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Animal Crossing Sharks: How to catch a Saw Shark, Hammerhead Shark, Great White Shark, Whale Shark and a Suckerfish in New Horizons

You're gonna need a bigger fishing rod.

A variety of sharks will visit the sea surrounding your island for four months every year in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

These sharks include the Saw shark, Hammerhead shark, Great white shark, Whale shark and Suckerfish, which, while not a shark, does insist on being involved too.

Catching these sharks has a number of advantages from helping you complete the Museum's fish exhibit to earning you a decent amount of Bells - especially if you sell them to C.J. during the summer Fishing Tourney.

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Where and when can I catch a Great White Shark in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

Before you attempt to catch a Great White Shark in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, make sure you know all of these important details:

  • Great White Shark months - June to September
  • Great White Shark times - 4pm to 9am
  • Great White Shark location - Sea
  • Great White Shark selling price - 15,000 Bells

Where and when can I catch a Hammerhead Shark in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

Below you can find everything you need to know about the Hammerhead shark in Animal Crossing: New Horizons:

  • Hammerhead Shark months - June to September
  • Hammerhead Shark times - 4pm to 9am
  • Hammerhead Shark location - Sea
  • Hammerhead Shark selling price - 8,000 Bells

Where and when can I catch a Saw Shark in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

Here is everything you need to know about the Saw shark in Animal Crossing: New Horizons:

  • Saw Shark months - June to September
  • Saw Shark times - 4pm to 9am
  • Saw Shark location - Sea
  • Saw Shark selling price - 12,000 Bells

Where and when can I catch a Suckerfish in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

The Suckerfish might not be a shark, but you will definitely end up catching more than one in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. For this reason, we decided to include it in this page:

  • Suckerfish months - June to September
  • Suckerfish times - 24 hours
  • Suckerfish location - Sea
  • Suckerfish selling price - 1,500 Bells

Where and when can I catch a Whale Shark in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?

You can find everything you need to know for catching a Whale Shark in Animal Crossing: New Horizons:

  • Whale Shark months - June to September
  • Whale Shark times - 24 hours
  • Whale Shark location - Sea
  • Whale Shark selling price - 13,000 Bells

How to catch sharks in Animal Crossing: New Horizons explained

Sharks in New Horizons can obviously be found in the sea surrounding your island. What you do need to look out for, however, are the fins.

Unlike other fish, sharks can only be caught from fish that have fins. Thankfully, these fins are quite easy to spot, especially if you're hunting along the east and west shores of your island. Depending on the time of year, you might finding yourself reeling in an Ocean Sunfish as well!

Look for fish with fins!

You can find these fish by patrolling the shores of your island, but, if you'd rather stick to a favourite spot, then you'll need to make a good batch of fish bait. For each bag of fish bait, you'll need one manila clam, which can be found by digging up the spots that spit water on the beach.

Fish bait can only be used once, but, thankfully, it can stack in groups of ten, so you can easily head out on a shark hunt with over a hundred bags of bait ready and waiting.

If you're planning on going on a fish hunt, then we recommend fishing between the times of 4pm to 9am on the pier.

Fishing between 4pm to 9am is a great idea, because it's during this period that all of the sharks will be swimming in the sea around your island; only the Whale shark and Suckerfish are available throughout the entire day.

Meanwhile, we recommend the pier for two important reasons. The first is that it will give you one of the best views of the fish that you bait, since it prevents them from being hidden by anything decorating your island. Secondly, there's a chance that you might reel in one of the rare fish that can only be caught on your island.

Try to fish from this pier!

These rare pier fish include the Blue marlin, Giant trevally, Mahi-mahi and Tuna. Due to the rarity of these fish, it's a great idea to try and catch them alongside the sharks, as it will save you time and patience, especially if you want to complete the fish exhibit in the Museum.


The Animal Crossing 2.0 update and Happy Home Paradise is here! We can help you with the new additions - including where to find Brewster, Gyroids, new villagers, ordinances, new fences, storage shed, new hairstyles, Froggy Chair, group stretching and Kapp'n boat tours. Cooking is now unlockable, so you need to know how to make both flour and sugar, as well as how to grow carrots, potatoes and tomatoes. Meanwhile, if you're new to Animal Crossing, our New Horizons tips can help with the basics. From the off, there's fish and bugs to catch, flowers and fruit to grow with. One long term goal is building your Happy Home Academy score. Finally, you need tools such as the new ladder and vaulting pole to fully explore.


Finally, on the topic of patience, we highly suggest that you do small shark hunting trips throughout the month, rather than one massive push towards the end. This is simply to save you a bit of sanity, because it means that, hopefully, as shark season draws to a close, you'll only be searching for one specific fish rather than all five.

If you want to learn more about the fish in New Horizons, you can check out our fish guide or one of our specific fish guides, including the Barreleye, Blue marlin, Giant trevally, Golden trout, Mahi-mahi, Sturgeon, Stringfish, Tuna and both the Salmon and King salmon river mouth fish.

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