Features
Swam Off Strong is fly fishing the way it really goes: read the water, find the fish, make the cast, and earn every one. Here's what's waiting for you.
The flats
Push the skiff across sand, turtle grass, mud and reef with the pole, or open up the outboard to cross the channel and run the blue water. A pole is quiet; a motor is not, and the fish know the difference.
Every flat has its own character: mangrove keys, a mud flat, a reef edge, a deep cut between the islands. Tide, depth and wind change through the day, and so does where the fish are.
Reading fish
Bonefish tail and push mud in skinny water. Permit shadow stingrays, picking off what the ray kicks up. Tarpon roll in the channels and lie up like logs along the mangroves. Cudas hang motionless, then hunt. Albies tear across open water.
Get too close, cast too much, or line them, and they spook. Fish that flee move off and settle somewhere new, so watch where they go.
Cast, strip, set
Dial in your distance, aim, false cast to load the rod and let it go. Wind pushes the fly, and mangroves and islands block your line. Lead the fish and they find it; land it on their heads and they're gone.
Then make the fly come alive. Each fish likes its own strip and pause, and its own food: shrimp, crabs, worms or baitfish. Follows, refusals, and then the eat. Strip-set hard, and set again for a tarpon.
The fight
Hooked fish run, turn and run again. Set the drag right for the species: too light and their runs get away from you, too tight and the leader pops. Bow to a jumping tarpon or lose it at the top of the leap.
Keep your line out of the mangroves and away from the islands, or it breaks off. Land it, see how it measures up, and let it go.
Field Notes
Every fish teaches you something. Watch them feed, spook, follow and eat, and your Field Notes fill with hand-written observations and sketches, one page at a time, for each species.
Your five biggest of every species are logged with the day, the fly and the spot they came from.
Chasing the slam
Land a bonefish, a permit and a tarpon in one day for the Grand Slam, or all five species for the Super Grand Slam. As you close in, the game closes in on you: your heart starts pounding, the screen starts to shake, your casts go shaky, and every fish gets pickier.
Pull it off and you earn new gear and upgrades. Achievements and slams are kept in your log.
A living Keys
Terns and gulls dive on bait over albie blitzes. Pelicans glide low and sit on the water, and flush everything around them if you land a fly on one. Stingrays plow the bottom, nurse sharks cruise, and a cuda will take a bonefish if it gets the chance.
Run the boat over deep water and dolphins come to ride your bow and wake, then break off and leap when you stop.
Day into night
The light changes from dawn to dusk, and the fish change with it. At sunset the birds head for the roost and the wind lies down.
No fishing after dark. Run back to the dock under the moon with bioluminescence glowing in your wake, tie some new flies, and rest up for another day at the Key.
Five species
The gray ghost. Spooky, fast, and the reason you learned to cast.
Crab snobs. Do everything right and still not catch one.
The silver king. Big, jumpy, and very hard to keep buttoned.
Aka cuda. Lunch that brought its own skewer.
Aka albies, funny fish. Blitzing out deep under the birds.
And more
Sun, cloud, wind and rain change the light, the water and how hard the fly is to place. The tide floods and drains the flats.
Stock and tie your flies and pick the right pattern for the fish in front of you. New gear and upgrades come as you get better.
Watch for the gold glow: a trophy, in the top tenth for its size. Record class fish are rarer still.
From your first release to a 100 lb silver king, a dolphin escort, and getting home by lamplight.
Check the chart to plan your day, and take a look around the flats to find fish before they find you.
Runs in your browser on phone, tablet or computer. Add it to your home screen to play like an app, even offline.
Sign in with just your email and pick up where you left off on any device.
Drag to pole and tap to cast on a phone; play with the keyboard on a computer.