Fishin Bonanza

Fishin Bonanza Slot Review

Sunlight cuts through blue water in shafts, seaweed sways along the seabed, and a wooden sign hangs above the reels with gold fish ornaments at either side. Fishin Bonanza from Ash Gaming doesn’t just borrow the ocean, it moves the whole game down there, and it’s a look the cartoonish artwork carries with real confidence.

What’s interesting here is the economy of the design. This is a slot built around one bonus round and nothing else – no side games, no feature buys, no layered modifiers. It runs on a 5×4 grid with an RTP of 96.51%, and all of its upside is funnelled into the Free Games, where the wild fisherman finally shows up to work. It sits in the same Ash Gaming waters as Gold Hit Shrine Of Anubis and Age Of The Gods Helios, alongside Gold Trio Sinbad’s Riches.

Symbols and Pays

Five reels and four rows sit inside a thick gold border twisted like rope, with a dark rock formation holding up the right-hand side of the frame. Coral clumps in pink and purple run along the bottom edges. It’s a lush scene for a simple game. The grid does the work, and the sea life does the decorating.

The paying symbols are the expected mix of ocean dwellers and card royals, and the paytable is a clean four-tier ladder with one quirk at the top:

• Turtle: 2.50 for two, 25.00 for three, 100.00 for four, 1,000.00 for five
• Octopus: 15.00 for three, 75.00 for four, 500.00 for five
• Stingray and Crab: 10.00 for three, 50.00 for four, 250.00 for five
• Any Fish: 5.00 for three, 25.00 for four, 100.00 for five
• A, K, Q, J, 10: 2.50 for three, 12.50 for four, 50.00 for five

The quirk is that two-of-a-kind row at the top. The turtle is the only symbol on the reels that pays for a pair, which quietly makes it the most valuable regular symbol by some distance – it starts paying when everything else still needs a third reel to land.

The rest of the ladder is conventional. Octopus sits alone in the second tier, stingray and crab share the third, and the royals pay identical flat rates across the board, so there’s no chasing a particular letter. Any fish symbol counts towards the same payouts regardless of which one it is, which softens the gaps between the sea life and the card symbols underneath them.

Because the fish tier accepts any fish, that tier shows up more often than a five-symbol paytable suggests. It’s the workhorse of the regular game – modest, frequent, and never the reason anybody spins.

Free Games

The golden fish is the scatter, and it’s the whole engine of this game. It pays nothing on its own – its only job is the trigger. Land three or more and the Free Games begin, with the count scaling by how many you catch:

• 3 golden fish: 10 Free Games
• 4 golden fish: 15 Free Games
• 5 golden fish: 20 Free Games

Inside the Free Games, the fisherman wild substitutes for every symbol except the scatter – and that’s the extent of his contract. He doesn’t appear in the base game at all, so every wild that lands during the round is doing bonus-only work, standing in for whatever sea creature or royal completes the best available combination.

A free game runs like a base game spin with one upgrade. The same symbols land, the same paytable applies, and the fisherman fills any gap he fits. Because he can stand in for a turtle, the game’s top combination becomes easier to complete during the round than outside it – that substitution is the whole of the feature’s edge.

That’s the entire feature set. No multipliers stacked on top, no second-tier round hiding behind the first, no collect mechanic building towards something bigger. The Free Games are the show, the wild is the boost, and the golden fish is the only thing worth watching for while you wait.

The size of the round itself, ten to twenty games, is set entirely by that scatter count at the moment of the trigger. The difference between three and five golden fish is the difference between a brief taster and a proper session’s worth of boosted spins.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 6.2/10

Playing Fishin Bonanza is a lot of quiet spinning in very pretty water, waiting for a golden fish to end the wait. That patience is the whole reason it works: one simple idea, drawn well, paying out in one place.

The scatter ladder is the best thing here. Twenty games for five golden fish is a proper round rather than a token, and the fisherman wild working across all of it makes the feature feel like the game’s real mode rather than a bolt-on.

The flip side is that the base game gives you nothing to do but look at the coral – no wild, no modifier, only the scatter to aim at. This one suits anglers of the old school: patient reels, one big round, sunlit water. Anyone who wants something happening on every spin will find the pond too small, but for those happy to sit and wait, the fish are worth the trip.

Fishin Bonanza FAQs

• What is the RTP of Fishin Bonanza?

  Fishin Bonanza runs at an RTP of 96.51%.
• When is Fishin Bonanza released?

  Fishin Bonanza’s release date is 30 November 2021.
• Who makes Fishin Bonanza?

  Fishin Bonanza is made by Ash Gaming.
• How do you trigger the Free Games in Fishin Bonanza?

  Landing three or more golden fish scatter symbols triggers the Free Games. The more scatters you land, the bigger the round.
• How many free games do you get for each scatter count?

  Three golden fish award 10 Free Games, four award 15 Free Games, and five award 20 Free Games.
• What does the wild symbol do in Fishin Bonanza?

  The fisherman wild substitutes for all symbols except the scatter, helping complete winning combinations. He only appears during the Free Games.
• Does the wild appear in the base game of Fishin Bonanza?

  No. The fisherman wild appears in the Free Games only – during base game play, the scatter is the only special symbol on the reels.
• Which is the highest-paying symbol in Fishin Bonanza?

  The turtle. It’s the only symbol that pays for two of a kind, and five turtles is the game’s top regular payout. The octopus is next best.