The Catch: Carp & Coarse Fishing

I spent a fair amount of time mapping out the five venues in The Catch before I felt ready to say something definitive: this is a narrowly scoped, well-executed fishing sim that rewards patience and punishes anyone expecting Dovetail to patch in new content. The studio confirmed no further updates shortly after launch, so the content you see is the content you get. That framing matters, because the core loop, which runs on an XP-and-Tackle-Points economy, is genuinely engaging within those limits. Every fish you land feeds into a progression system that unlocks stronger lines, longer-casting rods, and new bait types, and the gap between a starter rig and a fully loaded tackle box is wide enough to feel meaningful. The five locations span Oxlease Lake in England, the River Ebro in Spain, Pearl Lake in Malaysia, Rotterdam city centre in the Netherlands, and Loch Mickle in Scotland. Each water type fishes differently: dynamic water flow affects drift and bait presentation from the bank or from a boat on the Ebro and Loch Mickle, and you cannot ignore time of day or weather conditions if you want to attract specific species. Across those venues sits a roster of 35 species and 125 Boss Fish, including 11 named Monster Boss Fish that represent the game's deepest difficulty spike. Finding them is genuinely rare, borderline frustrating for completionists, but landing one creates the kind of session-defining moment that keeps the loop alive across many hours. For players arriving from Fishing Sim World, the overlap in mechanics is real and the criticism is fair. The Catch dropped the career mode that FSW veterans expected, and the character models are noticeably rough. What it gained is a more active reel-and-tension system, where managing line pressure in real time during a fight is more demanding than in earlier Dovetail titles, and 60fps performance on PC. The casting system offers both a manual and an auto mode, so new players are not locked out, and the tutorial coverage is thorough enough that someone with no angling knowledge can be making sensible rod and bait selections within a single session. That beginner accessibility is a genuine strength Dovetail got right here. The Dovetail Fishing League multiplayer events and head-to-head online sessions are still functional, giving the game a competitive outlet that the Steam community reports is still occasionally populated. The elephant in the room is the lack of ongoing support. Steam players flagged it almost immediately after launch, and the developer acknowledged that no new content was planned. If you accept this as a finished, contained product with a solid mechanical foundation, five distinct venues, and a boss-fish checklist that will occupy patient anglers for a long time, the value proposition holds up at a low price point. If you need a living game with expansions and seasonal events, The Catch will disappoint. It is a slow-burn species hunter dressed in an arcade-accessible shell, and it does that specific thing well.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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