This is a complete guide to all of the boss salmonoids in Splatoon 3’s Salmon Run, where defeating them is key to making it to the next round. No. Exceptions.

Big Shots

These are one of the many new additions to Salmon Run, which can be annoying. Their main point of life is to send an annoying, Wave Breaker imitating, cannonball near the egg basket. The cannonball will bounce a few times before disappearing, and it’s guaranteed to be near the egg basket. The actual Big Shot will be close to the shore, coming in and out of the water while shooting cannonballs from a permanently stationed cannon. Since more than one Big Shot can use a cannon, my tactic is to shoot them when they come out of the water, and you can load the golden eggs INTO the cannon! Simply press A, and you’ve sent a golden egg airborne. (Note that the eggs will not land in the egg basket, just near.)

Drizzlers

These Ink Storm (in other Splatoons) mimicking annoyances will probably have you annoyed to have been defeated by one. They will shoot out of the water to one of few certain points, and will lock on before shooting. They shoot a missile that will hover in place, exposed, and then shoot up to make a green Ink Storm. After shooting, the Drizzler will be launched upside down, and that’s your chance to attack. The only other way to kill one is to shoot the missile in it’s exposed state back at a Drizzler, or anything for that matter. It has an explosive range, so you can take out enemies with something supposed to be on their team.

Flipper-Floppers

Another new addition to Salmon Run, these are Splat Zones mimicking enemies. they’ll shoot out of the water and ink a circle area, and if you can manage to repaint maybe 75% of the circle, everything in the circle will go your ink color, and the Flipper-Flopper will try to dive in and fail. Then it’s in it’s exposed state, so you can kill it then. Make sure not to go INTO the circle until it’s all inked your color, or else the Flipper-Flopper will kill you with one swimming dive. (Talk about a strong swimmer!)

Fish Sticks

These are kinda annoying enemies, especially when you have a Splatling or a blaster with low fire rate. They’ll screw down a big pillar, and start inking around it. The best way to kill them is to ink up the actual pillar itself, and kill them all when you’re up there. Then you can throw the eggs down, and chillax while safe from any attack. (Until a Flyfish gives itself a easy kill.)

Flyfishes

These are VERY annoying smallfry, that somehow combines the Inkjet and the Tenta Missiles! Not fair! It flies around and stops in one spot while flying, and uses its Tenta Missiles to kill tons of players. The only way to kill it is to throw a bomb in both of it’s missile capsules, which is just the worst bad news possible when you see four bombs in one, zero in the other. Once both are taken down, it spirals down and explodes into golden eggs.

Maws

This shark-related boss can have you fuming, especially once you’re the last player, and you’re very crowded. It comes out of the ocean with only a red light visible above ink, slightly trailing ink, and it’ll keep going until it finds the closest player. It’ll stop for a few seconds with a warning sound going on and a circle of where it’ll pop out, and your only chance is to splat it while it’s up, or to make it eat a bomb.

Slammin’ Lids

These are exactly as their name suggests, as they’re lids that slam. Salmonoids can beam down from it, and there’s a big bubbler effect if anything is in the area that a Slammin’ Lid is over. The only way to beat it is by taking down it’s little controller at the top. You can go under then come back out to get it to slam, only to hop on and get rid of it, or you can get to high ground and kill it from there. One tactic is to actually keep them in the game for a bit, and use them for slamming down on salmonoids (they will die.)

Scrappers

This is straight out of the junkyard of the sea! This is a regular Chum, but with rugged-looking, reused a lot, armor, it has a surprisingly bigger defense! You’ll need to splat it a lot to stun it, and then go around and splat the chum in the back. (It’s completely exposed!)

Steel eels

These are mechanic, no good robots that are piloted by one guy at the back. The thing can kill you in many ways: Eat, Smush, Roll (just go through the side,) and more! It’s impossible to stop, except for the one vulnerable guy at the back. It’s very advisable to put them near the top of the threats list, and they can easily overwhelm you, even with just one.

Special Runs

Chinooks

These are regular chums, except A: They only appear when there’s a mothership round, B: They can fly, and C: They’ll drop boxes that’ll spawn salmonoids. Kill one before it’s box is dropped for a golden egg, and yes, A golden egg (only one.) They will spawn and fly to random points on the location that are accessible for low tide, so it might be best to keep a bit of distance

Goldies

They only appear in Goldie hide and seek, (it’s a fun name,) Rush, and Fog special runs, so you should make sure to keep an eye out for them. Not only are they something like 1 in 1,000,000, but they also drop 5 GOLDEN EGGS!

Grillers

These are hard-to beat, powerhouse machines. They only appear in Griller runs, along with smallfrys. They will target someone with a laser and keep going until they reach their enemies. their only weak point is a tail emerging from the back, which will expose all the weak points after being splatted a bit. Then just splat a bit, and you’ve earned 5 golden eggs!

Motherships

This is a big ship for salmonoids that appears in it’s own waves, and it can spawn Chinooks to spawn Salmonoids. The only way to get eggs in this type of wave is from chinooks, and at some point the mothership will move on the egg basket, trying to suck them away. Fully splat it to keep the eggs. Repeat and you’re good!

Mudmouths

Mudmouths are weird muck monsters, that will spawn in their own wave. Different ones can spawn either Smallfrys, Chums. There’s also the Golden one, which will spawn Cohocks, and can drop 5 eggs apart from the regular 3 from the green mudmouths.

That’s all for this post, and you can check out some of my posts on Salmon Runs to know more! By the way, what’s your favorite special salmonoid to fight? (Mine is the Mudmouths.)