How to Catch a Tilapia Fish in Stardew Valley | Fishing Essentials

Fishing is one of the harder skills to master in the Stardew Valley universe. In addition to mining, farming, and foraging, fishing is a great source of revenue in Pelican Town. Moreover, catching rare fish is also a quest in itself. Tilapia fish in Stardew Valley is fairly common, however it has many uses in recipes, crafting, and completing Community Center bundles in Stardew Valley.

In fact, there are some other community center bundles that require you to fish everywhere in the Stardew Valley – from the ocean to the lake to the Cindersap Forest in Pelican Town. For now, let’s take a look at where to find tilapia fish in Stardew Valley and how to catch it.

Catching Tilapia Fish in Stardew Valley

Catching Tilapia fish in Stardew Valley is straightforward, but quite advanced for a new player. That’s because Tilapia fishes are rare, and they come in a bigger size, going up to 30 inches (76.2 cm). Not only that, the difficulty level required to catch a Tilapia fish in Stardew Valley is 50.

Moreover, if you have the beginner bamboo pole for fishing, catching a Tilapia fish might just be impossible. We’d recommend upgrading your fishing rod to a fiberglass rod or an iridium rod to have better chances of catching Tilapia fish in Stardew Valley. In fact, you can maximize your chances of catching Tilapia fish through these techniques:

• You can add fishing bait to your fiberglass or iridium rod to attract Tilapia fish.

• You can use a trap bobber to extend the length of your fishing rod to attract larger fishes like Tilapia. Using a trap bobber can make escape for the Tilapia harder by slowing down the movement of the catching bar.

• In fact, you can also use wild bait to make your Tilapia fish bite faster or to catch two Tilapia fish at once.

Where to Catch Tilapia Fish in Stardew Valley?

Tilapia fish is a warm-water fish with a mostly vegetarian diet. You can catch Tilapia fish in the ocean, or on Ginger Island, once it has been unlocked in your game universe. Moreover, you can also purchase Tilapia fish from a few sources. Let’s take a look:

➡️ Stardew Valley Beach

You can catch Tilapia fish in Stardew Valley beach near Willy’s Fish Shop. The Tilapia fish is only available in two seasons: The Summer and the Fall.

Whether it’s raining or not, the best time to catch a Tilapia fish in the Stardew Valley beach in Stardew Valley is between 6AM and 2PM. However, it might be a little difficult to find Tilapia fish as they are really rare. You’ll catch other fish or get trash items like seaweed, forgotten spectacles, and soggy newspapers.

You can also recycle these items in your recycling bin and turn them into something valuable. So, it won’t totally be a waste of your time!

However, I do recommend going to the beach with a lighter backpack so that you have empty slots for different fishes or other items you might pick. Moreover, there’s also a chance you’ll catch fish like Tilapia in normal-grade, silver-grade, gold-grade, or iridium-grade, and each will require an empty slot.

➡️ Ginger Island

Catching Tilapia fish in Stardew Valley is easier on Ginger Island than on the beach. However, you can only do that if your Ginger Island access is unlocked after your first year in Pelican Town.

You can go to Willy’s Fish Shop and make your way to his backroom. You’ll be given a task to repair his boat. Once you do that, you can purchase tickets to Ginger Island, and Willy will take you to the beach paradise of Ginger Island.

Note: You’ll catch Tilapia fish in the north and western shores of Ginger Island in Stardew Valley

You can use the same boat to get back to Stardew Valley. But like last time, and from my personal gaming experience, I’d recommend having really essential items in your backpack and leaving enough empty spots to catch fish on Ginger Island.

Moreover, I’d also recommend upgrading your backpack to a 36-pack from Pierre’s General Store as soon as you have the money, as it really comes in handy!

The highest chances of catching Tilapia fish is in summer and fall. However, you might have a rare chance of catching Tilapia fish in the other seasons in Ginger Island as well.

How to Buy Tilapia Fish in Stardew Valley

If you would rather not catch a Tilapia fish because you don’t want to or don’t have the time, you can also purchase it in Stardew Valley. Here’s where you’ll find Tilapia fish for sale in Stardew:

➡️ The Travelling Cart

If you are having a hard time catching Tilapia fish, you can try buying it from the Travelling Cart in Stardew Valley. In fact, it’s a part of the rotating stock that’s available there. But you can never tell when you’re going to find it. You’d just be lucky to find it on one of your visits there.

Note: You’ll have to buy Tilapia fish for a fortune at the Travelling Cart. So, it might be better to just fish it.

The Travelling Cart in Stardew Valley is open between 6AM – 9PM on Fridays and Saturdays. It’s south of your farm, and near the Wizard’s Tower. You can press M to open the Stardew Valley map and navigate your way to it if you’re new to this.

➡️ Krobus’ Shop

Krobus is a shadowy figure you meet for the first time in the Winter Mystery Quest in Stardew Valley. You must have visited the sewers in Stardew Valley. Not a pretty place to visit, of course. However, that’s where you’ll find Krobus’ shop.

Once you donate 60 items to the museum, Gunther will visit you and gift you a rusty key. That’ll be added to your wallet, and now you’ll be able to access the insides of the sewer.

You can visit Krobus’s Shop through Cindersap Forest or by going south of Pelican Town. In any case, you can find Tilapia fish as a part of the rotating stock in Krobus’ Shop on Wednesdays. You can also find these items more frequently:

• Void eggs
• Void essence
• Solar essence
• Sign of the vessel
• Monster fireplace

You can also find one-time valuable inventories like return scepter to return from anywhere in Stardew Valley.

Uses of Tilapia Fish in Stardew Valley

Tilapia Fish has multiple uses in the Stardew Valley universe. From cooking to Community Center bundles, it’s a fish that’s required to survive in Pelican Town. Let’s get into all the ways in which Tilapia fish can be used:

➡️ Cooking

You can cook items like sashimi or maki rolls. You can create both of these items with any fish you find in Stardew Valley. Furthermore, you’ll also have a Stardew Valley quest for giving Lewis a sashimi somewhere in Year 1 of your gameplay.

➡️ Crafting

You can use Tilapia fish to create Quality Fertilizer. It is known for improving soil quality. You can mix it with tilled soil and increase your chance of growing high-grade crops with silver, gold, or iridium variety.

You can use a fish that can be Tilapia and 2 pieces of sap.

➡️ Gifting

You can also gift Tilapia fish to Stardew Valley residents. However, most of the residents in Stardew Valley either hate or dislike Tilapia as a gift. It might lower your friendship points with them.

In fact, you can only gift it to Demetrius, Elliott, Leo, Linus, Pam, Sebastian, and Willy, who only have a neutral reaction to it. No one really loves or likes Tilapia in Stardew Valley.

➡️ Selling

You can sell a Tilapia fish to Willy’s Fish Shop or put it in your shipping bins for a good price in the Stardew universe.

When you reach fishing level 5 in Stardew Valley, you will be asked to choose between: Fisher and Trapper. When you select the Fisher profession, your Tilapia selling prices will be increased by 25%.

Likewise, in fishing level 10, you’ll be given a choice between Angler and Pirate. While the Pirate can be fun, Angler will get you more profits on Tilapia fish.

➡️ Community Center Bundle – Ocean

You’ll need a Tilapia fish to complete the ocean fish bundle of the Community Center bundles. In fact, you’ll receive a Warp Totem: Beach as a reward when you turn in a Tilapia, a Red Snapper, a Tuna, and a Sardine.

➡️ Tailoring

You can create the dyeable Sailor Short when you use Tilapia as a spool in your sewing machine. You’ll get a sewing machine as a gift from Emily, or you can access the one at her place. Both of these are achievable only when you have earned sufficient friendship points with Emily.

➡️ Aquatic Overpopulation Quest

As a part of the Aquatic Overpopulation quest in Stardew Valley, Demetrius (Robin’s husband) might request you to catch 10 Tilapia fish from the ocean. You can find this quest on the Special Orders Board, and this will be a request that comes to you in Summer.

If you’re thinking you should pass this opportunity, I’d recommend you don’t. This is one of the few ways to get the crafting recipe for a farm computer in Stardew Valley. What good is the farm computer anyway? It’ll display relevant information about your farm, like total pieces of hay left with you to feed your animals, total crops planted, crops ready, or total crops unwatered, and the like.

Also read: Stardew Valley Farm Types and Their Challenges | From Forests to Rivers

How to Get Tilapia Fish in Stardew Valley Without Fishing or Buying

You can also produce Tilapia fish in Stardew Valley in a fish pond. You can buy a fish pond for 5000 gold coins, 200 pieces of stones, 5 seaweeds, and 5 green algae from Robin’s Carpenter Shop.

Once installed in 2 days on your farm, you can add a single Tilapia fish to create a Tilapia fish pond. Moreover, they will keep reproducing every couple of days. So, you won’t need to fish Tilapia once you have started a Tilapia fish pond.

Moreover, the capacity of the fish pond will just be 3 at the start. You can increase the capacity by completing quests. To get it to 5, you need 3 pieces of driftwood, 1 frozen geode, and 1 seaweed. To get to 7, you might need to get 2 clams or 2 corals.

In fact, to get it to its full capacity of 10, you require 2 aquamarines, 1 mussel, or 2 sea urchins.

Have You Tried Magic Bait for Tilapia?

Tilapia fishes are bigger and more aggressive and, hence, all the way harder to catch in the Stardew Valley universe. In fact, as we mentioned, the difficulty level is 50, and sometimes, having a fiberglass rod and loading it up with standard bait might still not cut it.

Hence, what do you do for times like that? Having an iridium rod increases your chances. However, having magic bait increases your chances even further, and you can catch a Tilapia fish even if you don’t have an iridium rod yet.

Now, your next question might be: Where to find magic bait? Well, I found magic bait in Qi’s Walnut Room; after I completed the Mysterious Qi Quest, took a bus to Calico Desert and found his club. You’ll need 20 Qi gems to purchase the recipe for a magic bait. In case you didn’t know, I collected Qi gems by completing tasks in Qi’s Walnut Room.

Once you have the recipe, keep 1 radioactive ore and 3 pieces of bug meat to craft (1) magic bait. As for radioactive ore, I found it mining radioactive nodes in the Skull Cavern. You can also find radioactive nodes in the mines when the Danger in the Deep quest is on, or you have activated the effect: Shrine of Challenge. In any case, you’ll need to upgrade your tools in Stardew Valley to venture so deep into the mines.