Tips for finding the barreleye?

[NebulaNights]

Anyone got any tips for finding the barreleye? I've been searching for the last couple nights with no luck. I've also used fish bait to see if it would work that way too, but still nothing...

Also, I've could of swore someone once said it appears near rocks, but I'm not sure if that's true or not, so if someone could varify that, that would be great!

 

[FRANS_PLAYER]

I don't have any tips as I happened to accidentally catch one, fifth day of playing ACNH, and intended on selling it to CJ until I realized how rare it was x) Good luck tho!

 

[ceribells]

I've caught a few, not really trying. (I actually find them pretty horrifying)
I prefer grinding for fish in the rain, because I'm pretty sure they have a higher spawn rate, or on a NMT island because it's usually quicker to refresh the fish spawns imo. You can also scare away fish of the wrong size. And you're looking for a small shadow after 9pm?

 

[Your Local Wild Child]

Only go for the second smallest shadows after 9 pm. I felt that doing that got me them relatively quickly.

 

[sleepydreepy]

I have yet to catch one myself, but my sister has caught a whole bunch on "accident." She has great RNG luck when it comes to fishing and seems to catch a bunch of rare fish with no bait when she is just fishing "for fun"

 

[NebulaNights]

Yep, I'm looking for the small shadow after 9pm and I do scare the other fish away. Its 10pm right now.

 

[Corrie]

I don't have any tips except that you're not alone! I've been trying to catch that sucker for a long time and still nothing.

 

[Hydrangea028]

Use fish bait to spawn small shadow fish after 9pm, maybe raining will help, but I usually got it during clear night.

Good luck!

 

[Rosch]

Barreleye tend to show near rocks. I dunno how accurate is that, but several people here (including myself) have observed that this elusive fish were caught near the rocks along the shoreline. So try and throw bait around these areas.

 

[tajikey]

My very first one was caught near the pier, otherwise, look for a shadow the same size as the mackerel.

 

[Anblick]

I found exactly 1 in the first week of the game by totally random chance! :'D and I have never seen another one. I didn't even know they were rare at that point, I was like "oh I've heard of these crazy dudes in real life!! Neat!! TO THE MUSEUM WOO!!" I guess at least my museum has its stupidy barreleye but I would just love to get my model too...

 

[NebulaNights]

Thanks everyone who has replied so far! I'll try again tonight and gather some more fish bait today and will look near the rocks. I have a couple of rock platforms I'll give a go.

 

[Snowifer]

I've found that going to a nook island also works pretty well, because it's a lot easier to see all of the fish and scare them away quickly if they're the wrong size.

 

[milkie]

i found one after a week of night fishing but yeah it was by some of my rocks. it just takes a lot of patience

 

[Mick]

My tip would be don't waste your bait, you won't really get more small shadows than you would by running back and forth along the beach. Save the bait for the pier fish, for example, who will only show up in that specific spot

 

[GEEBRASS]

Took me a long time specifically hunting to finally catch my first Barreleye. After that, I'd just fish any of the right-sized shadows I happened to see after 9PM when I was running around doing other stuff, and ended up catching several more over the next couple weeks without really even trying.

 

[deleted]

Pray.

Took me a whole week of fishing 3+ hours after 9pm.

 

[mayortiffany]

My best tip would be to familiarize yourself with what the small size shadow looks like, and scare away any fish that don't correspond. You can try going to a Nook Island to make the process faster. Alternatively, you could craft a bunch of fish bait so that fish spawn immediately and you don't have to move from where you're standing to look for them.

Of course, the more fish you catch, the more likely you are to find the barreleye.

 

[xTech]

Honestly these are so annoying to find, the best advice I can give you is just go on mystery island tours each time, as they usually produce much more fish and it'll reduce the amount of time you spend running around trying to find one. What I like to do is search for a few fish at a time, as it tends to be more satisfying that way, and prevents me from burning myself out trying to find one fish with no results. If even that ends up getting a little boring for you, then try decorating (or redecorating) your beach area and fishing every time you see the correct size shadow, so that you can just find one naturally while being productive and without having to grind for it necessarily.

I do wonder how many madlads out there have actually managed to get a barreleye fish model though. If it can take weeks to even get one, then I don't even want to know how long it'd take you to somehow get 3 of those little blighters.

 

[dizzy bone]

I feel like barreleye is one of those fish you will just happen across when you least expect it. It's also one of those shadow sizes that you can easily overlook because we associate it with a horse mackerel and no one wants that lol. My first barreleye was a random small sized fish I caught for the catch 5 fish nook miles reward. I wouldn't waste my bait on it honestly. I prefer fishing on mystery islands because in my experience I feel like I get better fish spawns there and it's fun to just go for a fishing outing without standing around throwing bait constantly. You'll find it eventually! If you are going to use bait I would fish at the pier so you could at least get pier fish spawns as well. I caught a barreleye at the pier using bait I saved up to find a giant trevally.

Honestly these are so annoying to find, the best advice I can give you is just go on mystery island tours each time, as they usually produce much more fish and it'll reduce the amount of time you spend running around trying to find one. What I like to do is search for a few fish at a time, as it tends to be more satisfying that way, and prevents me from burning myself out trying to find one fish with no results. If even that ends up getting a little boring for you, then try decorating (or redecorating) your beach area and fishing every time you see the correct size shadow, so that you can just find one naturally while being productive and without having to grind for it necessarily.

I do wonder how many madlads out there have actually managed to get a barreleye fish model though. If it can take weeks to even get one, then I don't even want to know how long it'd take you to somehow get 3 of those little blighters.

I've already caught 3 of these but one I donated to the museum. I saved the other two and I'm waiting to randomly stumble upon my last one haha :'D