Fishing Day

Today, we are going to be looking at Fishing Day, a short and quick dexterity game from Blue Orange that I played with Jack(9), Toby(6), and Katie(38) recently.

Now, the premise of the game is simple. You turn over a card, and the card gives you some sort of rule as to which of the various pieces in the pond you have to catch. Then, using your hoop fishing lines, you have to pull the pieces off the edge of the box, with the person gaining the most pieces winning that card.

Now, this sounded like a relatively simple, straightforward, light-hearted dexterity reaction game. In the end, though, this turned out to be one of the most argument-fuelled games we’ve probably ever had. Considering the amount of games I play with my kids—who are usually quite happy to lose, and lose regularly, they do—this was surprising.

Firstly, there are no sticks. You have to hold on to the loops that you use to drag the fish or items off vertically, which essentially means that, when you first start playing, everyone ends up fighting hands over the middle. This doesn’t really work. Once you realise that this isn’t going to work, you end up having to sort of fling your loop into the middle, much like throwing a rubber ring to someone who’s drowning (as you’ve seen in cartoons). But this is really difficult to get onto the pieces, and the loops just end up getting tangled. You end up fighting in the middle, pulling and yanking and shoving as you try to pull your lines apart.

The other issue is that, because everyone’s hands are all in the middle, you naturally end up bumping into and nudging each other. This is where the heated arguments, accusations of cheating, and squabbling start to kick in. I’ve got to say, even as an adult, because there are no clear rules on what can and can’t be done, there were times when I felt like Katie was being particularly aggressive—and it was just all a bit much.

If you really like dexterity games, I guess this could be fun. But as it stands, the way it works doesn’t really do it for me. I don’t think it even works as a particularly good dexterity game, and I wasn’t overly keen. I’d love to hear from anyone who’s played this and has a positive spin on it—feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. But as it stands, this is definitely not a strong recommendation from me.