Name: Big Catch Bass Fishing
Item: Big Catch Bass Fishing
Rating: 7.5
Author: Nigel Hall

Casino Bonuses

Provider	Blueprint
Reels	5
Rows	3
Paylines	10
Bonus Rounds	1
Bet Range	0.10 - 100
Volatility	High
Max Win	4,000x
Bonus Buy	Yes
RTP	95.00%
Our Rating	7.5

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Game Overview

I’ll never forget the bemusement I felt when I first saw ‘Sega Bass Fishing’ down at my local Centre Four arcade centre – playing an arcade machine using a fishing rod was great fun! Best of all, I didn’t even have to pick up any maggots or other diSGusting “bait” to enjoy the experience, which is unquestionably a good thing as I can’t see too many slots players wanting to give Blueprint’s Big Catch Bass Fishing a blast if they had to go through an ordeal of that nature! This ten-payline game sports a 95% RTP and has a maximum jackpot of 4,000x the total bet – I wonder how many haddock that buys you these days?

Spinning the base game, you’ll probably notice a severe lack of wild symbols – no, you’re not going blind – those only show up during the free spin bonus round! Before that feature begins, you’ll be asked to choose a fish to determine which upgrade will be added to your free spin session. Further upgrades can be obtained by collecting fisherman symbols whilst the feature is in play. It will take you some time to find out what they all do, so if you don’t want to wait, I’d suggest taking advantage of the game’s fairly priced bonus buy facility for 100x the current stake.

Ready to go out and seek your fame, fortune, and… big catch? I’m sure you are, my friend, so don’t let me hold you up any longer – our free demo slot of Big Catch Bass Fishing is available to play below!

Big Catch Bass Fishing Slot Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols

Big Catch Bass Fishing slot paytable

If I weren’t an avid fan of playing slots, I’d think you were joking if you told me that fishing-based games are one of the most popular categories around in 2023! The thing is, it isn’t a joke – not by a long shot! Pragmatic Play is a prolific developer of this type of slot – Lucky Fishing Megaways, The Rodfather Megaways, and Lobster Bob’s Crazy Crab Shack are just three of their latest fishing-focused creations, and I deliberately avoided mentioning the dozen or more Big Bass Bonanza games that they love to publish on an almost monthly basis nowadays! All that, just from one developer – given that information, it’s easy to imagine just how enormous the wider fishing slot industry must be! Whilst the majority of these slots play relatively similarly overall, Big Catch Bass Fishing is (at least in my opinion) the best-looking of the entire bunch.

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for….! No, I don’t mean that something is pulling on your rod, I’m afraid – you’ll have to wait another few hours for that if my dad’s fishing stories are anything to go by! No, I’m talking about how much you can win from playing Big Catch Bass Fishing! Ten-line slots tend to have some of the best line hits you can hope for, and the highest-paying symbols offered here are the boats which provide a maximum prize of 200x the bet for a full payline of five of a kind. The rod can return up to 150x your stake for all five symbols, whilst the dragonfly and tackle box are somewhat less attractive at 100x and 50x, respectively. That just leaves us with the fish symbols – any mixed combination of five of those will get you 20x the total bet back in winnings, whilst a full payline of wilds returns the same 200x payout as the highest-paying regular boat symbol. Five traditional royals make up the lower section of the paytable, with prizes ranging between 5x the total bet for five tens up to 10x for five aces.

The available betting range is pretty run-of-the-bill by Blueprint Standards – minimum/maximum limits of €0.10 and €100.00 per spin respectively, with a completely unnecessary ambiguous set of restrictions on what other bets you are permitted to make in between those two extremes. I really wish developers would stop doing this – we always used to be able to bet any amount we wanted, provided it was a multiple of the minimum bet, which did not exceed the maximum, but it seems those days are never coming back.

Base Game & Modifiers

Big Catch Bass Fishing slot base game

Moving on to the base game now, which takes place on a playfield that is nothing more than utilitarian in its configuration. By that, I mean that it features five columns of three rows, spanned by ten fixed paylines, all of which must be played during each round. Payouts are awarded for landing at least three matching symbols on adjacent reels straight from the left, with one exception – the highest-paying boat symbol will also grant you a small prize for just two matching symbols.

It’s a great-looking design, but there really aren’t many features worthy of discussion in this part of the game – even the wild symbols don’t show up until you make it to the free spins feature. With that in mind, let’s skip ahead to find out if we’re better off cutting up these blueprints and dropping the bass!

Big Catch Bass Fishing Slot Bonus Features

Big Catch Bass Fishing slot free spins feature

You’ll need at least three bonus scatter symbols to land simultaneously to trigger a bonus round – a minimum three-scatter trigger will get you ten free spins, whilst four or five scatters will increase this to 15 or 20 free spins, respectively.

Free Spins

Before the bonus round begins, a ‘pick a fish’ feature will be presented, offering you a choice of different fish, each with various bonus-enhanced abilities. The ‘cash tag’ fish will boost the value of one of the royal symbols, whilst the ‘+fish’ option can add a whole bunch of extra fisherman symbols to the reels.

There are also ‘+collect’ fish that will cause all cash prizes to be collected multiple times, a re-spin fish that will dramatically improve the output of each free spin by activating multiple re-spins, and finally, a ‘+games’ fish that will top up your starting free spin counter with some number of extra rounds.

During the free spins feature, any fisherman symbol that lands at the same time as a fish money symbol will cause their values to be collected, in addition to moving you one position along the meter at the top of the reels. If you are lucky enough to see this feature through to its full potential, you could even find yourself with a 10x multiplier and up to 30 free spins with heavily value-boosted reel sets!

Bonus Buy

Don’t want to wait for the free spins to trigger naturally? Have no fear, my amigo! Blueprint has generously included a bonus buy facility for those who are fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of it.. unfortunately, that does not include me, but if you like to use these features and have a spare 100x the current stake lying around, you’ll be pleased to find this one on offer!

Pros

One of the best-looking fishing-themed games to date.
There aren’t enough ten-line games being produced nowadays, in my opinion, so this release makes a refreshing change… enjoy it with a Strongbow!
Excellent bonus round with loads of possibilities to find and explore.

Cons

A great-looking fishing game, it may be, but alas, it is still just another fishing game at the end of the day!
Payouts could be even better considering it’s a ten-line slot – what happened to the 2,500x payouts we used to get from nine-liners such as Dead or Alive?!

Final Thoughts

The market is literally flooded with fishing-themed slots nowadays, so I’m glad that Blueprint has made an effort to distinguish their effort from the rest by using a very modern graphical style – it certainly puts Fishin’ Frenzy to shame and is even right up there with the high-quality presentation of Big Bass Bonanza. I do have to deduct a point or two for the lack of an inventive name though – alas, there can only be ONE Rodfather!

7.5

Decent

Game Types:
Bonus Buy Slots

Author Bio

Article by Nigel Hall

23 years Gambling Industry Experience

About Nigel Hall

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