Although having changed more in recent years, I’ve always been of the mind that Canada is a place where early rural America survived in some shape or form. When mentioned, images of fur trading, winter sports, hunting and agriculture, and maple syrup come to mind. Having never visited myself, I’ve always generalized Canada as a “nice” nation, with no real impact on the world. So you can imagine my surprise when I found out that one of the world’s greatest inventions actually came with their name attached.
Canadian Fish, also known as Recollection or Literature is the king of card games. It was first introduced to me last year in the spring of 2019, and I’ve been angling for games ever since. Texas Hold’em Poker and various drinking games are symbols of recreation at colleges across the United States, and at top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Berkley, they are joined by League of Legends and Canadian Fish. When you “fish”, as they call it, you take one stop closer to the top.
Named so for the similar style of play to Go Fish, Canadian Fish is a game that requires unparalleled levels of intellect and memorization, ensuring that its players will truly be at the top of their game. So let’s dive right in!
At its essence, Canadian Fish is a trick-taking game. Fishing games, which are (I believe) misnamed, are actually completely different. This means that even Go-Fish, arguably one of the most famous card games in the world, is not a true “fishing game”. No matter, as long as you know how to play.
Canadian Fish plays as a derivation of Go-Fish, with players asking each other for specific cards, trying to collect all the cards of the “trick” so they can earn points. These “tricks” are also called half-suits in Fish. I’m sure everyone knows what a suit is (although SOME of you may have trouble differentiating between the clubs and the spades), and out of these diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades, we’ll divide them again, in half. The low half-suits are 2-7 inclusive, the upper half-suits are 9-A inclusive, and the leftover half-suit includes all the 8s and the 2 jokers.
If you suddenly can’t count, that’s 9 different half-suits. If you suddenly can’t use logic, your team needs 5 to win, usually with the 8s and Jokers being the tie-breaking trick. So, the point of the game is to collect as many half-suits as you can. This is where fishing comes in. To start off, all the cards are evenly dealt out, shuffled and randomized to the 6 players. Someone is randomly chosen to start, and they begin by asking for a card.
Much like in Go-Fish, you’re fishing for cards from the other team, to try to complete the half-suits. To get more cards, you must ask players from the opposite team. If they have the card, they must hand it over, but if they don’t then it becomes their turn to ask someone else. It’s important to note that you MUST have a card in the half-suit that you are asking for. E.g., if you have the 2 and 3 of hearts, you can ask for any of the low hearts. When someone takes cards from you, you can ask them back, but ONLY if you still have cards remaining in that half-suit. E.g., if someone takes your 2 of hearts, you can ask for it back when it’s your turn, but if someone takes your 2 and 3 of hearts, you’re locked out of the low hearts. You may not request for cards that are in your hand.
If you collect all of the cards in a half-suit, you can lay them down at any point in the game and say “I declare”, giving your team 1 point for the trick. First to 5 wins. If your TEAM collects all the cards in a half-suit, you guys must declare CORRECTLY. This means that 1 person says “I declare”, and then correctly names who specifically has each card. E.g., “I declare. I have the 2 and 5 of hearts, Nicole has the 3, 4, and 7, and Allen has the 6.” If the declared correctly, then your team gets the half-suit. If not (e.g, Nicole had the 6 as well, or we didn’t have all the cards among our team), then it is handed over to the other team, so you have to be careful while declaring. Not all members of your team have to be involved in a declaration, and you can declare at any time in the game, interrupting normal play and resuming after it’s done.
So, those are all the rules for the game. If you understand the nuances, you will see that the process of gameplay is also a process of collecting information. Through logical deduction and memorization, it is quite easy to calculate where cards are, and the best way to take them. Use your brain. If the rules interspersed with my own commentary were a little too complicated to understand, feel free to find me or ask questions in the comments. Thanks for reading, and good luck fishing!
As a Canadian myself, I was intrigued by ties by that my motherland has to this game that you’re obsessed with. Thanks to drawing your graphics as well reading these detailed instructions, I think I understand general gist now. This blog was very informative, and although I’m terrible at playing cards, I’d like to give it a try someday!
Thanks for the shout out as well 😉 You owe me food.
heyyo thanks for this blog! Though I’ve only played Canadian Fish once, and failed miserably, this is definitely a fun game! The most challenging aspect is remembering who has what card, I remember once Nicole got almost all of her cards in one go from asking everyone around her. damn. While I accidentally put the 8 in a different trick and messed up thew hole game… Needless to say I need some practice on this game, perhaps I will be better next time.
Am I only commenting to break the lines of karma? Maybe, but I have a lot to say about this as well. Great, clear instructions! We should pull this out anytime we’re teaching new people instead of saying “not it” and waiting 20 minutes while people try to grasp the concept. Remember when that was us less than a year ago? Look at us veterans now. However, contrary to your point, I do appreciate personal stories. Card games have a certain duality to them–either a semi-accurate measurement of one’s reflexes, strategical reasoning, and general intelligence orrrr the prime time for bonding and inside jokes. Canadian Fish, of course, satisfies both these qualities as we see who can work as a team, keep their thoughts to themselves, be quick *cough*, and most importantly, remember. Now, our sanity is being tested once more–leave it to us to be old-fashioned and archaic when it comes to online fish–it takes out much of the emotional side of duality, but is nevertheless, a worthy substitute. Maybe after this is over, we’ll all get together again and truly appreciate thirty minutes of someone thinking out loud and rashly declaring, and we’ll worry a little less about clicking the wrong button!