How to catch Golden Trout in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Score some shiny scales with our guide on how to catch Golden Trout in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Looking for the biggest catch of your life? The Golden Trout is one of the most lucrative fish you can reel in when playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and is worth a tidy sum of 15,000 bells. That’ll do wonders for you bank balance, or it can make a fine addition to Blathers’ museum. So if you want to catch Golden Trout in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, we’ve got the guide for you.

How to catch Golden Trout in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

How to catch Golden Trout in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
You can only catch Golden Trout in Animal Crossing: New Horizons by fishing in elevated rivers between 4pm and 9am.
© Nintendo

To catch Golden Trout in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, it’s important to understand the unique circumstances in which they can appear. To help you out, we’ve listed them below, before explaining them in detail:

  • Time: 4pm - 9am, March - May and Sept - Nov
  • Location: River (Clifftop/Elevated)
  • Shadow size: medium
  • Bell value: 15,000

As detailed above, you can only catch Golden Trout in Animal Crossing: New Horizons from 4pm until 9am during the monthly periods of March to May, and September to November. This is true in both Hemispheres.

Now when it comes to catching Golden Trout, this shiny fish prefers the cleanest water, and that means its only found in elevated rivers. You can only find the Golden Trout in rivers above the ground level of your island.This means you need to have access to a ladder or a ramp to reach the higher levels. Make your way up and fish in any river there (not ponds). The Golden Trout is a tricky fish, as it’s shadow is only a medium size, meaning it’s hard to distinguish from the other fish like black bass, crucian carp and cherry salmon that it shares the water with. Check out the video below by BeardBear if you want to see what they look like in the water.

The bad news is that, much like the Stringfish it shares the water with, the Golden Trout is one of the rarest fish in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This means it spawns very, very rarely. We recommend crafting a large amount of fish bait before you head out to try and catch it each evening. Even then, it may be several nights before you’re lucky enough to add a Golden Trout to your collection. Don’t lose hope though, there’s still plenty of time left before the Golden Trout disappears for several months!

More Animal Crossing: New Horizons guides:

Now you know how to catch Golden Trout in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, all that’s left is to grab your rod and bait before heading to the clifftops. Good luck, and we’ll see you in the next guide!

Associate Editor

Henry Stenhouse serves an eternal punishment as the Associate Editor of AllGamers. He spent his younger life studying the laws of physics, even going so far as to complete a PhD in the subject before video games stole his soul. Confess your love of Super Smash Bros. via email at henry@moonrock.biz, or catch him on Twitter.

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