The Reel of Fortune is a slot-machine cabinet in How to Fish that trades a rare catch for a random weapon skin. It sits on every island, and instead of coins it accepts a single Drip creature per spin. Everything it hands out is cosmetic, so a skin changes how a weapon looks and nothing about how it performs.
Quick answer: Catch and kill a Drip creature (the rare rainbow-named variant), carry it to any Reel of Fortune, insert it when the “Insert drip creature to play” prompt appears, and take whatever skin the reel lands on. Equip it by holding the matching weapon and pressing Z or C.
What you need before you can spin
The machine only accepts a Drip creature as payment. These are rare versions of ordinary fish and crabs, marked by rainbow-colored name text on the “Creature Caught” prompt when you reel one in. A normal catch shows white text, so the difference is easy to spot the moment one appears.
There is no special lure for them. Keep fishing the normal creature pool on any island and one will eventually appear. You will likely hook your first Drip creature by accident early on, which also unlocks the Drip achievement.
Once you have a Drip creature caught, you can confirm it under your collected creatures. The Drip Rock Crab, for example, shows up alongside the standard Rock Crab as a separate rare entry.
How to use the Reel of Fortune
The result is entirely random. Each Drip creature buys exactly one pull, and you accept whatever skin the reel lands on. Rarity is shown by the background behind the skin on the monitor, ranging from colorless to red to gold.
How to equip a skin you won
A won skin is applied by cycling through options while holding the matching item. Take out the weapon the skin belongs to, then press Z or C on keyboard to toggle between its available appearances. On a controller, use the right direction on the D-Pad.
The Fishing Rod and Boat do not always show the toggle prompt at the bottom of the screen, but the same buttons still work. For a boat skin, sit at the wheel by selecting drive, then press the same keys to switch its look.
Which skins each island’s machine gives
Every Reel of Fortune is limited to a set list of equipment types, shown along the bottom of its screen. The starting Lighthouse machine only rolls Brass Knuckles and Knife skins, while later islands open up guns, the Fishing Rod, and the Boat. The Assault Rifle is the only exclusive type, appearing solely on Island 5.
| Island | Skin types available |
|---|---|
| 1 (Lighthouse) | Brass Knuckles, Knife |
| 2 | Boat, Brass Knuckles, Knife, Pistol, Fishing Rod, Shotgun |
| 3 | Boat, Pistol, SMG, Fishing Rod, Shotgun |
| 4 | Boat, Fishing Rod, SMG, Sniper Rifle |
| 5 | Boat, Fishing Rod, Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle |
Because of this split, spending your very first Drip creature on the Lighthouse machine is not the best use of it. The Knife and Brass Knuckles help early, but the weapons you unlock on later islands are stronger, and their skins only come from those later machines.
Chasing the GOLD GOLD GOLD achievement
The GOLD GOLD GOLD achievement unlocks the moment you pull a Legendary skin from the machine. There is no quest gate or boss fight tied to it. The only route is feeding Drip creatures into any Reel of Fortune until the RNG lands on a Legendary result, which can also come from hitting a triple jackpot.
The exact odds are not shown in-game, so treat it as a repeat grind rather than a fixed number of tries. Spinning at whichever machine is closest works fine, since every island’s cabinet can pay out a Legendary.
Spending a Drip creature costs you nothing permanent because Drip creatures respawn without limit. Anything you gamble away can be fished up again, so the only real cost is time. A practical habit is to keep a Drip creature on hand and spin whenever you pass a machine, chipping toward the Legendary over many visits.
Tip: If you want more reliable material for skins, some players farm boss drops instead. Beating the Spider Crab repeatedly yields the Spider Crab Shell, which the Reel of Fortune also accepts, and these can be easier to gather than rare Drip variants.
If the Reel of Fortune screen goes blank
Some players run into a display bug where the machine’s screen stops showing skins or spin results, leaving you unable to see what you won. If the screen is not rendering properly, restart the game and load back in. That clears the missing textures on the cabinet in most cases so you can read your rewards again.
