Jeff's Animal Crossing Blog

I started up my game tonight and saw that it was raining. In my mail was a goodbye letter from Lulu.

I then went to meet Lulu’s replacement, Tutu.

I then went to do some fishing. At one point, I was fishing in front of Ursala’s house and she was watching me. I caught a coelacanth and she applauded me. But then I immediately went to talk to her and she asked if I caught the coelacanth myself.

She asked if I wanted to trade it for clothes, paper, or money. I declined the offer. She said she would have given me 49,918 bells for it! But I know that’s a lie. I’ve never seen animals pay out that kind of money for anything. There’s no way she would have paid me that much…right? She was just trying to make me feel bad for not giving it to her.

I continued fishing, and I ran into Gulliver on the beach. He gave me a Chinese lion.

In all, I fished for 15-20 minutes and caught 29 fish. Four of them were coelacanths, and I earned 151,000 bells for all the fish. Plus an additional 1,200 bells for the Chinese lion. I deposited my money, and my bank balance topped 15 million for the first time.

As you may or may not know, this is the BEST time of year to make lots of money in Animal Crossing. For the first half of September, there are NO sea bass in the ocean! The jellyfish from late August are also gone.

That means the ocean only has red snappers (worth 3,000 bells each), barred knifejaws (5,000 bells), and if it’s raining, coelacanths (15,000 bells). So if you go fishing in the ocean, you can earn a ton of money in a short period of time. You will want to avoid the acre where the river empties in the ocean though; you can still catch river fish there.

It was raining in my town tonight, which meant coelacanths are out and about. I was short on time, so I only fished enough to fill up my inventory once. I did catch one coelacanth in that span.

I kept going until I caught 15 fish, which took me about 7 minutes.

I went to Nook’s and sold my fish; he gave me 67,000 bells. Not bad for 7 minutes of fishing.

I first discovered this tip several years ago. At the time, I could find no mention of this valuable strategy online anywhere, so I may have been the first to popularize it. I shared it on the old AOL Animal Crossing boards (which sadly no longer exist). Then in 2007, I made a Youtube video telling people of the tip. I still try to share it with people each year.

I hope you’re able to take advantage of this tip and earn some big bells. Happy fishing!

Late last night, I found my summer camper’s tent. Jane was inside and I played a few games. But then, at midnight, the tent disappeared. Camper tents are supposed to remain in town until 3 p.m. on Sunday, so why did it disappear? I checked all around town to see if it moved. No luck. I saved and quit my game, started again, and looked all around for it once again. It was gone.

So this morning, I tried again. It’s not anywhere. I didn’t get the item I need for my next house redesign, and now it looks like I’m out of luck for another year. Unless I put one of them in storage in a letter at the post office or gave one to another character in town (both seem unlikely but I’ll check at some point). This is a major bummer. Can anyone explain this? I don’t understand why the tent would have disappeared. If it is a glitch, why didn’t the tent return when I started up the game again? If anyone can provide any insight in the comments, I would appreciate it.