"Sweetfish appear when the days grow long, you know. Some say summer can't begin until the first one is caught. Of course, the poor dear is than eaten! Hardly a fit welcome for summer's herald! I, myself, do not eat fish. This one will be quite safe with us here. Quite safe, indeed! Hoo, I say!"
In Wild World
"This fish is hardly sweet, contrary to its name. It still tastes... fishy. Indeed, if you expect some sort of lollipop in fish-form, you will be horrified!"
The Sweetfish can be found swimming near the surface in the pond aquarium in the first fish room.
In City Folk
"You can always tell where a sweetfish has been by the trail of bite marks it leaves behind, eh wot? The fish will scrape away at rocks that have food stuck to them, leaving jagged teeth marks. ...Quite wild behavior for such a refined-looking little fish, I should say!"
The Sweetfish can be found in the middle-right tank in the aquarium.
In New Leaf
"Sweetfish are migratory fish born upstream that travel to the sea and then return to rivers to spawn. This migratory mind-set is what emphasizes their similarity to salmon. Adult sweetfish have a watermelon-like mossy smell when caught, since they eat moss on riverbed rocks. Sweetfish are very territorial and will attack rivals that encroach on their territory. Anglers use this combative nature against them by using lures made of other sweetfish."
In New Horizons
When donating to Blathers or selecting "Tell me about this!" in New Horizons, he will provide the following information about the fish:
"Sweetfish are the damp herals of summer! These slippery fellows appear in numbers when it warms up. They hatch in a river, then swim to the sea. Once mature, they return to the river where they were born. But when they return depends on the river temperature—if it's too cold their fishing season will start later. Some even say summer can't start without sweetfish...despite the KEY role played by the earth's axial tilt!"
Once donated to the museum, the Sweetfish can be found in the second tier of the waterfall fish-tank with the Stringfish and Freshwater Goby.
Fishing Tourney
During a Fishing Tourney, when given a Sweetfish, Chip will say the following dialogue.
In City Folk
"One of my favorite things is cooking sweetfish on a stick over a campfire! Nyuuuk nyuk nyuk nyuk!"
In New Leaf
"Know what? Grilled sweetfish over a campfire is probably one of my absolute favorite things ever. Come to think of it, raw sweetfish is one of my favorite things too! YUM!"
The sweetfish, or ayu, is an amphidromous fish, the only species in the genus Plecoglossus and in family Plecoglossidae. It is a relative of the smelts and is placed in the order Osmeriformes. Native to the Palearctic ecozone, it is found in rivers, lakes, and coastal waters of western Hokkaidō in Japan southward to the Korean Peninsula, China, and Taiwan. The name "sweetfish" is from the sweetness of its flesh. Regarding its typical one-year life span, it is also known as nen-gyo ("year-fish"). It is Gunma prefecture's prefectural fish.