How to Get the Empty Beer Can in How to Fish

What the Empty Beer Can actually is

It is bait, not loot. The community fish table lists the Lighthouse boss, the Spider Crab, as a Crab Fishing Rod catch taken on an Empty Beer Can — the game’s first lesson that boss bait does not have to look like bait.

That table also matters for your loadout: the Spider Crab is listed against the Crab Fishing Rod, the same rod you already use for the Lighthouse crustaceans. You are adding a bait, not buying a new rod.

The supplied walkthrough reaches the same place from the other direction: buy a Beer Can, feed it to the Lighthouse Keeper, and he returns the empty can for you to fish with.

The full Lighthouse bait list

The same community table that names the Empty Beer Can also shows why it stands out: everything else at the Lighthouse runs on the Crab Fishing Rod with a free lure or a hot dog, and the Spider Crab is the single entry listed as boss bait.

That makes the empty can the only Lighthouse catch that asks you to buy and trade something first. The normal species there are practice targets — you fight them with the rod you already own while you learn the reel and punch rhythm before the boss commit.

Logbook note: Community table, not an official bait list. Treat the rods and baits as the roster those players observed at the Lighthouse.

Step-by-step pickup

1. Earn cash first: the video guide treats $12 as the amount to have in hand before shopping.
2. Buy the Beer Can — the guide walks straight to it before doing anything else.
3. Carry it to the Lighthouse Keeper and interact. The guide presses Q on keyboard, and simply talking to him works too.
4. Check your inventory: the keeper hands the empty can back rather than keeping the drink.
5. Equip the empty can in your lure slot and cast it to summon the Spider Crab.
6. Beat the boss, return its quest drop to the keeper, and the lighthouse chain — including the boat keys — is done.

What the run costs

The early economy comes from two different community sources, and neither is developer-authored. The table reports each cost as its source observed it, so read it as a shopping estimate rather than a fixed price list.

Logbook note: The official Patch 1.0.12 change list mentions no shop price changes, and The Islet Update 1.1.0 announcement publishes no prices either — neither is the same as confirming the costs above are current.

If the trade or the cast fails

• Buy the can first — the keeper returns an empty one, he does not sell it.
• Free an inventory slot before the hand-in so the returned can is easy to spot.
• Equip it in the lure slot: the community table lists the empty can as the Spider Crab bait, so another lure will not start that fight.
• In co-op, agree on who hands the can over and have that player present; the item holder is the one the quest responds to.
• If the interaction does nothing, re-read the active quest and confirm the Spider Crab has not already been defeated in this save.

Logbook note: The material does not document what happens if the can is dropped, sold, eaten or lost with a save. Treat the empty can as a quest item and keep it until the boss is dead.

Patch 1.0.12 and dropped items

Patch 1.0.12 (September 4, 2026) limited velocity on items, which the official note says should make items harder to lose. It is the last patch change that touches item handling; the Islet Update 1.1.0 list says nothing about items. It still does not make a quest item safe to throw around — the 64-item ground limit from Patch 1.0.10 governs what the world keeps.

Unconfirmed as of 2026-09-16

• Whether the Empty Beer Can can be re-obtained after being dropped, sold or handed to something else.
• Whether it survives a death or a save reload while unspent.
• Any use for the empty can outside the Spider Crab encounter.
• The cost after future patches, since only an official change list can confirm a price move.

Logbook note: Unconfirmed means unverified here, not denied. Review date: 2026-09-16.