Epic Fish: Winter Catch

Epic Fish: Winter Catch Overview

Epic Fish: Winter Catch is a festive ice-fishing slot from Quickspin, released on 25 November 2025. It is a winter edition of the Epic Fish series, with the familiar fisherman now in a Santa hat and the reels set on a frozen lake. The game plays on 5 reels and 3 rows with 10 paylines, and it combines a fish-collection mechanic with three different free-spins bonuses.

The theoretical payout is 96.07%, rising to 96.53% with the Extra Bet active. Some casinos run a lower-RTP version, so check the info screen where you play. The volatility is high and the maximum win is listed at 5,190x the bet.

Theme and Graphics

The top of the screen shows a snowy shoreline with red cottages, pine trees and a fishing line stretched across the ice. Below it, the reels sit underwater in pale blue light, with bubbles rising between the symbols. The Epic Fish: Winter Catch logo sits on a block of ice at the top.

The symbols are fishing gear and sea life: a trout, a pink-finned salmon, a message in a bottle, a tackle box and a lure, plus snow-capped card ranks from 10 to A. The fisherman in his Santa hat is the WILD, and he is the character who drives every feature.

How the Paylines Work

Epic Fish: Winter Catch uses ten fixed paylines. Line wins pay from the leftmost reel to the right, only the highest win per line is paid, and the paytable always shows the prizes in cash for your current bet. With just ten lines the base game is fairly quiet, which is typical for a high-volatility title: regular wins are modest, and most of the value is saved for the moments when wilds and fish land together.

Wilds and Fish Symbols

The wild appears on all reels and substitutes for every symbol except the Bonus symbol. The fish symbols are regular paying symbols, but each one also carries a cash value of 1x, 3x, 5x, 8x, 10x, 15x or 25x the bet. Those values only matter when the Fish Collection feature is active.

The fish come in several varieties – a speckled trout, a pink-finned salmon and other catches – and their value is printed directly on the symbol, so you can read exactly what is waiting on the reels before the fisherman arrives. In the base game they pay like any other symbol on the lines, and only a wild turns them into instant cash prizes.

Fish Collection

During Fish Collection, every wild on the screen acts as a fisherman and catches all the fish symbols that land on the same spin. The values of the caught fish are added to the win for that spin. More wilds mean more catches, because each wild collects every fish on the screen. In one of our captures the fisherman landed among a 40x-valued trout and two smaller fish and collected a €50.00 spin win on a €5 bet.

The feature is easy to read: when a wild appears, a fishing line flies out to each fish on the screen, and the values are added up one by one. The more fish are visible when the fisherman lands, the bigger the catch.

Three Free-Spins Bonuses

Three or more Bonus symbols start the free spins, and the number of symbols decides which bonus you get. In every case 12 free spins are awarded with Fish Collection active. The round cannot be retriggered, but collecting wilds adds extra spins:

• Winter Spins (3 Bonus symbols) – 1 extra free spin for every 4 wilds collected.
• Tight Lines (4 Bonus symbols) – 2 extra free spins for every 4 wilds, and every wild becomes a Sticky Wild for one extra spin.
• Golden Pollock (5 Bonus symbols) – 3 extra free spins for every 4 wilds, Sticky Wilds, and the Golden Fish.

The wild counter runs above the reels, with +3 markers showing when the next batch of extra spins is due.

The Golden Fish

The Golden Fish lands only in the Golden Pollock bonus, on any reel and any spin. It starts at 50x and grows every time it lands, through 75x, 100x, 150x, 200x and up to 5,000x. Like the other fish, it can be caught by a wild in the same spin, which makes it the main route to the game’s biggest wins.

Extra Bet and Buy Feature

The Extra Bet costs 2x your bet and makes Bonus symbols more likely, raising the chance of triggering free spins by 189%. The Buy Feature has three levels:

• 40x the bet – at least 3 Bonus symbols (RTP 96.57%)
• 95x the bet – at least 4 Bonus symbols (RTP 96.57%)
• 250x the bet – 5 Bonus symbols, Golden Pollock only (RTP 96.45%)

Both work in the base game only, cannot be combined, and may not be available in every market.

RTP and Volatility

The standard version returns 96.07%, and the Extra Bet lifts that to 96.53%. The two cheaper Buy Feature levels pay back 96.57%, while the 250x Golden Pollock buy returns 96.45%. The volatility is high: most spins pay little, and the big results come from free spins in which several wilds and high-value fish land together – or from a well-grown Golden Fish.

What We Saw on the Reels

We played the demo at €5 and €10 total bets. In the base game, two fishermen in Santa hats landed on the first two reels with a 15.00 fish on the bottom row, and the spin paid €31.00 on a €10 bet. In the free spins, a single wild in the middle of the grid caught three fish worth 40.00, 5.00 and 5.00 for a €50.00 spin, with €70 collected in total and 10 free spins still to go.

Who Should Play It

Epic Fish: Winter Catch suits players who like fishing slots with a clear goal: land wilds and fish together. The three bonus tiers give every trigger a different flavour, and the Golden Fish adds a real jackpot-style chase. It is high volatility, so the free demo is a good way to learn the rhythm first.

Where to Play Epic Fish: Winter Catch

You can try this game on SunClub Online Casino. There’s a unique casino bonus offer of 400% up to £1500 for a limited time.

Epic Fish: Winter Catch was listed in all six of our partner casino libraries when we checked on 5 October 2026.