The Story Behind Big Catch Bass Fishing Christmas

A Festive Twist on the Reels

Blueprint Gaming built this one around a bass-fishing lodge dressed for the silly season: classic playing-card symbols sit alongside chunky bass, tackle and a wrap of tinsel and fairy lights across the reel frame. It's a decorative wrapper rather than a nod to the actual calendar — the reels stay in their Christmas coat year-round, whether you're spinning through an Aussie summer or not.

It's a calmer visual pitch than the Egyptian tombs or barbarian battlefields elsewhere in this guide's lineup, and I reckon that's the point — it gives the fishing and card motifs room to do the work instead of piling on extra symbols.

93% RTP and Medium Volatility

Big Catch Bass Fishing Christmas runs a 93% RTP with medium volatility. That's the lowest RTP among the four Blueprint Gaming titles in this guide, and it sits below the roughly 95.8% median across every pokie covered here. Worth knowing before you commit a session budget to it rather than one of its stablemates.

Medium volatility means a spread of smaller, steadier returns rather than long droughts followed by a rare big swing — closer in feel to a session you can pace out than one that asks you to sit through a lot of quiet reels first.

Bonus Round and Bonus Buy

The pokie carries a bonus round plus a Bonus Buy option to jump into it directly. Buying in costs noticeably more than a standard spin, so it's worth treating as its own separate line in a session budget rather than an extra few spins tacked on. If any wagering from a bonus or promotion is still active on your account, check that offer's terms before you buy — a Bonus Buy spend may not count the same way toward wagering as regular play. If you like the idea of a bonus round with its own buy shortcut but want a touch more RTP, the Bonanza pokie runs a similar medium-volatility pace with its own buy-in.

How It Plays: A Fixed Reel, Not a Megaways Grid

This is the one Blueprint title here that skips the Megaways engine. Where Almighty Bear Megaways, Buffalo Rising Megaways and Bar-X Safecracker Megaways all run a reel modifier that shifts reel height and the ways-to-win between spins, Big Catch Bass Fishing Christmas keeps a fixed reel grid throughout. The playing-card and fish symbols pay out through straightforward matching combinations, and landing enough of the right symbols opens the bonus round — no shifting ways-to-win to track as you go.

That fixed structure makes it a more predictable read than its Megaways cousins from the same studio, which suits players who'd rather watch a stable grid than a reel that reshapes itself every spin.

Comparison with Almighty Bear Megaways

Both titles share Blueprint Gaming, a bonus round, a Bonus Buy option and playing-card symbols in the mix, but that's where the overlap ends. Almighty Bear Megaways runs the studio's dynamic Megaways reel alongside an animal theme and sits at 95% RTP with medium volatility — two points above Big Catch's 93%. If the fixed-reel Christmas fishing scene doesn't quite land for you, that's the closer alternative to weigh it against, same studio, same medium pace, slightly higher return.