Catch
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Best
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Hold to reel and the line tightens; let go and the fish takes distance back. Land the heaviest fish you can before the line snaps.
There is one button and two things pulling against each other. Hold anywhere and you reel: the fish comes in, but the line meter climbs. Let go and the line eases, but the fish takes distance back. Bring a fish all the way to the boat and a heavier one takes the hook; fill the line meter and it snaps, and your run ends there.
Every few seconds the fish runs. While it runs it takes line far faster, and the strength of each run is different, so you can never be sure how much a given run will cost you. Past a certain size the fish loads the line even while you are not reeling, which means a big run cannot be survived by reacting to it — only by having kept the line slack before it started.
You also have thirty seconds with each fish. Simply holding on safely is not a strategy, because the hook works loose and the fish is lost; at some point you have to take line while the fish is calm and accept that a run may catch you high.
The fish get heavier without limit, and past a certain weight no amount of skill can bring one in: the line cannot recover fast enough to pay for the distance. That is deliberate, and it is why every run ends. Your score is the total weight you land.
The line meter is a budget, not a warning light. Reeling spends it at a fixed rate and letting go refills it at a fixed rate, so the only question every second is how much of it you want to be holding when the next run starts. Most players discover the meter only when it turns red, by which time the decision that mattered was made three seconds earlier.
That is why the correct habit is to reel in short pulls with the meter low rather than long pulls that end near the top. A run that begins while you are at a quarter of the bar is an inconvenience; the same run beginning at three quarters is the end of your session. The total distance you gain per second is almost identical either way, so the short-pull style costs you nothing and buys you all of your safety.
Runs are the whole game and their strength varies, so treat every run as if it is a strong one. The moment the fish goes, let go and stay off the button until it settles, even if the meter looks comfortable — with a big fish the line keeps loading while you wait, and what looked comfortable at the start of a run can be at the top by the end of it.
The thirty-second clock is what stops pure caution from working, and it should shape where you spend your risk. Gain your distance in the calm windows between runs, aggressively, and then do nothing at all while the fish is running. Players who reel a little bit all the time end up with a meter that is never low and a clock that runs out anyway.
When a fish is clearly beyond you, it is still worth fighting properly rather than yanking, because the weight you have already landed is banked and the run only ends on a snap or a lost hook. Squeeze the calm windows, keep the meter honest, and you will usually get one fish further than the size chart suggests you should.