Save + Continue Trick?

[bara_no_uta]

I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong, here, because as far as I can tell it's not working for me. I time traveled back to September 1 a week and a half ago for 5 reasons, and I've only managed to catch one of them. I've seen exactly 1 scorpion (failed to catch it) and 0 petaltail dragonflies. And all I've ever gotten from the waterfall/ocean basin is char. And then I try again after char aren't appearing anymore and absolutely nothing shows up. I walk around my whole town at 5pm, 9pm, 11pm, 1am, and it's full of crickets. Just crickets and more crickets. I save and continue, but there's still nothing in the waterfall basin and there are still no bugs except crickets. I do this over and over again for like an hour and nothing. ; A;

I'm trying to get a scorpion, petaltail, salmon, and king salmon, aka the last things I need to catch to complete all three encyclopedias(!!, so any tips would be great. c:

I've seen some people say that walking along the beach makes things spawn in the waterfall better but I didn't have any luck with that, possibly in part because my fishing rod can't reach the basin from the beach so I have to go back up the ramp. And I know that you can't always see the shadow in the waterfall so I do measure whether something is there by sending my bobber out.

 

[Red Cat]

For the petaltail, there isn't really a good way of finding one except playing normally at the time it can appear and having your net ready for when it does. For the scorpion, I find that it spawns the most often around 2-3 A.M. For the salmon and king salmon, I think it helps to scare away any fish around the waterfall and then walk away to somewhere where you are not near any water and come back since it seems like the game only spawns fish near where you are so if the only water you are coming near is the waterfall basin, then fish won't spawn in other spots. Maybe it's just a coincidence for me, but from my experience that has helped.

 

[MOON TRIPS]

I think August miiiiiiiight be better for catching scorpions since the crickets start showing up in September.
I've seen more tarantulas than scorpions tho. but yeah, you might wanna try August for that.

 

[Buster Bunny]

Ah! Yeah, scorpions and tarantulas are off season.
Better luck in august!

 

[katysu]

Good advice given, I've not checked the times of bugs, but if not sure then Liquefy's walkthrough faq on gamefaqs is accurate.
(you can't always rely on the wiki/other sources - usually fine but then you get tiny blips in the info). Liquefy will say if there is a most common time/month for a particular bug/fish to appear.

The only thing I'd add is why save & continue - I know this is said to be the way to spawn new fish/bugs - I'm sure it does, but in previous games all you had to do is enter & exit a building - and doing this in this game - well it works for me - bugs & fish respawn.

 

[Zireael]

I'm pretty sure I saw petaltail dragonflies quite commonly in October, usually around late afternoon. Just make a specific route around your town near the river and chase away any other bugs that might be blocking the spawn. Crickets are a pain in the ass since they don't really hop away when you run at them but I just caught them then released. The save + continue trick sounds handy if it works, never tried it myself, but I find entering and exiting a house much more reliable if you don't mind the longer loading transition.

 

[mayortash]

To be honest with the rarer fish and bugs I find they tend to spawn more the more of the common bugs/fish I catch.