One generated day
Every angler in a tournament fishes the same deterministically generated lake — same fish, same places, same weather, same schedule, same tackle — different skill levels.
The premise
Nothing is random between players.
Randomness still exists in the water. It is identical for every entrant, so it cancels out of the result. What is left is decision quality and execution.
The server re-fishes it
Your client sends your inputs, not your score. The server replays those inputs through the same simulation and computes the result itself.
Instruments, never conclusions
Every input to fish behaviour is something you can observe before you act on it. The game shows what an angler could measure — never where the fish are.
A tournament day
Two hours on the water.
Read the day
Temperature, thermocline, oxygen floor, clarity, wind, period — each labelled with where it came from and how well it is known.
Pick your water
Travel and trolling-motor nudges charge the clock in lumps. Everything else runs in real time. Where you spend the day is the first real decision.
Work the lure
Cast, then work it back — jig, pause, speed. A fish that commits follows the bait until it bites, spooks, or the lure reaches the boat.
Best five
Hookset, drag, line tension, landing. Keep five, cull the light ones, and weigh in against everyone who fished the same water.
The water
Real lakes, built from public survey data.
Each lake ships a depth grid, a land heightmap, ground-cover classification, aerial imagery and a biological profile — assembled from public-domain government geographic data.
Missouri
Smithville Lake
7,190 acres just north of Kansas City. Bass and crappie around timber and brush.
Oklahoma
Grand Lake
Grand Lake O' the Cherokees. Deep creek arms, rock and dock structure across a long impoundment.
Texas
Lake Fork
Standing timber and a trophy reputation. Fork is the benchmark water for a big-fish day.
+22
Destinations in the pipeline
Adding a lake is a documented procedure here, not a bespoke build.
Fish behaviour
Every fish has a reason.
Most fishing games roll a die and call it a bite. Livewell's bass run on published biology — metabolism against water temperature, oxygen, light, forage size, and a hunger clock per fish.
Metabolism vs. water temperature
Bass quit in the heat, not just the cold.
They come alive between 75 and 86°F and shut down at both ends. At 50°F a bass is done; at 97°F it is done again.
Eight measured points, interpolated. Drawn here exactly as the simulation stores it.
9Calendar periods
The same temperature means two different things
Warming is Prespawn, cooling is Cold Water. The trend carries the season.
14 daysCatchability 0.35
Two weeks when the lake is a liar
The lake mixes, the fish scatter, and the bite sits at its floor.
1.0 → 0.05Over 5 ft
Dead water has no fish in it
Below the floor, none are placed there at all.
5–8 ftClear · 2–3 ft muddy
Nests are never on the windward bank
60°F and rising, firm bottom, depth set by clarity.
6 / 3 / 1.5 mClear · stained · muddy
How far they'll come, and what they'll eat
As it dims, the lateral line beats the eye.
1.5×Decays over 20 in-game min
Hammer a spot and it dies
A different profile half-recovers the water.
100 sAt 75°F · 600 s below 45°F
A fish that just ate is a bad target
Warm water digests about six times faster than cold.
23.6 ftClear water · hungry fish
How far a bass will actually come
In every direction, including straight up. Depth counts the same as distance.
25–35%Of body length, capped at half
Bass eat a quarter of their own length
Availability comes from the lake's own cohort data.
150 mSummer 13–23 ft day · 6–13 night
A place to hide and a place to feed
It moves to feed only when hunger and light agree.
The worstHabitat suitability model
One bad number caps all the good ones
A perfect brush pile in dead water is still dead water.
1.5 / 2 / 3 mSpook radius by size class
The big ones see you first
A better fish holds you at twice the distance a small one does.
Why go this far?
Because the alternative is a random number with a fish on top. If a bite is luck, a tournament is a raffle — so every input the bass respond to is something an angler could have measured before making the cast. Read the water, and the water answers the same way every time.
Instruments & tackle
The water tells you everything but the answer.
Every input the bass respond to is something you can read before you act on it. What to do about it is yours.
What the water saysSample
Surface temp68.4°FMeasured
Thermocline14 ftSonar
Oxygen floor31 ftDerived
Clarity3.2 ftObserved
WindSW 11 mphSky
PeriodEarly morning
Pressure (yours)ElevatedNorth arm
What you can throw8 lures · all standard issue
DepthSurface → bottom
Speed0 – 4
Size0 – 4
ForageShad · bluegill · craw
ContrastNatural · bright · dark
Vibration0 – 3
AdvantageNone for sale
Six assists can carry the mechanical load — hotspot glow, assisted cast, retrieve cadence, hookset, drag, culling — and not one reveals anything the water didn't already tell you. Boats, outboards, trolling motors and fish finders resolve to identical values at launch; no item is an advantage.
Milestones
Twenty achievements, earned on the water.
Embroidered patches for the things worth remembering — a first cast, a ten-pound fish, a lake explored end to end, a tournament won. The unlock criteria below are proposed, not shipped: the artwork is final, the rules are still being settled.
Getting started
First CastMake your first cast.
First CatchLand your first fish.
Catch records
Five-Pound ClubLand a fish weighing at least 5 lb.
Double DigitsLand a fish weighing at least 10 lb.
Record BreakerImprove your recorded personal-best weight for a species.
Hundred ClubLand 100 fish in total.
Conditions
Dawn PatrolLand a fish during the first hour after sunrise.
Night BiteLand a fish between sunset and sunrise.
Rain or ShineLand a fish while it is raining.
Exploration
New WatersVisit a lake for the first time; award separately for each lake.
Lake ExplorerExplore every eligible authored discovery zone at one lake; award separately per lake.
Cove ScoutDiscover five distinct named coves.
Across the MapVisit five different lakes.
Conservation
Catch and ReleaseRelease your first landed fish.
Tackle
Well EquippedEquip your first compatible rod, reel, line, and lure setup.
Lure VersatilityCatch fish using five different lure categories.
Tournaments
Limit ReachedFill all five slots in a five-fish tournament livewell with eligible fish.
Tournament DebutComplete your first tournament.
Podium FinishFinish in the top three of a tournament.
First VictoryWin your first tournament.
On the water
Pre-alpha menu demo.
Not screenshots — the actual menus, running live in your browser. Click to use them.
