Catching The Legend as your first fish

WhiteEagle12

WhiteEagle12

Farmer
Somebody on the SDV Discord server asked if sunfish was the only first fish you can catch. I know that it isn't and told them as much, but it piqued my curiosity and gave me an interesting (dumb) idea for a challenge playthrough. Catching The Legend as my first fish of the playthrough, therefore guaranteeing it because it would be my first fish. The Legend can only be caught at level 10 fishing, so I would need to level that skill up of course. My plan is to get a fish pond by killing slimes for green algae and getting seaweed from foraging and trash cans. But what fish can I get without fishing you ask? Well, my plan is to get a ghostfish from killing ghosts in the mines and putting it in my fish pond. After reaching level two fishing from the pond I will gain the recipe for bait and start buying crab pots from willy for more fishing xp. Of course, getting to level 6 fishing without fishing will take a while, but I'm prepared for that. After I get to level 6 fishing I can stop trying to level up because I can buy a seafoam pudding at the moonlight jellies festival, therefore artificially bringing my fishing level to 10. I will then wait until a rainy day in spring and reject the fish that I hook until it is the legend fish. I don't actually know if you can reject your first fish by pressing B. If you can't then please tell me. Then, and only then, will I have caught The Legend as my first fish of the playthrough.

Okay, thank you for reading that. If you see any potential snags in my plan or an easier way to do it please tell me.

Updated Plan for the run: I've determined that crab pots count as catching your first fish, so they are no longer part of the run. As of right now, the run will look something like this, though it may change as I learn more: get green algae from green slimes, trash cans, and forage, try and get seaweed from foraging the tidepool and beach farm if that's the farm you're on, or from trash cans. If that doesn't work, go the joja route, get onto Ginger Island, get into Qi's walnut room, unlock the challenge mines, and forage seaweed from them. Once you've got the stuff for a pond, you can either sleep the days away, slowly gather xp from roe and other pond drops, or continue grinding for seaweed and green algae. When you've reached level 6 fishing, use a seafoam pudding, (bought from the Moonlight Jelly festival) to bring your fishing up to 10. Reject all fish until it's the legend, and there you go. You've caught the legend without chance of failure since you caught it in the first time fishing tutorial.
 
Last edited:
PitchBlackNights

PitchBlackNights

Sodbuster
This isn't exactly cheating, but it isn't exactly the first catch. You can catch the first fish (because you have to) and then fail all of the other fish until it's a sunfish. It still is technically your first fish if you never sell the "practice" fish.
 
Giant Octopodes

Giant Octopodes

Farmer
Sounds brilliant! Two things:

1) It seems you're well aware, but I fully expect it's not possible to get enough XP by the end of Spring Year 1. As such, if you go into Summer Year 1, you can safely catch as much Seaweed as you want from the Ocean using the Training Rod on Sunny Days, as you can't catch any fish with it in Sunny weather in Summer in the Ocean. You can also catch as much Green Algae as you like during the Summer using the Training Rod from the Forest Lake in Cindersap Forest south of the Traveling Cart, not to be confused with the mountain lake. Weather doesn't matter for that one. I presume it wouldn't interfere with your desired first catch since you'll never enter the fishing minigame, but certainly that would warrant testing. I haven't had cause to test that myself up to this point.

2) Why the Ghostfish? Sea Urchin seems a lot easier to acquire (in substantial quantities if you want to get a lot of ponds going, or if you want to frequently reset a pond or ponds for more quest XP) and they seem like they'd offer substantially higher fishing XP. Since you get {.04xSell Price} XP, and a Ghostfish has a 70% chance of dropping 1 roe worth 52GP, for a meager 2 XP. The White Algae, Quartz and Refined Quartz drops are similarly low XP so you only have a less than 2% chance for a high sell price drop (the pale broth). Meanwhile the Sea Urchin has a 50% chance for 1-5 Roe (average 3) selling for 110 each, or on average 330GP, for a whopping 13 XP.

I really don't think you need to aim for Fishing 6, if I were doing it I'd aim for Fishing 10 by Spring Year 2, use the Seafoam Pudding and have Fishing 14 when catching my first fish, the Legend :-) It's not that bad, "just" 50 Crab Pots would give you 250 fishing XP per day, plus say 10 Sea Urchin Fishing Ponds averaging you 70 fishing XP per day would get you 320 XP per day or 8,960 over a month. I really think you can have that online by Winter Year 1, at which point you'd be at 10 well before the end of Spring Year 2 even assuming no XP was earned prior to that point. Of course I'm not the one doing it, and I'm not one to judge, so if you're just looking for Fishing 6 you'd only need 10 crab pots in place by the start of Winter to achieve that mark in time without issue.

Seems highly doable, and also super fun and cool! I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes!

Edit: Nevermind! What a shame, such a cool idea. Seems the Training Rod Seaweed and Green Algae wouldn't have worked out either anyway. Ah well, now we know! :-(
 
WhiteEagle12

WhiteEagle12

Farmer
Hill Myna said:
If you wanted to check for a different fish, you can check out this page on the Wiki. Expand the "Data" table under "Raw Data", and search for the number/item that you want. Sadly, Legend is 163, 11 levels too high.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info, Hill Myna I really appreciate it. I can confidently announce that opening the raw data packet is a terrible idea when you are on a phone (it crashed my phone entirely) I will definitely look into the other fish. Thanks again, I love ya.
 
WhiteEagle12

WhiteEagle12

Farmer
Giant Octopodes said:
Sounds brilliant! Two things:

1) It seems you're well aware, but I fully expect it's not possible to get enough XP by the end of Spring Year 1. As such, if you go into Summer Year 1, you can safely catch as much Seaweed as you want from the Ocean using the Training Rod on Sunny Days, as you can't catch any fish with it in Sunny weather in Summer in the Ocean. You can also catch as much Green Algae as you like during the Summer using the Training Rod from the Forest Lake in Cindersap Forest south of the Traveling Cart, not to be confused with the mountain lake. Weather doesn't matter for that one. I presume it wouldn't interfere with your desired first catch since you'll never enter the fishing minigame, but certainly that would warrant testing. I haven't had cause to test that myself up to this point.

2) Why the Ghostfish? Sea Urchin seems a lot easier to acquire (in substantial quantities if you want to get a lot of ponds going, or if you want to frequently reset a pond or ponds for more quest XP) and they seem like they'd offer substantially higher fishing XP. Since you get {.04xSell Price} XP, and a Ghostfish has a 70% chance of dropping 1 roe worth 52GP, for a meager 2 XP. The White Algae, Quartz and Refined Quartz drops are similarly low XP so you only have a less than 2% chance for a high sell price drop (the pale broth). Meanwhile the Sea Urchin has a 50% chance for 1-5 Roe (average 3) selling for 110 each, or on average 330GP, for a whopping 13 XP.

I really don't think you need to aim for Fishing 6, if I were doing it I'd aim for Fishing 10 by Spring Year 2, use the Seafoam Pudding and have Fishing 14 when catching my first fish, the Legend :-) It's not that bad, "just" 50 Crab Pots would give you 250 fishing XP per day, plus say 10 Sea Urchin Fishing Ponds averaging you 70 fishing XP per day would get you 320 XP per day or 8,960 over a month. I really think you can have that online by Winter Year 1, at which point you'd be at 10 well before the end of Spring Year 2 even assuming no XP was earned prior to that point. Of course I'm not the one doing it, and I'm not one to judge, so if you're just looking for Fishing 6 you'd only need 10 crab pots in place by the start of Winter to achieve that mark in time without issue.

Seems highly doable, and also super fun and cool! I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes!
Click to expand...
Thanks for the suggestions! Unfortunately, it seems that it's impossible though, (see Hill Mynas' post above) I really like all of the ideas, and I'm considering finding a different fish to do this with. Thank you so much for the feedback!
 
WhiteEagle12

WhiteEagle12

Farmer
Well, I looked at the data packet and it seems that there isn't even a fish that I can use this plan on :( All of the legendary fish that have a level requirement also have an ID of 152 or higher. I wish this would work, but I guess it won't. Thanks for all of the help, you guys! I hope you have an excellent rest of your day/night!
 

Lerura

Farmhand
It is possible to get to level 10 fishing without ever using a fishing rod.

Collect Oysters, Mussels, Clams and Cockles on the Beach, slay Rock Crabs for a Crab. You can now complete the Crab Pot Bundle and get 3 Crab Pots.
At this point there are two ways to get Bait.
Befriend Linus to 4 hearts and he will teach you the Wild Bait recipe.
You can realisticly give linus a regular quality liked gift twice a week as well as talk to him every day, so you can reach 4 heart around Fall 1, year 1
you can now get the need 76 items caught in Crab Pot within 26 days approx Winter 1, year 1

or

Buy Bait from the Travelling cart. Bait is a random items in the Travelling Cart and when it appears you can buy only 1 for 100-1000g.
If you are so lucky that Bait is for sale every time the Travelling Cart visits, which it does twice per week, and you need to catch 76 items in a Crab Pot to get to level 2 Fishing, you can get the last Bait needed on Spring 21, year 2.
It is more likely that you can buy Bait this way once per season, so a more realistic scenario is that you will get the last Bait needed during Winter, Year 18.

Once you get level 2 Fishing you can craft your own bait or buy it from willy for 5g. With 3 Crap Pot you can get the last 78 items needed for level 3 Fishing in 26 days.

Now you can Craft as many Crab pots as you want, if you have enough materials, but you need 2922 more items caught to get to level 10 fishing.
You can realisticly gather enough materials to craft 3 Crab Pots more each day, and if so, and if you can craft or buy enough Bait to have them run every day you can reach level 10 Fishing within 44 days.

So with the optimal work you can realisticly reach level 10 Fishing around Spring 1, year 2 with the Linus option, and around Fall 1, year 20 with the Travelling Cart option.

You have to wait to at least Spring 3 the next year to catch the Legend, so catching the Legend as the first using a rod should be possible at Spring 3, year 2 and 21 respectively

Reaching level 40 in the mines and having a efficient forest on your farm is required to get enough iron and wood for all these Crab Pots (132), unless you earn enough money otherwise to be able to buy the materials from Robin and Clint.
 
One More Day

One More Day

Farmer
Lerura said:
You can realisticly gather enough materials to craft 3 Crab Pots more each day
Click to expand...
Even if you're going to craft them rather than just buy them, I think you should still be able to manage much better than 3 per day. Remember that the Miner profession at Mining 5 offers an extra ore for every single node, coal comes from the dust sprites at a 50% drop rate, and each tree will drop around 20 wood, or around 25 if you choose Forester at Foraging 5. Obviously you choose the Trapper profession at Fishing 5, to reduce the material requirements, and then it's only 10 copper, 2 coal and 25 wood per each, so 10 pots per day should be very doable. The trees are obviously easy, it's only about a dozen trees per day, or only 10 if Forester is chosen; just remember to replant the seeds to maintain a steady supply of trees to cut. Coal would also be easy, just keep revisiting floor 65, killing the dust sprites and switching back to floor 0 each time to reset floor 65 before going back. I think ore would be the most likely bottleneck, but it's still only 30-40 nodes, which should also be possible even on a bad luck day if you just farm it on floor 21.

I'd put the pots in the mountain lake outside the mines entrance, as it's very conveniently close to the minecarts, and I'd have furnaces inside the mines entrance, near the lift.
 
Last edited:
imnvs

imnvs

Local Legend
Lerura said:
It is possible to get to level 10 fishing without ever using a fishing rod.

Collect Oysters, Mussels, Clams and Cockles on the Beach, slay Rock Crabs for a Crab. You can now complete the Crab Pot Bundle and get 3 Crab Pots.
At this point there are two ways to get Bait.
Befriend Linus to 4 hearts and he will teach you the Wild Bait recipe.
You can realisticly give linus a regular quality liked gift twice a week as well as talk to him every day, so you can reach 4 heart around Fall 1, year 1
you can now get the need 76 items caught in Crab Pot within 26 days approx Winter 1, year 1

or

Buy Bait from the Travelling cart. Bait is a random items in the Travelling Cart and when it appears you can buy only 1 for 100-1000g.
If you are so lucky that Bait is for sale every time the Travelling Cart visits, which it does twice per week, and you need to catch 76 items in a Crab Pot to get to level 2 Fishing, you can get the last Bait needed on Spring 21, year 2.
It is more likely that you can buy Bait this way once per season, so a more realistic scenario is that you will get the last Bait needed during Winter, Year 18.

Once you get level 2 Fishing you can craft your own bait or buy it from willy for 5g. With 3 Crap Pot you can get the last 78 items needed for level 3 Fishing in 26 days.

Now you can Craft as many Crab pots as you want, if you have enough materials, but you need 2922 more items caught to get to level 10 fishing.
You can realisticly gather enough materials to craft 3 Crab Pots more each day, and if so, and if you can craft or buy enough Bait to have them run every day you can reach level 10 Fishing within 44 days.

So with the optimal work you can realisticly reach level 10 Fishing around Spring 1, year 2 with the Linus option, and around Fall 1, year 20 with the Travelling Cart option.

You have to wait to at least Spring 3 the next year to catch the Legend, so catching the Legend as the first using a rod should be possible at Spring 3, year 2 and 21 respectively

Reaching level 40 in the mines and having a efficient forest on your farm is required to get enough iron and wood for all these Crab Pots (132), unless you earn enough money otherwise to be able to buy the materials from Robin and Clint.
Click to expand...
It seems that you have not considered the extra experience you can get from a fish pond. You can put crab pot fish into fish ponds, and their produce gets you fishing experience so that you are not totally dependent on the crab pots themselves and thus can get to fishing 10 faster than your predicted times, I think.
 
WhiteEagle12

WhiteEagle12

Farmer
Lerura said:
It is possible to get to level 10 fishing without ever using a fishing rod.

Collect Oysters, Mussels, Clams and Cockles on the Beach, slay Rock Crabs for a Crab. You can now complete the Crab Pot Bundle and get 3 Crab Pots.
At this point there are two ways to get Bait.
Befriend Linus to 4 hearts and he will teach you the Wild Bait recipe.
You can realisticly give linus a regular quality liked gift twice a week as well as talk to him every day, so you can reach 4 heart around Fall 1, year 1
you can now get the need 76 items caught in Crab Pot within 26 days approx Winter 1, year 1

or

Buy Bait from the Travelling cart. Bait is a random items in the Travelling Cart and when it appears you can buy only 1 for 100-1000g.
If you are so lucky that Bait is for sale every time the Travelling Cart visits, which it does twice per week, and you need to catch 76 items in a Crab Pot to get to level 2 Fishing, you can get the last Bait needed on Spring 21, year 2.
It is more likely that you can buy Bait this way once per season, so a more realistic scenario is that you will get the last Bait needed during Winter, Year 18.

Once you get level 2 Fishing you can craft your own bait or buy it from willy for 5g. With 3 Crap Pot you can get the last 78 items needed for level 3 Fishing in 26 days.

Now you can Craft as many Crab pots as you want, if you have enough materials, but you need 2922 more items caught to get to level 10 fishing.
You can realisticly gather enough materials to craft 3 Crab Pots more each day, and if so, and if you can craft or buy enough Bait to have them run every day you can reach level 10 Fishing within 44 days.

So with the optimal work you can realisticly reach level 10 Fishing around Spring 1, year 2 with the Linus option, and around Fall 1, year 20 with the Travelling Cart option.

You have to wait to at least Spring 3 the next year to catch the Legend, so catching the Legend as the first using a rod should be possible at Spring 3, year 2 and 21 respectively

Reaching level 40 in the mines and having a efficient forest on your farm is required to get enough iron and wood for all these Crab Pots (132), unless you earn enough money otherwise to be able to buy the materials from Robin and Clint.
Click to expand...
Yup, this was very similar to the strategy I had, if more calculated out. Unfortunately, any fish with an item ID of 152 or higher automatically gets turned into a sunfish and unfortunately, the Legend has an ID of 163 :(

Hill Myna said:
http://forums.stardewvalley.net/threads/struggling-to-make-money.6889/post-41045
I'm sorry to say that it isn't possible :(
Click to expand...
I REALLY wish I could do this and I thank you for trying to help. On a related note, does anyone know how hard modding that that doesn't happen into the game would be? I'm genuinely curious how you would do it.
 
imnvs

imnvs

Local Legend
Yeah, it is too bad that it would get turned into a sunfish. I wouldn't begin to know how to help you change that, though.

I only piped up because people often forget that fish ponds are a good source of fishing exp. Still without fishing with the pole, get a lobster in a pond and the roe will be worth 90, so that's 13.6 experience compared to the 5 you get from the crab pot. Build 5 of them and you're getting almost 68 experience daily, but with a 1/20 chance of no production on any day that comes out to 64.6 average experience daily from 5 lobster fishponds. Since crab pots 38% of the time get 3 exp for catching trash and 62% get 5 exp for catching not trash... which is an average of 4.24 experience per crab pot, so the fishponds are making about as much experience as 15.25 crab pots.

In fact, in most MP saves that @Cuusardo and I do, most of the experience I get for fishing comes from crab pots and fish ponds. Cuusardo catches most of the fish.
 
WhiteEagle12

WhiteEagle12

Farmer
imnvs said:
Yeah, it is too bad that it would get turned into a sunfish. I wouldn't begin to know how to help you change that, though.

I only piped up because people often forget that fish ponds are a good source of fishing exp. Still without fishing with the pole, get a lobster in a pond and the roe will be worth 90, so that's 13.6 experience compared to the 5 you get from the crab pot. Build 5 of them and you're getting almost 68 experience daily, but with a 1/20 chance of no production on any day that comes out to 64.6 average experience daily from 5 lobster fishponds. Since crab pots 38% of the time get 3 exp for catching trash and 62% get 5 exp for catching not trash... which is an average of 4.24 experience per crab pot, so the fishponds are making about as much experience as 15.25 crab pots.

In fact, in most MP saves that @Cuusardo and I do, most of the experience I get for fishing comes from crab pots and fish ponds. Cuusardo catches most of the fish.
Click to expand...
Yeah, before having this idea I was unaware of the xp you can get from them. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by it. I guess I'll just have to look into modding it in because I really do want to do this. Thanks for the info!
 

Lerura

Farmhand
imnvs said:
It seems that you have not considered the extra experience you can get from a fish pond. You can put crab pot fish into fish ponds, and their produce gets you fishing experience so that you are not totally dependent on the crab pots themselves and thus can get to fishing 10 faster than your predicted times, I think.
Click to expand...
You are right, I didn't consider Fish Ponds ponds in my calculation, only crap pots and available bait over time. Fish ponds will speed up the process by quite a bit.
You can also find fish in Trash Cans that you can put in Fish Ponds, so in you can do it without even using Crab Pots
 
BlaDe

BlaDe

Farmer
I'm here to breathe life back into it.

Yes, fish with an id of 152 or higher gets replaced with a sunfish, but this is only for fish that are pulled from the fish file (which will be most of your catches).

The Legend has its own checks to see if it is hooked. These checks bypass the replacement.

You can hook the Legend as your first fish.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top