Fish Guide — every fish, depth and value

By Jay ·

Depth is money. Every fish in the game lives in a fixed depth band, and the best fish in each band is worth several times the best fish in the band above. Learn the bands and you have learned the whole economy.

The full table

Fish Depth band Value How it moves
Sardine 0–30 m $1 Slow, plentiful, easy to hit — and easy to hit by accident
Bass 0–30 m $3 A little quicker than a sardine, same band
Mackerel 30–70 m $8 Fast, straight lines, often in loose groups
Pufferfish 30–70 m $15 Slow and big — easy to hook, wobbly and hard to shoot
Swordfish 70–120 m $40 The fastest fish in the game and the rarest

Values are per fish, before any combo multiplier. If you shoot a chain of eight fish without missing, the last one pays 2.75× its listed value — see the combo guide for the math.

Shallow water: 0–30 m

This is where every run starts and where your first upgrade gets funded. Sardines and bass are everywhere, they move slowly, and they are the reason a new player's dive ends early: brush against one on the way down and the reel starts immediately.

Your job here is to survive the shallows without touching anything. Sardines at 60 pixels per second are the slowest thing in the shallows; bass are half again as fast. Watch the gap between two fish, slide into it, and keep sliding — the hook sinks at about 20 metres per second, so you are through the whole band in a second and a half.

On the way back up, hit everything. Eight shallow fish is still eight fish, and a full chain with a clean combo pays $20–40 — enough to buy the 50 m line in two or three runs.

Mid water: 30–70 m

Two very different fish share this band, and they teach opposite lessons.

Mackerel ($8) are fast and travel in straight lines. Going down, they are the most dangerous thing you will meet; coming up, they are the best value-per-hook you can get until you reach the deep. Pufferfish ($15) are the biggest fish in the game, which makes them almost impossible to miss on the way up — and their size and slow speed make them a wall on the way down.

The trick is that pufferfish are hard in the air, not in the water. They drift sideways more than any other fish once launched, so a chain of pufferfish is a chain of moving targets. Hook them anyway. A pufferfish you miss costs you nothing you did not already have; a pufferfish you hit is worth five bass.

Deep water: 70–120 m

Only one fish lives here, and it is worth the trip. A swordfish pays $40 — as much as forty sardines — and moves at 200 pixels per second — more than twice as fast as a bass and over three times as fast as a sardine. On the way down they cross your path in a blink; on the way up you have to be ready for them, because they will not wait.

You need the 120 m line to reach the bottom of this band, and the 80 m line to even see its top. Which is the whole argument for buying line upgrades before anything else — worked through in the upgrade order guide.

Why the values jump

The numbers are not linear on purpose. Going from 30 m to 70 m takes the best fish you can catch from $3 to $15 — five times; going from 70 m to 120 m nearly triples it again, to $40. The game rewards skilful dodging more than lucky hooking: a player who can slip past twenty shallow fish to reach a single swordfish earns more than one who hooks eight sardines every run.

Two practical consequences:

  1. Dodge first, hook second. The dive down decides your ceiling; the reel up only fills it.
  2. Never turn back early on purpose. There is no penalty for reaching the end of your line, and the deepest fish you can reach is always the one worth reaching.

Quick reference