How to Fish Final Boss: the Whale, the Crater and the Second Form

31 August 2026 · 4 min read

GameMapa editorial · how we check facts
Checked: Claude (AI) — fact-checked against the Ukrainian original; not proofread by a native speaker

The How to Fish finale is not one fight but two in a row. The bowhead whale dies exactly halfway through the story, and what the whole arsenal was built for only starts after it does.

In short

The bait: five creatures for a bucket

On the volcano island stands an NPC in a hazmat suit — the military have already located a big creature and want someone to deal with it. He trades five creatures of any kind for a fish bucket.

Note that the creatures do not have to be rare. Anything you pulled up on the way works: cod, perch, burbot. So the fastest route is not to fish for them on purpose but simply to stop throwing the small stuff back on the earlier islands.

The bucket only works as bait on this island.

First form: the bowhead whale

The whale is large, slow and hits in an area. The problem is not its attacks but its health pool: it is the thickest target in the game.

• Shoot it with an automatic weapon. Damage does not fall off with distance, so keeping your range costs nothing — the details are in the weapons guide.
• Patch 1.0.4 of 21 August 2026 nerfed the whale. If you have read old advice about an «endless fight», it describes the pre-patch version.
• The Overkill multiplier does not apply here: it never triggers on bosses. The rest of the bonuses are in the killscore guide.

Second form: the body into the crater

The game does not end when the whale dies. You have to pick the body up and carry it up the slope of the volcano, then throw it into the crater.

What comes back out is the mutated bowhead whale — the same carcass, reworked by the lava.

The second form differs in one mechanic: it leaves lava pools on the ground. They do not disappear at once, so the arena shrinks as the fight goes on. Hence the tactic: never stand still, shoot on the move, and decide in advance where you are retreating to.

⚠️ Hauling the carcass uphill takes a while. In co-op it is easier to split roles: one carries, the rest cover.

The last island’s three achievements

The gap between 41.4% and 3.4% is the measure of how hard «Handyman» is. Patch 1.0.4 separately mentions a fix for this achievement: before it, the unlock failed even for players who had met the condition.

How much money you need

The finale does not demand a full arsenal, but it does demand one decent automatic weapon. Reference points you actually meet on the fifth island:

• the SMG upgrade on the last island — around 16,000;
• an assault rifle fully kitted with maximum ammunition — around 85,000;
• topping up to maximum ammunition costs 90.

If you are short on cash, the faster way to make it is covered in the beginner guide.

Next

This is the last link in the boss chain. The previous one is the albatross; the full map of all five is here.