New Fishing Apps Worth Checking Out

One of the hottest—and fastest growing—media trends involves the creation of fishing-specific applications for mobile devices, like the iPhone.  As a fly fishing industry professional, it’s worth checking out and turning your customers onto some of the latest “apps” that enhance the fishing experience.  Here are three recommendations:

“Catchbook”

Field & Stream editors worked diligently to create this free app for iPhone, which is billed as a “social fishing journal.”  Using an iPhone, an angler can take a photo of his or her latest catch, which is then automatically converted into detailed fishing reports, including weather and water conditions where the fish was caught.  Over time, this becomes a detailed fishing journal that can be used to identify trends.  Each report is pinned to a map which can be shared (or not) with trusted fishing friends.

GoFISHn’s “Year in Fishing” magazine for the iPad is based on that group’s wildly popular (over 188,000 facebook fans and 2 million-plus visitors) site and content, featuring tips, reviews, news and reports.  The app is available as a free preview, and the full version is $4.99.  Featuring a solid blend of videos, photos, and writing, the Year in Fishing is as entertaining as it is informative—two critical aspects of new media content.

Kirk Werner, who has done much to spread the appeal of fly fishing to the youth market through his “Olive the Woolly Bugger” book series, is also launching an iPad app that is a digital book featuring a condensed version of Olive the Little Woolly Bugger and Olive and The Big Stream.

As a parent who has admittedly used the iPad to keep things calm in the back seat during long car trips, the notion of an app that isn’t “Stupid Zombies” or “Angry Birds” and actually relates the joy of fly fishing (there is indeed a game in the app called “Chuckin’ Bugs”) is welcome indeed.  Werner is, for the record, seeking additional investment to help the project.