Really enjoying the beach farm?

[malymin]

The main downside of it is that none of the tillable land (outside of a 10x20 area that has to be cleared of logs and stumps to use) can use sprinklers, which... is a dire downside for people who maximize crop output, but that's never been how I play. The greenhouse + Ginger Island is usually more than enough cropland for how I play after completing the Community Center. I tend to be focused on animals (despite them being less profitable) than seasonal crops, and prefer the low maintenance of greenhouse/island-grown ancient fruits and pineapples to replanting single-harvest crops like starfruit.

In many respects, the Riverlands farm is an "objectively" better farm for fishing, as it starts with a Fish Smoker (an expensive to learn-to-craft item that multiplies the price of fish processed in it) and will consistently give you fish when fishing, rather than trash items. Despite the nearly 30% chance to pull garbage on Beach Farm, however, I've enjoyed fishing on it. Hauling my ass to the beach at morning or during night to catch specific ocean-fish (for the community bundles, for quests, for completing the collection, etc) has always been a pain for me. On the Beach Farm, the time spent between completing all my chores/errands/etc and midnight has largely been spent fishing; even before I bought the fish smoker recipe, it wasn't uncommon for my nightly profits to be more fishing-based than farming. And since buying the fish smoker recipe and crafting some, I've been able to pull some pretty nice profits from smoking things like Super Cucumbers. I reached level 10 fishing before any other skill. And while you can't catch legendary fish on the beach farm, the leg up I've gotten in the skill has made this the first save file where I've caught every legendary before the end of Year 2.

Likewise, I tend to forget about crab pots that I put down at the beach; the beach farm lets me catch lobster right behind my house.

Fishing has also always been my preferred means for acquiring artifacts for the Museum, and it's a good source for things like Golden Animal Crackers later on as well. While the Angler profession would net me the most absolute profit per fish, I have always chosen the Pirate profession for the increased chance of treasure chests while fishing.