Fishin Frenzy

Quick verdict: a plain 10-line slot with one rule that built a franchise

Fishin Frenzy is about as stripped back as a video slot gets. Five reels, three rows, ten lines, a boat scatter, and a free games round where a fisherman appears and collects the values printed on fish. There is no base-game wild, no multiplier ladder and no feature buy. Almost everything interesting happens once three boats land.

That simplicity is exactly why it matters. The fisherman-collects-fish rule became the core that Blueprint Gaming has reworked into Megaways, Big Catch, Jackpot King and many other versions. The Merkur-listed build reviewed here, widely reported as Reel Time Gaming's original under licence, adds one detail of its own: it can be played on five lines or ten. Its 96.12% RTP is well documented. Its maximum win is not published by either studio, so treat any single figure with care.

Fishin Frenzy specs, as listed

Who actually made the Merkur-listed Fishin Frenzy

The original Fishin Frenzy is widely credited to Reel Time Gaming, an Australian developer founded in 2009, which is reported to have licensed the 10-payline game to Merkur and Blueprint Gaming. Published histories of the franchise date the online release to September 2014 and describe the game as starting life as a land-based machine before Blueprint Gaming adapted it for online play.

Merkur's page confirms the land-based link from its side. It says Fishin' Frenzy is available in Merkur arcades and venues, found in the My Top Game library on machines under MTG code 87, as well as online through Merkur's partner sites. Neither Merkur's page nor Blueprint Gaming's, which calls its build a "10 pay line European casino style slot", mentions Reel Time Gaming.

You will also see the game listed under Blueprint Gaming or Merkur alone. Merkur and Blueprint Gaming belong to the same wider group, which helps explain why one game appears under different names in different lobbies.

In practice there are at least two closely related builds of the original. They share the boat scatter, the 10/15/20 free games and the fisherman collect rule. They can differ in line options, the gamble feature and available RTP versions. Blueprint Gaming's page, for example, describes a red/black card gamble after a win, while summaries of the Merkur build describe no gamble step. If a gamble option matters to you, the game's own help screen is the place to confirm which version you have loaded.

Five lines or ten: the Merkur staking choice

Merkur's page says the game "is played with a level of five to 200 on five win lines or with a level of ten to 400 on ten win lines." In other words, the number of active lines is variable. Divide the stake levels by the lines and the two modes match:

So five lines does not make each line cheaper; it halves the total stake by removing half the lines. Line wins are defined per line, so a combination on an active line pays the same in either mode. What changes is coverage: combinations that would have landed on lines six to ten simply do not count.

Merkur does not publish whether fish values are based on the total stake in five-line mode, or whether RTP is the same in both modes. The 96.12% figure is best read as applying to the standard 10-line setup unless the game's information screen says otherwise.

There is a practical reading of this choice. Running five lines is a way to lower the total stake per spin while keeping the same line values, but it also removes half of the ways a matching combination can connect. Because the boat scatter triggers from anywhere in view, the route into free games is not tied to the line count in the way line wins are. What is not published is whether the collected fish values scale down with the smaller total stake, so a five-line session should not be assumed to offer the same bonus value relative to the stake as a ten-line one.

The base game: a line-pays table with nothing extra

In the base game, wins pay left to right on active lines. The boat is the scatter and is described as having no line value of its own. The fisherman does not appear at all; rule summaries of the Merkur build state he can only land during the free games.

The paytable is published both as multiples of the line bet and as multiples of the total bet on ten lines. Since ten line bets make one total bet, the two views line up:

Published paytables give the card symbols as 0.5x, 2.5x and 10x the total bet for three, four and five of a kind, and the rod as 3x, 15x and 100x. The pelican is described as paying from just two matching symbols, at 5x the line bet, rising to 50x, 200x and 2,000x for three, four and five.

Two things follow. With no wild and no base modifier, base wins depend entirely on matching symbols on active lines, so results stay small. And the largest base-game line is five pelicans at 200x the total bet on ten lines. Anything bigger must come from free games. The fish is an ordinary paying symbol here; its second job only starts in the bonus.

It also helps to think about what the paytable shape means spin to spin. The card ranks sit at the bottom of the table, with five of a kind topping out at 10x the total bet. The middle symbols, the fish, bait box and life ring, reach up to 50x. Only the rod and the pelican climb into three figures relative to the total bet. The pelican's two-of-a-kind pay is the one rule that makes short combinations count, which is useful in a game with no wild to extend lines. Everything else needs at least three matching symbols from the leftmost reel.

How the fisherman collects fish values in free games

This is the mechanic the whole series is built on. The steps below combine Blueprint Gaming's official wording, Merkur's page and published rule summaries of the game.

Step 1: land the boats. Three, four or five boat scatters anywhere in view award 10, 15 or 20 free games. Merkur and Blueprint Gaming give the same counts.

Step 2: fish now carry values. During free games, fish symbols display a value. Published rule summaries put the top fish value at 50x the bet, and the Merkur build is described in simple terms: the bigger the fish, the higher the prize. The full set of fish values and how often each appears are not published.

Step 3: the fisherman is added. He acts as a wild, substituting for other symbols except the scatter.

Step 4: the fisherman collects. Blueprint Gaming's page says any fisherman in view catches the fish and nets the value on their tags for extra reel wins. If a fisherman and at least one valued fish land on the same spin, every visible fish value is awarded.

Step 5: line wins still count. As a wild, the fisherman can complete line wins on the same spin he collects; the collect is paid on top.

Step 6: the round ends. Free games cannot be retriggered, so the round finishes after the 10, 15 or 20 games awarded.

Both halves must land together. A screen of big fish with no fisherman collects nothing, and a fisherman with no fish collects nothing. Both symbols appear at random, and no choice you make affects when they land.

It is worth being clear about what the fisherman does as a wild, because that is his second job. On a spin with no fish in view he still substitutes on the lines, so he can turn two matching symbols into three or extend a four into a five. That is the only time in the whole game that a wild helps line wins, which is another reason the free games carry so much of the game's value compared with the base game.

Why a second fisherman doubles the catch

The collect rule works per fisherman. Each fisherman can collect several fish at once, and each fish can be collected more than once. So a second fisherman on the same spin collects the same fish again, and rule summaries of the Merkur game describe this as a double award when two fishermen appear together.

As an illustration of the rule, not a real spin: three fish showing values that total 12x the bet are collected once for 12x by one fisherman, twice for 24x by two, and three times for 36x by three. The fish values stay fixed; the number of fishermen sets how often they count.

This is where the game's large results come from: big fish values, several fish in view and more than one fisherman all landing together. How often multiple fishermen appear is not published.

The later Megaways version made the idea explicit. In that game, extra fishermen are described as multiplying collected fish values, and fish show 1x, 3x, 5x or 10x the stake. Those figures belong to Fishin Frenzy Megaways, not this original, but they show where the rule went next.

The max win nobody agrees on

The original's maximum win is not settled, and this review does not pick a figure. Published listings give 5,000x, 10,000x and 50,000x the bet; check the game's information screen for the cap on the version you load.

Neither Merkur nor Blueprint Gaming publishes a max win on their game pages. Different builds, stake caps or calculation methods could explain the spread. What is certain is where a top result must come from. The biggest base line is 200x the bet, so any maximum in the thousands depends on free games, where fish worth up to 50x each can be collected by several fishermen at once.

96.12% RTP and a low-to-medium swing

96.12% is the most widely published RTP for this game. RTP is long-run design: over a very large number of spins, the game returns an average of 96.12 units per 100 staked. It says nothing about a short run, and it does not mean any given session will end near that figure.

Blueprint Gaming's page for its build lists RTP options of 90%, 92%, 93%, 94% and 96.12%, so a configured version can return up to 6.12 units less per 100 staked over the long run. The version is not visible from the reels; check the game's information screen. Which of these options apply to the Merkur build or its five-line mode is not published.

The volatility listed here is Low-Med, though some ratings place it higher, at medium or above. The rules explain why ratings vary. The base game is modest line wins with no modifiers, which points low. Free games, where several fishermen can collect the same fish repeatedly, can produce far larger results. How volatile it feels depends on how much of the return sits in free games, and that split is not published.

In practical terms, a low-to-medium design suggests smaller wins arrive fairly often while the larger results are concentrated in a feature that has to be triggered first. With no retrigger, each free games round is a fixed length set by the number of boats that started it, so a five-boat trigger with 20 free games simply gives the collect rule twice as many chances as a three-boat trigger with 10.

From one boat to a fleet: how the series grew

The franchise is reported to run to around 25 titles across standard slots, Megaways, Jackpot King progressives and other formats. Only titles with widely published details are listed here.

• Fishin' Frenzy Megaways (April 2019): 15,625 ways, a published 95.02% RTP, a 10,000x max win, 10/15/25/50 free games from 3 to 6 boats, and a 100x bonus buy.
• Fishin' Frenzy Power 4 Slots (2020): four reel sets in play at once.
• Fishin' Frenzy The Big Catch (2021): a wild collection meter where four wilds upgrade fish values. Yogonet reports it stayed Blueprint Gaming's top-grossing title into mid-2025.
• Fishin' Frenzy Reel Time Fortune Play and All Stars (2022): four identical reel sets, and a choice of bonus features drawn from several slots.
• Fishin' Frenzy Even Bigger Catch and The Big Splash (2023): gold wilds that trigger fish selection for multipliers, and a 10/15/20 free spins round with modifiers.
• Fishin' Frenzy The Big Catch 2 (February 2025) and The Big Catch 3 (4 August 2025): Yogonet reports Big Catch 2 was Blueprint Gaming's best-performing 2025 release; Big Catch 3 added ten pre-bonus modifiers, a four-fisherman trail that upgrades the lowest fish and adds spins, and a 5x Power Play mode.
• Fishin' Frenzy Even Bigger Fish 3 Megaways (26 September 2025): a high-volatility release with a 10,000x max win and a collect trail feeding a super catch bonus.
• Fishin' Frenzy Lure 'Em In (2026): a Tackle Box mechanic with coloured upgrades.
• Fishin' Frenzy Reely Big Catch Jackpot King (1 September 2026): a Gold Fisherman that expands the reels and adds spins, a base-game Fish Net, 5x Power Play and a Jackpot King link.

Merkur has its own branch too. Fishin' Frenzy Xtra Catch, on Merkur Gaming's site, keeps a 5-reel, 10-line base game but expands to a 6x3 grid with 729 ways in free games, with a goldfish symbol adding multipliers and up to 20 free games from three or more boats.

Each release usually adds one headline twist while keeping the collect-and-fish core. Almost every sequel changes how fish values upgrade, how fishermen count or how many ways are in play. None removes the rule the original set: fish only award their tags when a fisherman is there to collect them.

Who should play Fishin Frenzy

It suits players who want a slot they can understand in one read: one scatter, one bonus, one wild, one collect rule. The Merkur build's 5-or-10-line option adds a little control over total stake without changing the paytable. It also suits anyone curious about where modern collect-style fishing slots came from.

It is a weaker fit for players who want base-game action, since there is no wild between bonuses and the largest base line is 200x the bet. It is also a poor match for anyone who wants a clear, published top prize.

What we like about Fishin Frenzy, and what we don't

Pros

• The collect rule is simple and documented on the studio pages: every visible fish value is collected when a fisherman lands in free games.
• Extra fishermen collect the same fish again, giving free games real upside.
• 96.12% RTP is the widely published figure for the standard version.
• The Merkur build offers five or ten lines at the same per-line stake range.

Cons

• No wild in the base game, so spins between bonuses are plain.
• No studio-published max win: 5,000x, 10,000x and 50,000x all appear in listings.
• Lower RTP versions exist (down to 90% on Blueprint Gaming's build), and free games cannot be retriggered.

Questions about Fishin Frenzy