The Pufferfish is where How to Fish starts asking a little more from you. Up to this point, you can get away with simply having decent gear and knowing the basics, but the first real boss fight on Island 3 is much less forgiving.
The good news is that you don’t need some ridiculous endgame setup to beat it. The biggest difference comes from how you position yourself. If you’re trying to stand in the open and trade damage with the Pufferfish, you’re probably going to have a very bad time.
Here’s everything you need to know before using your Carrot and starting the fight.
How to Fish Pufferfish Boss Guide – How to Trigger and Beat It
You can’t simply find the Pufferfish swimming around Island 3 and start fighting it.
You need a Carrot in your inventory to trigger the encounter.
If you don’t have one yet, you’ll need to progress through the Tourist’s quest requirement first.
There’s also something important to keep in mind before using your Carrot: it’s not an unlimited attempt token.
If you activate the fight, die, and lose the encounter, you’ll need to obtain another Carrot before trying again. Because of that, I wouldn’t immediately use your first one the second you get it.
Take a few minutes to prepare your food, weapon, and healing supplies first.
Prepare Before Starting the Fight
The Pufferfish is fast and can punish mistakes extremely quickly, so preparation matters more here than it does during normal exploration.
Before triggering the boss, make sure you have:
- A weapon you’re already comfortable using
- Plenty of healing food
- Enough supplies to survive a longer encounter
- A clear idea of where you’ll use terrain for cover
- A Carrot ready to trigger the fight
You don’t want to discover that your weapon has terrible recoil or that you’ve run out of healing halfway through the fight.
The Best Way to Beat Pufferfish
Here’s the biggest mistake to avoid:
Don’t fight the Pufferfish in the open.
The boss likes to charge directly toward you, and that attack can take you out incredibly quickly if you’re caught without cover.
Instead, use the environment.
Find trees or other solid pieces of terrain and move around them in a loop. When the Pufferfish charges, let the terrain interrupt or redirect its path.
That’s your opening.
As the boss is repositioning, turn around and unload some damage. Once it starts closing the distance again, stop shooting and move.
Think of the fight as:
Lure → dodge → attack → reposition → repeat.
Trying to stand still and maximize your DPS is much more likely to get you killed than simply taking a little longer to finish the boss.
Use Terrain to Break the Pufferfish’s Charge
Trees are especially useful because the Pufferfish can’t simply run straight through them.
Keep one between you and the boss whenever possible.
When it starts moving toward you, don’t panic and run directly away in a straight line. Instead, circle around your cover and make the boss change direction.
This gives you much more control over the fight.
Once the Pufferfish is forced to reposition, you have a short window to attack before it starts coming after you again.
Best Weapons for the Pufferfish
If you’re wondering what weapon to bring, Dynamite is one of the best choices.
Explosives can deal a large amount of damage to the boss, making them extremely useful when you get a safe opportunity to attack.
SMGs can also work. Some players have reported significant recoil problems when using them against the Pufferfish, although this isn’t necessarily an issue for everyone.
If you’re comfortable controlling an SMG, there’s no reason you can’t use one. Pairing an SMG with Dynamite gives you both sustained damage and a way to hit the boss hard during your safer openings.
The important thing is less about finding one magical weapon and more about using something you can reliably control while moving.
Pufferfish Co-Op Strategy
Fighting Pufferfish with other players makes things considerably easier, but only if everyone understands their role.
Don’t have the entire team hide behind the exact same tree.
A better setup is to have one player kite the Pufferfish around the terrain while the other players spread out and attack from different angles.
The boss will stay focused on the player doing the kiting, while everyone else gets opportunities to deal damage without standing directly in its path.
Just make sure the other players don’t get too comfortable. If the Pufferfish changes targets, they need to be ready to move immediately.
Keep Moving During the Fight
The Pufferfish is much faster than it looks.
Standing still for too long is one of the easiest ways to get caught.
Your priority should always be:
Survive first, deal damage second.
If you’re already in a safe position, take your shots. But the moment your cover stops protecting you, don’t stay there just to squeeze in another attack.
A few extra seconds on the boss’s health bar are nothing compared with losing the entire attempt.
Why Does Pufferfish One-Shot Me?
If you’re getting deleted in one hit, you’re probably not doing anything unusual. The fight has been widely considered difficult, especially because of the boss’s charge attack.
There are a few common reasons this happens.
You’re Fighting in the Open
The Pufferfish’s charge is the main attack you need to respect.
If you’re standing in open ground when it commits to you, there’s very little stopping the attack from reaching you.
That’s why terrain is so important.
When a tree or another solid object interrupts the charge, you have a much better chance of surviving and resetting your position.
You’re Greedy With Your Damage
This one is easy to do.
You get the boss down to a low amount of health and think, “One more attack and it’s dead.”
Then you stay in place for too long and get hit.
Don’t do it.
If your positioning is bad, disengage and reset. You can always attack again after the Pufferfish moves.
The fight heavily rewards patience.
You’re Remembering the Pre-Nerf Version
The Pufferfish received a balance nerf after players reported that the encounter was excessively difficult.
So if you fought it shortly after launch and remember it being completely brutal, you’re not imagining things.
The current version isn’t necessarily identical to that early encounter.