadows left, fish another one and come back.
How to read the table:
- Fishing spots is how many separate patches of fishable water the location has.
- Fish per spot is the most fish one spot can hold.
- New fish every is how often an emptied spot gets a new fish.
| Location | Fishing spots | Fish per spot | New fish every |
|---|---|---|---|
| Farm river | 1 | 5 | 1 min |
| Lake 1 | 12 | 5–15 | 1 min |
| Lake 2 | 7 | 5–15 | 1 min |
| Lake 3 | 4 | 10–20 | 1 min |
| Lake 4 | 8 | 10–15 | 1 min |
| Lake 5 | 1 | 15 | 1 min |
| Cemetery | 5 | 5 | 2 min |
| Neighbourhood river | 2 | 5 | 1 min |
| Neighbourhood pond | 2 | 5 | 1 min |
Weather and time of day make no difference. A spot holds the same mix of fish in the rain as at noon.
Which Fish Live Where
Every new fish in a spot is picked at random, with some species far more common than others. Each number below is the share of the fish at that location that belong to that species, on average, when every spot there is stocked. A dash means the fish never appears there, and the darker the cell, the more of that fish you’ll find.
| Fish | Farm river | Lake 1 | Lake 2 | Lake 3 | Lake 4 | Lake 5 | Cemetery | Neighbourhood river | Neighbourhood pond | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Perch | — | — | — | — | |||||
 | Bullhead | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
 | Chub | — | — | — | ||||||
 | Pike | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
 | Carp | — | — | |||||||
 | Grayling | — | — | — | ||||||
 | Eel | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
 | Salmon | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
 | Catfish | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
 | Angler Fish | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
 | Frog | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
 | Mutant Goldfish | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
 | Viperfish | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
 | Minnow | — | — | — | — | |||||
 | Crayfish | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
 | Trout | — | — | — | ||||||
 | Roach | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
 | Chicken Fish | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
A few things stand out:
- Perch are easiest to get in the farm river, where nearly four fish in five are Perch. That’s where to go for Ronen’s first request and for Fish Soup.
- Minnows are easiest in the Neighbourhood river. One of its two spots is nine-tenths Minnows and the other nine-tenths Perch, so if one spot keeps giving you Perch, switch to the other.
- Nearly half the fish in Lake 1 are Bullhead or Chub. Spots in the same lake can hold different mixes, so if one spot keeps giving you Chub, move along the shore.
- Salmon, Eel and Catfish live in the far lakes. Lake 3 has the most Eels, Lakes 4 and 5 are your best bet for Salmon, and Catfish only live in Lakes 4 and 5.
- The Cemetery has its own fish. Angler Fish, Frog, Mutant Goldfish and Viperfish don’t live anywhere else.
- The two pond spots in the Neighbourhood differ. The one nearest where you arrive is almost all Trout and Roach. The farther one is three-quarters Crayfish, and it’s the only place in the game where a Chicken Fish can appear, as about one new fish in 131.
Fish List
The table gives each fish’s shadow size, what one sells for, the location where it makes up the biggest share of the catch, and the recipes that use it.
| Fish | Size | Sells for | Best place to catch | Used in | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perch | Small | 5 Sil | Farm river (78%) | Fish Soup |
| Bullhead | Small | 10 Sil | Lake 1 (24%) | Grilled Fish |
| Chub | Medium | 6 Sil | Lake 1 (23%) | — |
| Pike | Large | 30 Sil | Lake 2 (30%) | — |
| Carp | Large | 25 Sil | Lake 2 (15%) | Battered Fish |
| Grayling | Medium | 8 Sil | Lake 2 (13%) | — |
| Eel | Large | 25 Sil | Lake 3 (19%) | — |
| Salmon | Large | 30 Sil | Lake 4 (15%) | — |
| Catfish | Large | 20 Sil | Lake 5 (14%) | — |
| Angler Fish | Medium | 8 Sil | Cemetery (36%) | Black Thorn Tincture |
| Frog | Large | 25 Sil | Cemetery (24%) | Nightveil Tonic |
| Mutant Goldfish | Medium | 7 Sil | Cemetery (21%) | Ironbark Brew |
| Viperfish | Large | 50 Sil | Cemetery (15%) | — |
| Minnow | Small | 5 Sil | Neighbourhood river (50%) | Baked Fish |
| Crayfish | Medium | 12 Sil | Neighbourhood pond (38%) | — |
| Trout | Medium | 20 Sil | Neighbourhood pond (27%) | — |
| Roach | Medium | 15 Sil | Neighbourhood pond (23%) | — |
| Chicken Fish | Medium | 500 Sil | Neighbourhood pond (<1%) | — |
Fish don’t come in quality grades the way crops do. Most sell for 5 to 30 Sil, and the Viperfish tops the regular catch at 50, the same as a Common Carrot (see the Crops and Farming guide). The Chicken Fish is the jackpot at 500 Sil, but it’s so rare that you’ll catch it by luck while fishing the pond for Crayfish. For the rest, cooking or the requests below pay far more than selling: two Bullhead sell for 20 Sil, while the Grilled Fish you cook from them sells for 90.
Fish Requests
Several characters ask you for fish. Requests that call for a dish show the fish it takes in parentheses, so you can see the real cost: Walter’s 20 Fish Soup alone means 60 Perch.
| Who asks | Hand in |
|---|---|
| Ronen | 1 Perch |
| Ronen | 5 Salmon |
| Ronen | 2 Eel |
| Ronen’s fish list | 5 Perch, 4 Trout, 3 Carp |
| Ronen’s fish list | 5 Minnow, 4 Chub, 3 Pike |
| Ronen’s fish list | 5 Bullhead, 4 Grayling, 3 Catfish |
| Ronen’s fish list | 5 Roach, 4 Crayfish, 3 Salmon |
| Ronen’s banquet list | 5 Minnow |
| Ronen’s banquet list | 5 Bullhead |
| Ronen’s banquet list | 3 Pike |
| Ronen’s banquet list | 5 Salmon |
| Ronen’s supply list | 5 Minnow |
| Ronen’s supply list | 5 Perch |
| Ronen’s supply list | 3 Trout |
| Walter | 2 Perch |
| Walter | 2 Minnow |
| Walter | 1 Fish Soup (3 Perch) |
| Walter | 1 Baked Fish (3 Minnow) |
| Walter | 1 Grilled Fish (2 Bullhead) |
| Walter | 1 Battered Fish (1 Carp) |
| Walter | 20 Fish Soup (60 Perch) |
| Walter | 15 Grilled Fish (30 Bullhead) |
| Alba | 1 Fish Soup (3 Perch) |
Ronen’s fish list is a set of four batches you place on a donation spot he sets up for you in Something Fishy. His banquet list in Pub Food works the same way, and each of its four batches pairs the fish above with crops from your farm. His supply list for the pub’s opening night in The Frosty Moon adds three more batches of fish and crops. Between his lists and his other requests, Ronen wants 13 Salmon in total, so don’t sell the ones you catch in the far lakes.
The FHA Requests app also posts requests for fish, and they pay far better than selling. A request for 2 Trout pays 111 Sil, while selling the same two Trout gets you 40. The app also has four daily requests, one easy, two medium and one hard, and any of them can ask for fish: the easy one for 1 to 3 Perch, Minnows or Angler Fish (2 Moonfrost Shards), the medium ones for 3 Trout or 3 Carp (6 Moonfrost Shards) and the hard one for 3 Trout or 3 Carp (10 Star Tickets). Shards pay for decorations and Star Tickets for blueprints.
Cooking with Fish
Walter teaches you the fish recipes one at a time in Sea Food. Bring him 2 Perch and then 2 Minnows, and he gives you the Fish Soup recipe. Each dish you cook for him after that unlocks the next one: Fish Soup leads to Baked Fish, Baked Fish to Grilled Fish, and Grilled Fish to Battered Fish, along with the Batter recipe and Salt at the Vending Machine: Seeds. Cook them all at Walter’s Cooking Station.
| Dish | Ingredients | Cost | Restores | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Fish Soup | 3 Perch, 1 Radish Uncommon, 1 Turnip | 5 Sil | +15 stamina, +5 health |
 | Baked Fish | 3 Minnow | 5 Sil | +10 stamina, +1 health |
 | Grilled Fish | 2 Bullhead | 5 Sil | +12 stamina |
 | Battered Fish | 1 Carp, 1 Batter | 5 Sil | +30 stamina |
Cooking turns cheap fish into Sil. Baked Fish sells for 70, Grilled Fish for 90 and Battered Fish for 250, far more than the fish in them. Fish Soup is the exception at 3 Sil, so cook it for Walter, Alba and stamina. Battered Fish also restores the most stamina by far, but Batter takes 1 Flour, 6 Eggs and 1 Salt. Fish Soup needs a Turnip and an Uncommon Radish, which you grow on your farm. Only about 9% of Radish harvests come up Uncommon, so set those aside instead of selling them. The Cooking guide has every recipe at Walter’s station.
The Cemetery fish go into potions instead. Angler Fish goes into Black Thorn Tincture, Mutant Goldfish into Ironbark Brew and Frog into Nightveil Tonic, all brewed in the Cauldron at the Cemetery. Viperfish isn’t in any recipe, so sell it or save it for FHA Requests.
Fish Collection
The Collection Album has a Fish collection with 17 entries: every fish on this page except the Chicken Fish. A fish counts the first time it lands in your inventory. To finish the collection you need the far Mountain lakes for Salmon, Eel and Catfish, and the Cemetery for its four fish.