How to catch a Sturgeon in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Big fish energy.
Sturgeon hide away from your Animal Crossing island after March, so act fast to get Blathers his big fish.
There are a few rarer fish in Animal Crossing: New Horizons you’ll want to grab to fill out your museum collection. The sturgeon is proving problematic for many.
How to catch a sturgeon in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
This new fish, available for the first time in the Switch version, can be found between the months of September and March, so once April starts it’ll be gone for months. Here’s how to find your very own sturgeon.
Sturgeon can be found at the mouth of your river, where the water runs into the coast. It’s a pretty small area, see below what it looks like.
Look out for a large shadow under the water’s surface. You’re probably familiar with what a sea bass looks like. It’s bigger than that. You’ll struggle to miss it – just don’t run near the water or you’ll scare it off.
Be quick too – these rare fish love to bite your line and leave super fast, so don’t let that happen.
More essential Animal Crossing: New Horizons guides
- 1. Tree Branches – Animal Crossing New Horizons: How to get tree branches fast
- 2. Tarantula Island – Animal Crossing New Horizons: How to get to tarantula island
- 3. Bells – Animal Crossing New Horizons: How to get Bells quickly
- 4. Iron Nuggets – Animal Crossing New Horizons: How to farm Iron Nuggets
- 5. Turnips – Animal Crossing New Horizons – Turnips and Stalk market guide
How to get a sturgeon to appear
You can improve your chances of finding a sturgeon. The most helpful tip for us has been crafting fish bait.
Head down to the beach and grab your shovel. Dig where you see water spray out of the sand, and you’ll find Manila Clams which can be used to craft fish bait. Head down to the river mouth and drop the bait in – a fish will appear once per bait. Just keep an eye out for the large shadow size and you’ll be golden.
In addition, you may take a Nook Miles Ticket and find yourself on a deserted island with a river on it. From here, you can run around scaring all the fish in the river away until a large shadow appears in the mouth of the river. You’ll need to get lucky and go to an ideal mystery tour island, but if you can get easy access to the whole river, you can force rare fish to spawn eventually.
It’s even sellable for 10,000 bells, so after your first one goes to Blathers in the museum, this next one is fast cash!
Now you’ve caught a sturgeon, you’re well on your way to filling out your collection. There’s all sorts of other rare fish available too! The stringfish is another one that leaves the game in April, whilst tuna and blue marlin are a pain to find out on the pier. We’ve also got tips on connecting with friends through the Nintendo Online app, super helpful if you want to show off your shiny new fish.