Most of the people who play my games are not players so I set my games up soft. On my fish tales I changed the Lightning flippers to standard flippers and changed the plastic outline posts to double rubber posts and used the the large 3/8 clear rings on them

I can't speak to Fish Tales in terms of a real machine... not to mention it's my worst game digitally on a computer screen in programs like Pinball Arcade... but one thing I can say as general advice when it comes to draining often down the sides is that, if you're getting a lot of outlane drains then you're probably suffering from a lot of side-to-side motion. So the trick is instead of learning to keep the ball from going down the outlanes (which is extremely tough to do on any game) learn to prevent the ball from getting anywhere near the return lanes to begin with.

With Fish Tales, a relatively safe strategy is to just make boat shots, since you're not in as much danger if you brick or miss them as you are with bricking or missing the loop shots or the Caster's Club. You can't score as high going just for the boat, but you can score more consistently, since going for jackpots and super jackpots is an all-or-nothing strategy. Besides, every so often you'll overshoot the boat and accidentally make the Caster's Club anyways, which is yet another reason to go for the boat, and if you undershoot you'll hit the captive ball and earn the potential for more rewards, possibly even multiball if you get enough loop shots in... which is yet ANOTHER reason to go for the boat.

...so yeah, go for the boat more often and you should drain less. ; )

When the ball starts to bounce into the outlane, nudge the game forward. This motion closes off the outlane and bumps the ball up toward the rest of the playfield. A good rule of thumb for nudging is up for the outlanes and side to side for the middle drains.

Fish Tales is a pain , it was killing me with all those slow ball time