Fishing Tips and Tricks

This post is on tips and tricks to improve your odds at winning.

Select a topic, below.

Preparation
Starting The Event
How To Play
Playing The Lag (Vintage only)
Tap Vs. Hold And Release Method (Vintage only)
Immediate Vs. Delayed Catching (Vintage only)
Fish Spawn Locations (Vintage only)
First Fish (Vintage only)
Second and Third Fish (Vintage only)
3 O’clock and 4 O’Clock Glitch (Vintage only)
17th Fish (Vintage only)
Tiebreaking (Vintage only)
Changing Cursor Position (Vintage only)
Sniping (Vintage only)
Exiting Fishing
Mulligan (Depreciated)
2 Hour Event Recording (Vintage only)
Ranking
Other Tips
Closing Thoughts

Preparation

I know these are obvious things, but it doesn’t hurt to remind you: make sure you eat, drink, and use the bathroom before fishing starts. Minimize interruptions as much as possible. About 10-15 minutes before the event starts, close/force close any other apps you’re using and restart your phone.

Make sure you maximize your boost before the event begins. You won’t want to run booster ads when you could be fishing! Some people don’t run 2 AB ads while they fish.

Most importantly, make sure you have an excellent connection. Lag is one of the biggest factors that decide who wins ties during fishing matches. There will be matches that you lose because of lag. It happens even to top-tier fishers. Do as much as possible to reduce lag so that your catches will register correctly.

Minigames are free to play, though will require an ad between plays.

Starting The Event

Fishing officially starts when you see the fishing icon follow you. It looks like this:

If you tap this icon, this takes you into the fishing event. Tap the button at the bottom to play. The system will randomly assign you a fisher. It will do its best to match you with someone who has a similar number of wins as you do, though sometimes it matches you against a top fisher, even if you only have a few wins.

How To Play

The original version of fishing requires you to catch fish by pressing the “fish” button as a circle rotates around the screen onto fish. You catch fish, one at a time, until time runs out. Most players can score up to 16 points, however, on some occasions, a 17th fish appears. More on this later.

Fishing 2.0 is whack-a-mole reskinned. Tap the fish to catch them. Hurry because they don’t stay on the screen long!

Regular fish and golden fish give 7 to 5 and 21 to 15 points, respectively, and depending on how quickly you tap them. Trash subtracts 10 points.

Playing The Lag (Vintage only)

In Fishing 1.0, within your first few matches that there is a delay between tapping the “catch” button and when the game registers your input. This takes some getting used to.

Tap Vs. Hold And Release Method (Vintage only)

While many players will catch fish by pressing the “catch” button, others prefer to hold the “catch” button and release it when their icon is over the fish. While not universally true, such players believe that holding and releasing gives them greater accuracy than tapping. However, with fishing 2.0, tapping is the only method available.

Immediate Vs. Delayed Catching (Vintage only)

IIn Fishing 1.0, in the beginning stages of the match, it is important to catch fish as soon as you can. Your icon may not have enough time to go around a second time to catch the fish. As the match progresses, the icon would move around faster, which gives you more time to catch the fish. Aside from avoiding a miss in the early stages and catching the final fish first (more on tiebreaking later), there is no advantage to catching a fish early.

Fish Spawn Locations (Vintage only)

In Fishing 1.0, Fish spawn between 1/4 and 1/3 of a circle from each other. The direction could either be clockwise or counter-clockwise. You know after the second fish where to anticipate each fish during the match based on its direction. The below videos demonstrate how this works:

Clockwise:

Counter-clockwise:

First Fish (Vintage only)

In Fishing 1.0, on some matches, the first fish can come up almost immediately next to your icon. If you have quick reflexes, you can catch this fish and get one fish ahead of your opponent! However, it is possible sometimes to catch it the second time around, if you try for it before it disappears. Below shows how this works:

Catching first time around:

Barely catching second time around:

Second and Third Fish (Vintage only)

In Fishing 1.0, players should ensure that they catch their second and third first on the first cycle. You may not get an opportunity to catch these on the second cycle. Below is a video demonstrating this:

An example of an opponent missing the second fish on their first cycle:

3 O’clock and 4 O’Clock Glitch (depreciated)

In Fishing 1.0, there used to be a 3 O’clock and 4 O’clock glitch where not catching the fish really early would make you miss the fish. This was “fixed” then the glitch happened if you didn’t catch it late. This has finally been fixed. However, I’ve left the video, below, to show how this happened:

An example of the 3 o’clock glitch:

17th Fish (Vintage only)

In Fishing 1.0, on some occasions, it is possible to catch a 17th fish during your match! Below shows how this works:

An example of catching the 17th fish:

Tiebreaking (Vintage only)

I Fishing 1.0, Ties are broken based on who received the score first. For example:

1. The first is at 15 and the other is at 14. The first person misses their 16th fish and the 2nd person catches it. Both are at 15. Even though the 2nd person caught the 16th fish first, the first person got to 15 points first. Therefore…the first person wins the match
2. Both are tied at 16. The first person was ahead catching the 16th fish, however, the second person sniped the 17th fish slightly before the first person could catch it. Since the second person got to 17 first, they win the tie. Therefore, the second person wins the match.
3. Both are tied at 15. Both people seemingly catch the 16th fish at the same time. Connection and input determines who got to there first. If it looks identical, in my experience, my oppponent wins the match.

This is the most controversial and hotly debated topic on fishing.

Changing Cursor Position (Vintage only)

In Fishing 1.0, you can manipulate your cursor positioning vs. your opponent by doing the following:

1. After the fifth fish, catch a fish within the first icon rotation. It is important to do this on the first cycle and not the second so that you don’t run out of time to catch the next fish.
2. Immediately attempt to catch a fish. You’ll get delayed by 1 second. This changes your cursor position.
3. On the next fish, catch it on the second rotation, NOT the first rotation. If you try to catch on the first one, you’ll more than likely miss the fish.

You can do this multiple times during a match. However, there is a higher chance at missing a fish if you attempt to change your cursor position as opposed to playing normally. Missing a fish would almost assuredly cost you the game against top players.

Changing your cursor position is a double-edged sword. While it could potentially put you ahead of your opponent to break the tie in your favor, it could also put you further behind due to earlier fish spawn, costing you the game. If you want to attempt this, I highly recommend using this strategy on opponents who consistently beat you, or you can practice if you are several fish ahead of your opponent.

Below is a video explaining how to change position. This person did it on their fourth fish, but also recommends waiting for the fifth to attempt. Thanks to /u/dylcoll for providing the footage!

Sniping (Vintage only)

In Fishing 1.0, given that spawn locations are predictable after viewing the second fish, it is also possible to snipe the 16th and 17th fish before the fish animation appears. However, you can also miss the fish if attempting too early. The first video shows how to snipe. The second video is me missing my 16th fish snipe, catching it, and sniping the 17th fish before it appears.

An example of a 16th and 17th fish snipe:

An example of sniping too early and pre-animation snipe:

Exiting Fishing

You can skip part of the “results” animation if you keep tapping the bottom of your screen where the “OK” button exists. This will save you a few seconds each match, allowing you to do a few extra matches.

Mulligan (Depreciated)

I’ve left this section intact for historical purposes. Feel free to skip it.

Back when each match cost 2 AB, the losing person had an option to run an ad to try for 1, 2, or 3 AB. Below is an example of me running the Mulligan. Although the event is different, the concept is the same.

2 Hour Event Recording (Vintage only)

I recorded myself playing fishing 1.0 during the May 25th, 2024 fishing event, which lasted 2 hours. I stopped playing early because I felt like I could’t advance to 2nd place and had 3rd secure. I do not plan on releasing a Fishing 2.0 video as the game is self-explanatory.

Ranking

Your rank in fishing depends on the number of matches you win. If there is a win tie between fishers, the fisher who got their first will rank higher.

If you want to win the top prize, you’ll need to play the entire time. However, sometimes you can’t do that. If you are a proficient fishing, consider going for bottom 1500 for a small payout. This will help you minimize time cost and earn you a decent payout while you practice your skills to take one of the top 100 spots.

Finally, if you want to minimize the number of matches you do, aim for the bottom of your target tier. However, the number of wins you will need depends on the number of participants. The more people there are, the more times you will need to win. However, more participants also mean a larger prize pool. Obviously, if a fishing event exceeds one or two hours, more wins will be required to keep your rank.

Other Tips

1. The biggest thing you can do is not panic, and just play your best game. If you concentrate on your play and stop worrying about the other player, you will fare better.
2. The biggest issue isn’t lag, it is lag spikes. If you had consistently bad lag, you can compensate for that. What you can’t compensate for is when it is all over the place. So if you have a lot of lag spikes, this might not be the game for you.
3. Because of lag, it is better to be a little conservative over peeling out. However. If you find that you are consistently losing to someone, then it is best to be a little more courageous in your last catch. So against someone you often win against, be conservative. If you are losing a lot to someone, be more aggressive.
4. You can also break the cycle of facing the same player over and over again by waiting about 10 seconds before starting another match. This is useful if you keep losing to the same player over and over again. It’s a good time to check the leaderboard!
5. If you find that you are losing a lot, consider taking a break and target a lower rank. Or…perhaps this just isn’t the minigame for you.
6. Ask yourself what your goal is. Look at how long the event is through Reddit, then ask what you aim for. If you want T100, most times you’re going to need to play for most of the window. T50 or above, unless you’re RainbowUltra, Arn, me, etc. You’re playing the full event. If you can’t manage to play that long, consider shooting for top T500 and relax. It’s a minigame, it’s supposed to be fun!

Closing Thoughts

I hope you found this guide helpful.

If you have any questions, feel free to DM me on Reddit or Discord. If you don’t know where the Atlas Earth Reddit and Discord servers are, select Resources.

For those who haven’t yet downloaded Atlas Earth or want to learn more about it, check out my Beginner’s Guide.

Updates:

11/18/2025 – Updated the guide to show sections no longer relevant to Fishing 2.0 as “Vintage” and added a “how to play” section.

07/16/2025 – Removed AB saving paragraph, updated bottom ranking to 1500, and removed state payout section.

05/12/2025 – Replaced 2 AB cost with free matches. Also depreciated the Mulligan section.

10/17/2024 – Updated 3 O’clock and 4 O’clock glitch section to state that this has been fixed.

06/03/2024 – Updated personal recording of fishing event. Sound quality is better.

05/20/2024 – Added a section for my 2 hour fishing event recording.

05/17/2024 – Added table of contents, “four o’clock” to the “three o’clock” glitch section, and suggested that you should catch at the end of the spawn.

03/15/2024 – Added captions to comply with Google Adsense’s policies.

03/08/2024 – Added videos for quickly exiting/rematching and running the Mulligan.

02/21/2024 – Added tips 6-9 in “Other Tips”, which was inspired by this post by u/princesky_. Also added a sniping video that shows a failed snipe and pre-fish animation snipe.

02/09/2024 – Added additional information about tiebreaking. My commentary was unclear. Thanks to /u/subillusion for correcting me! Also, made a slight correction to the 3’oclock glitch (catch early only, not early or late) and added a bunch of videos recorded during the BMN Discord server bingo fishing event on January 25th, 2024.

01/29/2024 – Added a section for the 3 O’clock glitch.

01/09/2024 – Added sections for the second and third fish and sniping.

12/21/2023 – Updated section Spawn Locations to state that fish spawn between 1/4 and 1/3 of the way around.

12/20/2023 – Added an accompanying video

12/18/2023 – Added a section regarding changing your cursor position vs. your opponent.

11/10/2023 – Arn964 revealed in this post information that is now section “spawn locations”.

10/17/2023 – Fixed a few grammatical errors discovered by the Atlas Earth Calculator founder himself: KC_FAN on Discord.