Reel Big Fish Slot Review

Reel Big Fish Slot Overview

Before I loaded Reel Big Fish from Blue Guru Games, I fancied another simple fishing slot with cash-style fish symbols and a solid free spins round. The reels sit just under the water on a transparent 5x3 set, with a small boat swaying above and bubbles drifting up from the seabed. The look is calm and slightly old fashioned, which fits the steady, line-based gameplay I got in the base game.

Reel Big Fish runs with 20 fixed paylines and a betting range from 0.20 up to 200 per spin, so I could test different strategies without much fuss. The maths model is medium volatility, with several RTP settings, the highest sitting around 96.5 percent. Maximum win lands at roughly 5436 times the stake. Officially the slot has been decommissioned, yet the numbers still show a fairly balanced fishing release.

Reel Big Fish Slot Information

If you have played other sea themed games, Reel Big Fish feels instantly familiar, yet Blue Guru gave it a relaxed, almost dreamy pace. Above the surface the boat hardly moves, while under the reels small fish glide past and bubbles rise, backed by soft, calming music. I often ended up just letting the spins run while soaking up the soundtrack and the gentle movement on screen.

The paytable in Reel Big Fish starts with seaweed wrapped card ranks 10 through A as the low paying icons, worth around 1.5 to 3 times the bet for five of a kind. Premiums are cans, buoys, maps, and bits of scuba gear, paying from about 3.75 up to 50 times the stake for a full line, so standard symbol hits can still put in some work.

A fishing net acts as the wild in Reel Big Fish, standing in for all regular symbols apart from the scatter and the special fish icons. The fisherman serves as the scatter symbol you need to trigger free spins. Fish symbols carry cash values and, in the base game, they pay when a wild lands on the grid at the same time, which sets up the familiar collect-style mechanic.

Symbols and Paytable

Symbol	Quantity	Payout
	5	x50
	4	x6.25
	3	x2.5
	5	x12.5
	4	x5
	3	x2
	5	x5
	4	x3
	3	x1.5
	5	x3.75
	4	x2.5
	3	x1.25
	5	x3
	4	x2
	3	x1
	5	x2.25
	4	x1.5
	3	x0.75
	5	x2.25
	4	x1.5
	3	x0.75
	5	x1.5
	4	x1
	3	x0.5
	5	x1.5
	4	x1
	3	x0.5
	Scatter
	Wild

Reel Big Fish Slot Features

In terms of mechanics, Reel Big Fish sticks to a classic mix that suits the fishing slot crowd. You get wild symbols, scatter symbols, fish symbols with cash amounts, a money collect feature and a dedicated free spins bonus. The base game spins feel fairly active, with a hit rate close to one win every second spin, so I rarely went long stretches without a line or small collect appearing.

The headline twist in Reel Big Fish is how those fish symbols work outside free spins. Each fish carries a value between one and five times the bet in the base game. Whenever one or more wilds land alongside fish, each visible wild collects every fish value in view. It can look modest on paper, yet a screen full of fish with a couple of nets can still feel quite handy.

Free Spins in Reel Big Fish

Free spins in Reel Big Fish arrive when three, four, or five captain scatters land, awarding 8, 12, or 20 spins. During this feature, each reel has a meter with levels from zero to three. Scatters add one step to the reel they hit and give an extra spin, while a golden scatter maxes that meter. Fish now pay on their own, with silver, green, and red types reaching 50x, 100x, and 200x the bet.

Bonus Buy in Reel Big Fish

If you do not fancy grinding the base game, Reel Big Fish offers a bonus buy menu in some markets. You can buy free spins with three scatters for 70 times the bet, four scatters for 130 times, or five scatters for 275 times, giving 8, 12, or 20 spins. These options even run on slightly tweaked RTP settings, tempting if you like forcing the feature.

Reel Big Fish Slot Verdict

For me, Reel Big Fish lands as a pleasant but fairly safe entry in the fishing slot category. The presentation works nicely, with that gentle soundtrack and some tidy animation on the boat and underwater scene. Collecting fish values with wilds in the base game gives a bit more to watch than simple line wins, and the level based free spins round adds some sense of progression on each reel.

On the flip side, the game never fully breaks out of its comfort zone, especially once you have seen a few bonus rounds that end with average sized hauls. The max win figure around 5000 times the bet sits in line with what I felt from my sessions. Now that Reel Big Fish has been retired, it stands more as a solid example of Blue Guru’s early work than a must play classic.

Screenshots