Fathom Fishing
A good fish on the line.
A lure goes down on a line and you decide how far. Fish are worth more the deeper you take them from, the light gives out on the way, and the run ends after three minutes whether you have anything to show for it or not.
What you're doing down there
One thumb, and gravity does the rest
Drag down and the line goes out. Drag up and you take it back. Let go and the lure holds where you left it. That is the whole trick: a lure sitting still is a lure that is fishing. Everything else is a decision about how deep to sit and how long to wait there.
Being in the right water at the right moment
Something is crossing under you the whole time and most of it ignores the lure. You cannot chase a fish down; you can only be where it is going to be. Guessing wrong costs you thirty seconds of a three-minute run, which is the only thing in the game that is genuinely scarce.
You and the drag
Set the hook with a tap, or a flick of the phone if you would rather, and then the clutch is the only thing you control. Too loose and the fish takes line until the clock runs out. Too tight and it parts, and you watch something good leave with your lure in its mouth.
Nothing fights the same way twice
A bass makes one hard run and after that it is winding. A pike turns and swims straight at you until the line goes slack and the hook falls out. A grouper does not run at all. It goes home, and home is a hole in the rock with your line around it. You find this out by losing to it.
The dock, and then the others
A hundred metres of green-black water off an old pier is where you start. A lake between two bluffs is shorter and asks a different question. A river the colour of tea runs too hard to leave a lure anywhere. Blue water off a coral shelf is the deepest, and there is a marlin in the bottom of it. Each one opens when you have earned it, not when you have waited.
The spool remembers
Line frays where the fights were hardest and carries that into the next run, so a bad night starts you nearer the break. Coins come out of the water and go back into line, lures and three modest upgrades. Nothing about it can end a run, and nothing about it is for sale.
- Platform
- iPhone, portrait, one hand
- Requires
- iOS 17 or later
- Price
- Free
- Ads
- Optional rewarded video, never during a run
- Leaderboards
- Game Center: best run, best fish, deepest catch. Optional
- Offline
- Plays with no connection, no account and no sign-up
- Accessibility
- Reduce motion, tap instead of flick, haptics, colourblind tension