Stardew Valley - Legendary Fish

The legendary fish are the hardest catches in the valley. Each one appears in a single spot, under its own conditions, and only once a save.

Overview

Five fish in the valley wear a small crown in the catch minigame, and the crown is a warning. Each one of them lives in a single spot, bites only under its own conditions, and can be landed just once in a save file. They are the trophies of the branch, the reason a fishing collection sits stubbornly one line short for a year or two, and the only catches in the game that have to be planned for rather than stumbled upon.

What makes a legendary fish difficult is not really its strength in the bar, although that is considerable. It is the stack of conditions underneath it. A season, a fishing level, a precise piece of shoreline to stand on and in most cases a minimum distance between the bobber and the nearest land all have to be satisfied together, and only then does a cast carry its chance of hooking the fish at all. A farmer standing one tile out of place can fish the right water in the right season all morning and never see one.

The branch has a second generation that works the opposite way. While one of Mr. Qi's commissions is running, each of the five spots holds a relative instead of the original. The relatives sell for the same money, fight just as hard and heal just as much, but the season and weather requirements are lifted and nothing caps how many of them a farm lands. The commission pays in Qi Gems, which makes it the one time the branch hands out anything beyond a line on a list.

Groups

The originals divide neatly by what gates them. One of them asks for nothing but a rod and a place to stand: the monstrous carp in the sewers bites on every cast at a fixed chance, in any season and at any hour, so the only real requirement is the Rusty Key that opens the sewer grate after enough has gone into the Museum's cases. One of them asks for a bridge rather than a skill, since the far east end of the beach only becomes walkable once three hundred wood has gone into mending the plank, or Robin's second community upgrade has been paid for.

The rest ask for a fishing level, and the levels are spread deliberately wide. The river fish in town wants only a beginner's competence. The fish off the forest island wants a little more. The ocean fish wants a middling level. The king of the mountain lake wants the top of the skill, which is the single hardest prerequisite in the branch, because reaching it before the first Spring is over is a serious piece of planning.

The relatives are a group of their own and behave as a set. None of them exists outside the commission window, each appears exactly where its parent lives, and they give a farm that already caught the originals a second chance at the fight without the one-per-save rule hanging over it.

Order

The calendar fixes the order and it is an awkward one, because the hardest fish comes first. Spring rain over the mountain lake is when the king bites, and it wants the fishing skill maxed out. A farm that intends to clear the branch in a single year therefore has to spend its first Spring fishing almost to the exclusion of farming, or else lean on cooked buffs to borrow the levels it has not earned.

Summer belongs to the ocean, out at the end of the repaired pier past Elliott's cabin. Fall belongs to the town river, at the northern end near the wooden plank, and that one is the gentlest of the five. Winter belongs to the forest pond, from one exact tile at the southern tip of the little island in it. The sewer carp fills any gap in the year, which makes it the sensible fish to leave for a week when nothing else is in season.

The relatives sit at the opposite end of a run. Mr. Qi posts his commission in the room behind the walnut door on Ginger Island, which means a farm has already explored the island and has the gear, the bait and the cooking to treat all five as an afternoon's work rather than a season's.

Best

By money there is no argument. The lake king fetches several times what any other swimming thing in the valley does, and a single catch covers a greenhouse full of seeds. It also restores an enormous amount of energy if eaten, which makes it one of the few items in the valley worth considering as food rather than cash. The ocean fish is the next most valuable, and the other three sit together a long way behind it.

By ease the ranking inverts almost completely. The forest fish has by far the best chance of biting once its one correct tile has been found, better than one cast in two. The sewer carp needs no skill at all. The river fish needs only a beginner's level and bites often. The ocean fish and the lake king are the two that actually test a farm.

For a first run the best order is therefore river, sewer, forest, ocean, lake. That spends the easy catches early, builds the fishing level while doing it, and leaves the one that needs a maxed skill and a rainy Spring day for the point where the farm can actually meet it.

Locations

Each spot has a rule worth learning exactly. In town the farmer must stand at the northernmost stretch of the river, within a short distance of the map edge, which includes the wooden plank bridge and the bank for a few tiles south of it; the bobber itself can land anywhere in the water. At the beach the standing position is anywhere on the eastern pier or the shore beyond it, and the bobber has to sit at least three tiles clear of land, the pier included.

On the mountain lake the bobber needs four tiles of clear water in every direction, and the stretch beside the large submerged log satisfies that comfortably, though other patches of the lake qualify just as well. In Cindersap Forest the requirement is the strictest in the branch: one single tile at the southern point of the small island, with the bobber three tiles out. In the sewers any spot will do, which is why that fish is the branch's consolation prize.

A bubbling patch helps everywhere the distance rule applies, because the fish will come one tile closer to land when the bobber lands in bubbles. Casting into a patch also shortens the wait, so a patch drifting across the right water is the best moment the branch offers.

Uses

The first use is the record itself. Each of these fish is a line in the fishing collection, and a fish registers the moment it comes off the rod rather than when it is sold, so a legendary catch can go straight into the bin without costing the entry. Filling the collection is what earns the branch's achievement and, through it, a stardrop in the post from Willy.

The second use is a pond. Any of them can be put into a Fish Pond, which holds exactly one of them for good and produces roe named after the fish. That roe is worth a great deal in a Preserves Jar, which turns a trophy into a slow income rather than a single payday, and the decision between selling the fish and keeping it is the only real choice this branch offers.

The third use is colour. Each of them serves as a dye in the pots on Willow Lane, and the five between them cover red, blue, green and yellow, which makes a legendary catch an oddly extravagant way to recolour a shirt.

Strategy

Borrow the levels rather than waiting for them. A cooked dish that lifts the fishing skill stacks on top of whatever the farm has earned, and the level requirement on every one of these fish accepts a buffed level as readily as a real one. That single trick is what lets a determined first-year farm catch the lake king in its first Spring.

Tie the right things to the rod. A lure that raises curiosity adds to the hook chance on four of the five, and the fifth ignores it entirely. A bobber that slows the catch meter's decline and one that widens the green block both matter far more here than anywhere else, because these fish have the highest difficulty in the game and the longest fights.

Use the bait that breaks the rules when a season has slipped. Magic bait lets a fish be caught outside its season or weather altogether, and Challenge Bait allows more than one of the same fish to be landed, which is the only way to own a spare. A farmer with the right enchantment on a pan can also raise several of them out of the correct tiles instead of fishing for them.

Notes

A lost book in the library gives away the two hardest standing positions, including the exact tile in the forest, so reading the library before planning a season saves a great deal of guessing.

A second book in the library, a little playlet between two old anglers, implies that the lake king will only bite for somebody who has landed every other rare fish first. That is stagecraft rather than a rule, and a farm can start with whichever of the five suits the season it happens to be standing in.

The relatives can be caught more than once each within a single commission, so a farm that lands all five early can keep fishing the same spots for spares, and the roe from those spares is what makes the whole exercise worth repeating.

All Legendary Fish

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Location	Season	Price
Angler	Pelican Town	Fall	900g
Crimsonfish	Ocean	Summer	1500g
Glacierfish	Cindersap Forest	Winter	1000g
Glacierfish Jr.	Cindersap Forest	All	1000g
Legend	Mountain Lake	Spring	5000g
Legend II	Mountain Lake	All	5000g
Ms. Angler	Pelican Town	All	900g
Mutant Carp	The Sewers	All	1000g
Radioactive Carp	The Sewers	All	1000g
Son of Crimsonfish	Ocean	All	1500g