General Activities And Making Money

Shoveling

With a shovel in hand, you'll finally be able to dig up all those mysterious holes in the ground and see what's underneath them. Actually, we guess they're not really holes until you dig them up...anyway, you should have seen a few spots on the ground that look a bit different than what the ground normally looks like, as if there were something buried there; usually there's just a little brown smudge to break up the normal pattern of the ground. When you find one of these spots, move your shovel on top of your character in the inventory screen, and try to dig it up! Generally you'll find fossils, which you can bring to the Museum proprietor to have them identified. If you wish, you can donate the fossil to the museum, or bring it to Nook to sell, or plop it down in your house as a decoration. You'll also occasionally find other items, such as seeds or gyroids.

You never know what you'll find when you dig stuff up! Don't forget to bury a bunch of junk in your friend's towns when you visit; they like that.

With your shovel, you can also dig up holes anywhere you like and bury items. Burying most items isn't very useful, but if you bury seeds and water the resulting hole, you should find yourself with a new kind of tree before long. You can also bury other items just to see what happens. For instance, try buying a second shovel, digging a hole, then burying one of your shovels. If you leave it alone for a full day, then dig it up again, it should have turned into a Golden Shovel, which you can now use to plant money trees by burying bags of money with it. Handy!

Bug Catching

Bugs can either be sold at Nook's shop, or brought to the museum for cataloguing. To catch a bug, you'll need a net, which you can buy at Nook's shop. With the net equipped, find a bug, aim at it, then swing the net at it to catch it! Simple. Unfortunately, if you're reading this close to the time it was posted, you'll have a hard time finding any bugs to catch, as there aren't many of them available in your town during winter. If you want to have an easier time spotting bugs, flip your game clock forward to summer or fall and look around for bugs then.

If you catch every type of bug at least once, you'll earn a Golden Bug Net.

Slingshotting

If you happen to buy a slingshot from Tom Nook, you'll be able to use it when you're outside. If you happen to note something float across the upper screen of your DS, quickly equip your slingshot and attempt to shoot it down. Many of the items that float around up there are rare, and you might even be able to shoot down people or UFOs!

After you shoot down 15 items, you'll earn a Golden Slingshot if you manage to shoot it down. The Golden Slingshot makes it easier to hit items as they float across the sky.

Fishing

Fishing is a bit more complicated than shovelling stuff up, but has its own rewards. To fish, buy a fishing rod from Nook, then head out to one of the bodies of water in your town and look for fish; they'll appear as black silhouettes in the water. When you’ve found a likely candidate, try to stand near it, without brushing up against the water, as this will likely spook it. When you're in a good position, point yourself upstream and cast your bobber. The bobber should float downstream, and hopefully glide past the fish and get its attention. As the fish starts heading towards the bobber, it'll nibble a few times (and you'll see the bobber go up and down) before finally taking a full bite (when the bobber will fully submerge itself). When the bobber's submerged entirely, reel the line in, and you'll have your very own fish.

Fishing can be tough to get the hang of, but it becomes easier when you get used to it.

Of course, one of the overall objectives for fisherman is to unlock the Golden Fishing Rod, but to do so, you'll need to catch every type of fish at least once. Doing so is no mean feat, though, considering that many fish can only be caught at a certain type of day, or in a certain type of body of water (lake v. river v. ocean), or in a certain type of weather. You can refer to Gamefaqs.com to find more information on all of the varieties of fish, and the specific parameters for catching them. It's not strictly necessary to catch all of them unless you want the Golden Fishing Rod, although the rarer fish will of course net you more cash at Tom Nook's shop. The Golden Fishing Rod itself will make it easier for you to catch fish, as they'll be attracted to your bobber.

Fruit Harvesting

Another primary area of interest in Animal Crossing is planting and growing fruit trees. Each town that you create will have one type of fruit initially available on its trees. If you want to plant more of that kind of fruit, shake down a fruit from the tree, dig a hole elsewhere, and plant your fruit there. Over time, the fruit will either grow up into a new tree, or die. (If it dies, you might have planted it in an area reserved for future events, or too close to a rock.)

When a fruit tree is in bloom, you can shake down the fruit and sell it to Nook for more pocket cash. Try to get a variety of fruit growing in your town! You can find other types of fruit when you visit friends, or when they come to visit you; sometimes you'll also earn fruit when you perform tasks for the characters in town. Try not to cluster different kinds of fruit together, though; it's best to keep fruit segregated in their own small groves. Also be sure not to plant trees directly next to each other; try to keep at least one space on each side of a fruit tree, and don't plant them next to rocks.

Note that you can also shake empty trees, as well. Empty trees won't drop fruit, but they'll often drop bags of money worth 100 Bells each. Of course, they might also drop beehives, which will issue forth the insect overlords and give you a whopper of a stung eye. If you're quick, you might be able to use your net on the beehive and collect the bees, which are worth a few thousand bells; otherwise, you might just have to walk around with a shiner for a while.

Money Rocks

There are going to be numerous rocks scattered around your town. If you hit these with your shovel, you'll find that one rock per day will be a money rock, and will net you numerous bags of money if you repeatedly hit them. The first bags will contain only 100 Bells, though subsequent bags will offer double the amount (200, 400, 800, and so on). Of course, you have to quickly hit the rock in order to obtain the final bags of money, and you'll continually be pushed away as you hit the rock. If you want to get all of the bells, you'll need to dig holes in the ground behind you before you start hitting the rock; they'll arrest your backwards movement, and let you pound away on the rock and hopefully net all of the cash that's coming to you.