Drop a hook from your boat to catch fish at different depths within the time limit — bigger fish swim deeper, but bombs lurk between them.
Touch and hold anywhere on the water to lower your hook from the boat — release at any moment to reel it back up. While your finger is down the boat follows it left and right, so you can steer the hook toward a fish as it sinks. The hook catches the first thing it touches: small surface fish are common but worth few points, mid-depth fish are worth more, and deep-water trophies pay the most. Avoid the bombs floating among the schools — touching one subtracts points. The round ends after 60 seconds; the score is your total catch.
Time the descent — don't just hold blindly. The hook moves at a fixed speed, so look at where the fish are heading and start descending early enough that the hook meets the fish, not the empty water behind it.
Deep fish pay the most per catch, but they are not a free win. A deep-water fish is worth nine small ones, yet the round trip takes about four times as long, and the hook grabs the first fish it touches on the way down — a small fish crossing your line ends the dive for 10 points. In our tests, chasing only deep fish scored about the same as working only the surface. The best rounds mix the two: dive for a deep fish when the column above it is clear, and take quick surface catches the rest of the time.
Use short pulse drops when surface fish are dense. Tap-and-release rapidly to catch surface schools fast without committing a long round trip. This builds a steady score floor between deep dives.
Check for bombs before you drop. Each bomb drifts in on its own at a random depth and moves slowly — one can take ten seconds or more to cross the screen — so look at the column under the boat before you press, and slide the boat aside if a bomb is in it. Bombs only matter while the hook is empty: once a fish is on the line, the hook passes straight through them on the way up.