Tide Haul.

How to play Tide Haul

1. Start in Classic and press CAST near the top of the timing dial. The first cast is a short guided lesson; after that, your timing decides how deep the line goes.
2. Press and hold on the water, then drag sideways to move the hook. Moving the mouse without holding does not steer it. On a keyboard, use Left and Right or A and D.
3. Watch the fish while the line sinks, then meet them as it rises. Schools travel together, quick fish dart away from a rising hook, and curious fish swim across to meet it.
4. Steer around glassbell jellies and keep clear of a gloomjaw that has turned toward you. A full hook heads straight home.
5. Collect the haul at the pier. Spend coins on line depth, catch limit or away income, and check the time and weather shown under your coins.
6. In Challenge, a rare fish fights. Hold to reel while it rests and let go when it runs, keeping the marker in the green band until the meter fills.

Make your move

About Tide Haul

Tide Haul is a free browser fishing game played one cast at a time. You fish from a small rowboat over a narrow reef channel. Press the cast button when the moving needle reaches the top of its dial, and the weighted line flies out and drops into the water with a splash. The sinker falls quickly, settles to a steady sink rate, and then the reel takes over and winds the hook back toward the boat. In Classic mode fish bite only on the way up, so the descent is your chance to read the water below. As the line rises, hold and drag to swing the hook across the channel. It follows your finger with a little lag and drifts with the current, and every fish you hook hangs from it, struggling, until you reach the surface.

The water changes while you play. A full day passes in about twenty minutes of fishing, and nights move twice as fast as days. Dawn and dusk are feeding time, when rare and legendary fish bite more often. After dark the trench and lantern species rise several metres, and their glowing spots light the deep. Weather arrives in spells: cloud and rain make fish bolder, fog hides your hook from them, and a storm brings heavier swell, stronger currents, big fish and more stingers. The tide floods and ebbs through the day and sets the direction of the current, which you can read in the bowing line, the leaning kelp and the drifting specks in the water.

Coins from each haul buy a deeper line, more room on the hook or away income. The first five prices on each track are fifty, seventy-five, one hundred ten, one hundred sixty-five and two hundred fifty coins, and later steps rise with the value of deeper fish. Below five metres, glassbell jellies drift with the current; touching one stings the hook and costs your newest fish. Below sixteen metres a gloomjaw watches any hook that carries fish. It stops, turns toward you and lunges for the most valuable one, so steer away when it turns. Thirty original species fill the aquarium, each with its own body shape, fins and colours, and your heaviest catch of each is recorded. Challenge adds early hook-ups and rare-fish fights, and Daily gives everyone the same water, weather and shoal for the date.

A little help for your next high score

• Move early. The hook swings after your finger, so aim where a fish will be when the line reaches its depth.
• Fish at dawn and dusk when you want rare species, and at night when you are chasing lantern-deep fish on a shorter line.
• Jellies drift with the current. Pass them on the upstream side, and give a gloomjaw room the moment it stops and faces you.
• In a fight, watch for the head shake that comes before a run and ease off early. A slipping reel is losing line, not breaking it; holding through a run is what snaps it.
• Depth opens new species, but capacity decides how much you bring home. Improve both when the line keeps filling before you reach the fish you want.

Good questions