So can you catch the Catfish in the Summer on the Hill-top, Riverlands, or Forest Farm?

[espacesinfinis]

I know you can catch the slippery little so-n-so in the Secret Woods and the Witch's Swamp, but. I'm wondering if any of my rainy day should be spent near home in this, my first year, where I'm a billion miles behind where I'd be had I not decided it was time to give the Hill-top map a try.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I never caught the Catfish on either my Forest or Hill-Top Farms. I'm guessing (?) that it's not accessible from Riverlands either. My best Catfish odds have always been snoozing next to, ehm... Fishing! in the little Pond in the Secret Woods. It's not ridiculously far away and I really should be gathering some Hardwood for the Stable and Foraging the rarer items from there. This is my compromise for needing to go all the way out there as I want Hardwood for that HORSE!

So I can get everywhere faster. Which leaves more time for naps.

Ah yes, Hilltop. It was legit a fun challenge and then it sooo wasn't. If you ever want to edit your Hilltop farm save, you can do so (if you're on PC/Mac, maybe Android) and if you plan it right (I eeeeeeventuuallyyyy.... did), you can recover to a reasonably normal-looking Farm. Ehhh, with a few annoying bush placements left over from Hilltop:

 

[PoppyForPenny]

The catfish page of the wiki explains that in the river, as well as on the riverland, hilltop,and forest farms, catfish are in the spring and fall.
They can be found summer (& spring & fall) in the swamp and secret woods.
And with a rain totem, catfish can be caught in winter, at every location that ever has catfish.

I have caught catfish on the forest, hilltop, and riverland farms in past playthroughs.

 

[FilthyGorilla]

I never caught the Catfish on either my Forest or Hill-Top Farms. I'm guessing (?) that it's not accessible from Riverlands either. My best Catfish odds have always been snoozing next to, ehm... Fishing! in the little Pond in the Secret Woods. It's not ridiculously far away and I really should be gathering some Hardwood for the Stable and Foraging the rarer items from there. This is my compromise for needing to go all the way out there as I want Hardwood for that HORSE!

So I can get everywhere faster. Which leaves more time for naps.

Ah yes, Hilltop. It was legit a fun challenge and then it sooo wasn't. If you ever want to edit your Hilltop farm save, you can do so (if you're on PC/Mac, maybe Android) and if you plan it right (I eeeeeeventuuallyyyy.... did), you can recover to a reasonably normal-looking Farm. Ehhh, with a few annoying bush placements left over from Hilltop:

You can even change farms type on iOS though it does require a computer to transfer the file to and so the bulk work..

 

[espacesinfinis]

I never caught the Catfish on either my Forest or Hill-Top Farms. I'm guessing (?) that it's not accessible from Riverlands either. My best Catfish odds have always been snoozing next to, ehm... Fishing! in the little Pond in the Secret Woods. It's not ridiculously far away and I really should be gathering some Hardwood for the Stable and Foraging the rarer items from there. This is my compromise for needing to go all the way out there as I want Hardwood for that HORSE!

I am forever growing new mahogany trees, which makes the hardwood situation easier. I used to really enjoy the Forest Farm for that reason, though. I think the Ocean map's my favorite at this point. I disliked river, and I'm not a huge fan of hill-top, but it does make things last longer before I feel like I've kind of done all the things to play on a grouchy map, so I'm sticking to it for now. Next time Stardew as chicken soup, I'll probably go back to the ocean.

In the meantime I don't have a horse yet -I'm a triple-shot espresso fiend but the horse for whatever reason always (um, not literally) throws me off my game. I will build a stable anyway at some point but mostly I just seem to forget the horse places and want the caffeine back.

I've read elsewhere, and I think in your posts too for that matter, about the transposition of one's farm onto different maps, and it is really good to know that's possible - particularly if I ever go back and resurrect one of my original games from when there was only the one map.

The catfish page of the wiki explains that in the river, as well as on the riverland, hilltop,and forest farms, catfish are in the spring and fall.

I swear I did check that. Maybe I was on the community wiki accidentally... yeah, that must have been it, because the first little blurb before the contents is different between the two, and the community wiki has a different intro section that's not as precise - and doesn't even mention the woodland farm, which has a secret woods-ish pond on it where I am fairly sure I've even caught summer catfish and know I've caught woodskips. So I didn't trust it, and didn't realize I wasn't on the editable, more up-to-date wiki.

that's https://stardewcommunitywiki.com/Catfish

that's https://stardewcommunitywiki.com/Catfish