Golden Bobber
| Golden Bobber | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Collection |
| Location | Fishing Treasure Chests |
The Golden Bobber is Willy's lost tackle, and finding it is a one day errand at the Desert Festival. A fish made off with it in the oasis lake, so Willy pins up a request on the final day of the festival and asks for it back. The bobber comes up inside a fishing Treasure Chest rather than on the hook, and once the request is live the next chest hauled in that day is certain to hold it. Handing it over pays a generous purse of Calico Eggs, which is the only currency most of the festival stalls accept. Offering it to a villager instead goes down badly with the whole valley, Willy included, which is a small joke at the old fisherman's expense.
Overview
The festival itself takes three days in Spring and sits out in Calico Desert, so the bus has to be running first. That means either the Vault bundles in the Community Center or the Joja route with its bus repair bought and paid for. Once the bus runs, the desert fills with stalls, races and a scattering of villagers, and Willy sets himself up by the water with a fishing job posted every day.
His last job is the bobber. Reading the request switches the hunt on, and from that point the lake behaves as it always does except for one guarantee: the next Treasure Chest reeled in holds the bobber. Treasure chests are the bonus that sometimes appears alongside a fish, so the routine is simply to keep casting into the oasis water until the chest icon shows up during a catch. Tackle and bait that raise the odds of a chest make the wait shorter.
Returning it means putting the bobber into Willy's hands rather than dropping it in a bin. He pays thirty Calico Eggs for the trouble, which is a solid stack by festival standards. Those eggs are what the Calico Merchant, the travelling merchant and most of the other booths take instead of gold, so the reward turns straight into hats, statues, Mystery Boxes and the odd skill book.
The bobber is stubborn about leaving the bag. Nothing removes it automatically, so a farmer who forgets to hand it over simply keeps it. More than one can even be collected in a single day, as long as none is sitting in the backpack at the moment a chest is opened, which is a quirk rather than a strategy since only one is ever needed.
Notes
It cannot be shipped or sold at any counter, and every villager in town treats it as an insult if it arrives as a present. Willy reacting the same way to his own tackle is the detail players remember.
Anyone planning the festival around fishing should bring the gear for it. The same casts that turn up the chest also fill a bin with Sandfish and Scorpion Carp, and Willy's earlier jobs over the first two days ask for exactly those, so one well stocked rod covers every quest he posts.
All Collections
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
