How To Actually Win The Fishing Contest (Love Doesn't Have To Be Painful)

Tips on how to catch five fish and win the fishing contest (the most frustrating part of the game)!

You will need a chef as your hypeman.

If you're like me and like most Moon players, you absolutely are dreading Gamakatsu's fishing contest. Maybe you're at level 29 with 1 love needed to 100% complete the game (like I was). Odds are, you're considering giving up, carrying on to the end of the game without it and forgetting the achievement, maybe you're fighting the urge to break something because you've wasted so much time trying to win a damn fishing contest. I'm going to help alleviate your frustration and get you that achievement, as this trick makes catching the five fish needed under the time limit easy.

1. Before we start, make sure you've purchased an Octolips from the guy in the cave near Tropical Fields. Also, make sure you have plenty of fishing bait (kirikiri bugs). I'd say around 10 should be a safe bet. It's not a bad idea to make sure you have a decent amount of money on you as well.
   
2. Since Gamakatsu holds the contest every Solarday, make certain that you go to bed during the daytime on Echoday. Try to time it so that you wake up later on in the night of Echoday.
   
3. Once you wake up, hurry over to the Wildcat House Restaurant (the area past where the Birdman sits with his guitar).
   
4. Upon arriving at Wildcat, immediately talk to Clis, when she asks you what you'd like to eat, order the KIRIKIRI BUG SAUTEE for 300 yenom. The chef, Kenji, will hint that this meal can improve your fishing skills and is a favorite of Gamakatsu. He's absolutely correct by the way.
   
5. Once you're done eating, walk out of the restaurant and immediately eat the Octolips you bought beforehand. This will save you time getting to the contest. The Octolips will spawn you back at your house, use the flower (Pistil) to warp you to Tropical Fields, and book it as fast as you can to the contest area at Shellwhale Cove!
   
6. After entering the contest, you'll find that you're not catching junk anymore and you're able to catch several fish in no time at all. Remember, you need FIVE fish to get Gamakatsu's love, but this should be no problem thanks to the sautee.
   
7. Finally, after catching five fish and winning the contest, Gamakatsu will give you 1 love (I know, ridiculous) and 250 yenom.

This method has always worked for me and has helped me pass this part of the game with so much ease several times.
If you have any questions, let me know and I'll try my best to get back to you.

[teddy]

yeah took me like over a dozen tries. the one that succeeded I wasn't waiting in gamakatsu's area when it turned daytime, didn't watch him set up. I decided to wait longer before eating the food. I dont think this made a difference, I think I just got luckier, but whatever. I didn't catch any monkfish or slow fish, was all pinkfish, sunfish, and ironfish. I don't think the kirikiri saute was wearing off or anything, I think it was just all luck and I was unlucky for like 14 times before the 15th. this was trash

[teddy]

I keep catching junk no matter what I do. everyone saying switch to japanese just got lucky, cause when I switched to japanese my first catch was junk, and I got 2 out of my 5 casts. I tried having him explain the rules of the contest to me since 1 time I got no junk, but only 4 fish after a did that, but the 2nd time I got 2 junk.

it's pure luck, nothing helps. just reset after every failure, restart the game, eat the kiri kiri saute, warp back, wait a minute in the cove, catch junk on the first catch, fuckin cry. also I keep getting monk fish and that other slow guy or they nibble on my line for what feels like 5 minutes before biting. this thing is so luck based. I've done it like 10 times now, I failed it like 4 times normally before I've been save scumming here and nothing helps.

this just sucks and was poorly tested, the devs either needed to add more time or make junk not catchable for an event you can only do once a week.

[OGI]

This guide is relatively helpful. It is improving my scores of 0 - 2 fish per attempt, to 2 - 3 per attempt which is good... But it's not a 4 to 5 fish score yet.

But I keep seeming to get either really difficult fish that waste my time too much early on, have the bobber not go down fast enough, or I fish up some empty cans that prevent me from breaking that 3 fish barrier.

I keep seeing stuff about changing the language to Japanese to see if that alter's the RNG, but I'm not sure how. I try changing it in steam's properties tab for the game but that doesn't seem to change anything. I'm not sure what to do there.

The Kirikiri dish isn't seeming to change results either.

[Neo-Kobe]

Not sure if anybody's mentioned this, but for anybody struggling with the fishing contest, try changing your language to Japanese. It could be placebo, but I got 5 fish on my first try (with the kirikiri dish) this way. I have a theory that the RNG could be effected by the translation, as the translation actively changes the speed of the text, as well as changing the samples of the character's voices.

This is the kind of insanity the fishing contest brings you to.

[DoujinShinji]

nope still painful

[Deep Weeb]

Yeah, I already figured, got to do both get the 5th part and have both Clis's love events, and thankfully she was there in time for Solarday

Didn't help at all because I still caught 2 cans...

[jellobyte]

to Deep Weeb: That is a story event where the Hero goes to the restaurant and becomes a nuisance. There should be details on how to get past that part in a full guide to the game. I can't exactly remember the solution (it might be just waiting), but you can't order any food until the Hero leaves.

[Deep Weeb]

Issue: I got the 4 parts of the rocket before getting in the restaurant and that triggered the Hero event, now it doesn't seem like anyone is willing to serve any food to me
Do I really need to waste another week for this after finding the 5th rocket part?

[🌟MOON🌟]

Thanks for the Guide!