Winning major competitions is a very lucrative endeavour as fishing line suppliers, fishing tackle providers, electronics companies, rod & reel makers and motor boats & engine manufacturers, beverage companies and clothing designers out bid each other to sponsor these competitive events. They like getting behind the matches because it really elevates one brand over their competitors’ and the local bait and tackle shop is a crowded marketplace.

Fishing matches are exciting occasions that can create small town heroes who win fame and fortune, right alongside the sponsor brands, which makes them more trusted by consumers and therefore more likely to sell over a competitor’s products at the same price point.

In addition to sponsorship fees, tournament organizers often collect even more money in entry fees.  In some matches, competitors pay hundreds of dollars for the privilege of fishing for a big purse.

In contrast to the art of angling, and the wholesome love of the sport, there is a dark side to match fishing and that is the organized, pre meditated cheaters and their devious schemes. This article explores the path criminals take to conceive variations on classic fishing derby cheats.

Getting Caught Cheating in a Fishing Match is the Kiss of Death

Regardless of whether he or she is new player or a respected veteran, any individual or team that gets caught cheating in a fishing match is done for in the sport.  Convicted cheaters will find themselves disbarred in all major tournaments, and even smaller regional events that think they’re major tournaments will reject their applications. Convicted cheaters will soon find themselves forever shunned by all who knew them…

If the local police are on hand, as they often are, the perpetrators will be charged with fraud and given a date for a court appearance – a date they’ll never forget, and one which is sure to be videotaped and made public in many different mediums.

But even with such a steep deterrent, there are still those that would cheat and their criminal behavior is classified into one of two main categories.

Two Categories of Match Fishing Cheats
For cheaters, the primary object is to get prize winning fish aboard the boat in any way possible, and although there are many different schemes and illegal advantages fishermen can employ, all cheats fall into one of two main categories.

Okay actually there’s a third category, which I call Extraneous Cheats; and these are things like counterfeiting fishing tags, speeding in the boat lanes to get to the best spot ahead of the pack, or adding lead weights to the prize fish to make them heavier? Yes believe it or not, just last summer, July 2012 Northern Illinois Anglers Association disqualified Larry Coleman, http://daily-journal.com/archives/dj/display.php?id=493630  a local fishing guide and professional bass angler who submitted some small but suspiciously heavy walleye to Judges at the 29th annual Kankakee River Fishing Derby.

With the exception of these extraneous connivance, fishing derby cheats fall into two main categories, smuggling and illegal catches.

Smuggling Fish to Win a Fishing Derby
Most large prize fishing derbies require anglers to stay aboard their small craft at all times. Shore fishing is only permitted in areas where inspectors can watch the proceedings, and that’s because smuggling fish aboard a boat is a sure fire way to win just about any derby. The true art of smuggling is to leave no witnesses whatsoever.

Dead fish are weighed and their weight is subtracted from competitor’s score
Almost all modern fishing derbies are catch and release; so the Flintstones cartoon where Fred picks up a frozen fish at the supermarket, thaws the carcass and uses it to win a fishing derby, would never work. Furthermore, Catch and Release protocol means all fish have to be alive at the end of the match to be released. That means fishermen have to invest money to make live wells with proper aerators aboard ship to contain and preserve their catches. And lastly, catch and release seriously reduces cheating, as importing live fish without being spotted is rather difficult in any size fishing tournament.

The drop could be accomplished from shore, or by visiting a shore cache, or by getting a quick delivery from a passing boat. Or, like a classic smuggler, the perpetrators have secret compartments aboard the boat that are in fact live wells full of game fish caught in the days or weeks leading up the competitive event.

On the Fishing Saskatchewan discussion forum there is a very interesting thread about cheating, http://www.fishingsaskatchewan.ca/new/forum/index.php/topic?f=16&t=4907
The first post explains how two people were caught cheating, “…just recently up at [Lake] Tobin [a team was] caught cheating in the derby, they had a hidden live well full of fish and the inspectors found it.”
To which another user named SaskRiverMan replied,
“..slander or not, cliff nelson and wife nancy had the fish in the live well they were given 3 chances to come clean before they were disqualified from the tourney this year and will not be returning any other year either. few facts from this year’s vanity follows as winning weight 57.4 lbs 1192 total fish weighed in for a total weight of 3953.1 lbs 4 other teams were dq’d for bringing in “red zone” fish. Good job to the individuals involved in makin this year’s tourney a success – without the volunteers it wouldn’t happen.”

Interesting 2013 Bassmaster Rules regarding Smuggling Fish
The 2013 Bassmaster Rules  http://www.bassmaster.com/sites/default/files/imce/Final2013OpensRules.pdf contain this very interesting passage which will probably be updated in the 2014 season.

…during the tournament, a competitor may not “SKIN DIVE” OR “SCUBA DIVE” in the tournament
waters. (iv) No competitor may buy or barter a fishing location from any other competitor for use
during any competition day. Once daily cuts are announced at the post weigh in rules meeting, competitors not making the cut are no longer considered in the tournament. Competitors making cut may not receive information under rule C3 (ii). (v) During the official competition days of the tournament a competitor may not make cell calls for the purpose of locating or catching fish on tournament waters. Cell phones may be used for emergency situations. Competitors are allowed to call lockmasters for locking purposes only. Competitors are allowed to use smart phones for global maps,
weather, notes, etc.

To this author these rules are fascinating. Readers can see how they have evolved over the years to cover every possible contingency. For example, competitors must have been caught swimming for the purpose of retrieving sunken fish caches.

And perhaps a crew was caught using phones to set up clandestine meetings on the lake? Or to get inside information on where big fish are biting? Or to learn where fish have been planted? Either way the rules concerning mobile phones are about to evolve again – they must either allow or disallow mobile phones as fishfinders because coming this summer there are at least two different sonar fishing devices connected to smart phone apps. They write, “Competitors are allowed to use smart phones for global maps, weather, notes, etc.”
But how will they know I didn’t write a RF program to cause a submarine robot to inflate its ballast tanks and bring my prize winning fish to the surface of the lake so I can catch them one after another right in front of several dozen witnesses? Will tournament officials soon be monitoring all radio frequencies? It’s something to consider.

Illegal Catches are harder to detect

Illegal catches are far more difficult to detect than smuggled fish, but catching is harder than cheating to accomplish, as the perpetrators still have to be a reasonably good fisherman to catch anything. The above mentioned sonar device will probably be disallowed on the grounds that it offers users far too much of an advantage, especially in canoe or kayak derbies where there are no other fishfinders.

Live bait is also disallowed at most tournaments, but that’s not because it offers an unfair advantage, but rather because it employs methodology that runs counter to the commercial designs of the fishing tackle sponsor.

Tournaments get tough on spearfishing, fish doping or electric shocking as illegal catch methods
Caught on TV back in 1998, Henry Waszczuk and Italo Labignan, hosts of Canadian Sportfishing; broadcast weekly on TSN, and were fined a total of $1,800 and lost much of their celebrity status at the time, and the respect of their TV audiences at the time, when they were caught cheating for the camera.

Waszczuk, 47, and Labignan, 41 snagged two dozen sizable fish on Nov. 6, 1995 by hooking them in the body so they could re-hook them in the mouth and film their retrieval for their show.

What fishing derby cheats are you on the watch for?

The post Classic Fishing Derby Cheats appeared first on FishHunter | Fish Finder & Fishing App.

Pretty much everyone here at FishHunter loves to get away and go fishing.  Just about all of us would go fishing with anyone, any place, anytime of the year, and especially during summer when northern Ontario water bodies beckon and our cottages on northern lakes are never far from our thoughts. But just because we happen to live in the middle of the biggest city in Canada, doesn’t mean we have put off our fishing obsession until the weekend; we can go angling right here in town, and indeed we’ve found quite a few amazing places to fish which I will document in this and upcoming blog posts. Fact is we have it pretty good up here. Myself and three million other residents are especially fortunate to have access to more than fifty public waterways, and each of these rivers or streams has somewhere on its course a piece of land that affords good access to fine fishing for a variety of different freshwater species. The city actually encourages fishing out on the Toronto Islands, at Hanlans’ Point . There were printed posters a few years back, in an ad campaign suggesting people take up the pastime out there. Perhaps the answer to the question ‘where is the best place to go fishing in Toronto?’ is the Toronto Islands. This aquatic preserve is probably the best overall venue for urban fishing in the GTA – further proof appears in a popular Toronto fishing blog called Fish on Toronto wherein the author seems to celebrate his biggest catches there. But in this blog post we’re going to remind readers that the Toronto Islands are not the only fish hunting ground in our great city.

Explore the City of Toronto to Find New Places to Go Fishing

Below are a dozen places where you can looking and perhaps locate a lovely secluded fishing hole that you can call your own secret spot. I saw an Toronto fishing discussion forum thread once asking people to share their favourite ‘secret’ fishing spots on a travel TV show which would pretty much ensure that their spots were secret no longer.

Tired of the 15 minute ferry ride to and from the Toronto Islands? Try these fishing places instead:

• Tommy Thompson Park: Foot of Leslie St. Ashbridges Bay Park:
• Coxwell Ave. S. of Lakeshore Blvd. E
• High Park Grenadier Pond: High Park Blvd. W. of Parkside Dr.
• Humber River Marsh: Mouth of Humber River upstream to Lakeshore Blvd.
• Rouge River Marsh: Lawrence Ave. E. of Port Union Rd. Bluffers Park: Foot of Brimley Rd.
• Upper Main Rouge River: Public Lands upstream of Hwy. 2
• Lower Humber River: Etienne Brule Park S. to Eglinton Ave.
• Eglinton Flats: Jane at Eglinton Ave.
• G. Ross Lord Park: Dufferin St. N. of Finch Ave.
• Humber Bay Park: Park Lawn Rd. S. of Lakeshore Blvd. W.
• Colonel Samuel Smith Park: Kipling Ave. S. of Lakeshore Blvd. W.
• Marie Curtis Park: Lakeshore Rd. E. of Dixie Rd.
• Centennial Park: Centennial Park Blvd. S. of Eglinton Ave.
• Summerlea Park: Albion Rd. E. of Islington Ave

There are millions of fish, and hundreds of public fishing holes in Toronto

There are plenty of fish in Toronto! According to the Urban Fishing in Toronto Ministry of Natural Resources page web page which details fishing in the GTA, the Ministry of Natural Resources stocks more than 1.5 million fish every year for urban anglers. The majority of these stocking efforts are within the Lake Ontario watershed. Popular rivers that enter the lake, such as the Humber and the Credit, are stocked with brown or rainbow trout, chinook, coho or even some Atlantic salmon. With limited natural reproduction, these cold water species are the main fish stocked in the GTA. They can be caught along stretches of riverbanks from public areas along the Lake Ontario waterfront or out in a boat. In fact, Lake Ontario has a renowned charter boat fishery right on Ontario’s doorstep Below is yet more of the terrific work being done by the the Toronto Urban Fishing Ambassadors,

Toronto Urban Fishing has Help from Passionate Activists

Toronto Urban Fishing Ambassadors work to protect urban anglers’ civic rights. They build relationships with both governmental and private organizations interested in the promotion and conservation of Toronto’s fisheries and they lobby municipal governments to ensure enthusiasts continue to enjoy unfettered access to Toronto’s parks, shorelines, waterways and wetlands for the purposes of sport and recreational fishing.  Toronto Urban Fishing Ambassadors work to encourage residents and visitors of all ages to experience and appreciate the world class fishing opportunities offered across the Greater Toronto Area.  This city’s public lands exist for everyone’s enjoyment!  As stewards of this great sport, members actively participate and support the conservation of Toronto’s growing fisheries as they celebrate its biodiversity in pictures and posts.

Remember, no matter where you are* to go Fishing in the City of Toronto you need an up-to-date Outdoors Card from the Ontario Government.

If you are over 18yrs old, to legally fish in the City of Toronto you’ll need the Outdoors Card from Ontario Government, and any additional sport fishing license tags or conservation fishing license tag (3 year or 1 year) will either be printed on, or accompanied by, this plastic Outdoors Card. The scene to the right of this picture is taken on the Humber River just south of Eglinton Ave at Scarlett Rd. That’s my buddy Tony down there fishing for Bass but pulling out shiners and chum. I posted this picture on Fuel Ghoul and it’s made the rounds online because of the stark contrast of showing a man enjoying the great outdoors inside the living breathing city .

How to Get an Outdoors Card in Ontario

An Outdoors Card is good for three calendar years. If you are an Ontario resident between 18 and 65 years of age and you want to fish in Ontario right away, you can buy a Resident Temporary Outdoors Card and fishing licence tag from selected license issuers or ServiceOntario centres across the province. This Temporary Outdoors Card and fishing licence tag is effective immediately and valid until December 31 of the year in which it was purchased. If your Outdoors Card will soon expire, or has already expired, the fastest and easiest way to renew your Outdoors Card is a three year renewal by credit card with a call to 1-800-288-1155 or online at the Outdoors Card website. Ontario resident hunters can also fish under the authority of their Outdoors Card (hunting version) with the appropriate fishing licence tag. You can also get more information on the Outdoors Card by calling the Outdoors Card Centre at 1-800-387-7011. This toll-free number works from all regions of Canada, from Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (Eastern Time).

What Fish Are Found Where in Toronto Lakes and Rivers?

I found this nifty chart on a Canadian government website that shows which fish exist in which rivers and streams … why do I see goldfish on the list?

Guidelines to Fishing in Toronto

No person shall fish in an area posted to prohibit fishing. No person shall store or leave any lures, bait, hooks, lines, poles or other equipment in a municipal park or in any location where they might injure other persons or wildlife. All permitted fishing must be carried out in compliance with all Ministry of Natural Resources Rules and Regulations. You can learn more about License – fishing licenses required to catch predator fish or ‘game fish’ in addition to the Ontario Outdoors card.     Toronto Island If you are between 18 and 64 years of age you will need a fishing license to fish the Toronto Islands except on the Urban Fishing Festival weekend in July. Fishing licenses are not required for children. There are two fishing docks at Algonquin Island and the Trout Pond at Hanlan’s Point. Fishing is not permitted at any of the boat slips.

• You can fish on The Islands with only one rod and reel at a time;
• No nets or other devices may be used to catch gamefish. You cannot snag fish.
• Your possession limit of fish cannot exceed your daily catch limit. Plan what to do if you catch a fish, we encourage catch and release.

Fishing restrictions are also listed on the back of the Fishing Guide available at the Boathouse. For more information on fishing restrictions on the Toronto Islands, please contact a Parks, Forestry and Recreation Staff at the Boat House In the coming weeks and m0nths we will outline our own favourite spots top fish in the city, and perhaps even our secret spots.

Post by Robert Campbell on May 2, 2013

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Fish has been an important source of protein for humans throughout recorded history – but not all fish dinners are equal. Some dishes are much better for our bodies than others, and yet this author asks ‘which would you rather eat?”

First here is the lovely lunch, Rainbow Trout on white rice with asparagus in dill butter for $22 at William’s Landing in Toronto. Personally, I thought they could have done more with the rice, but the asparagus was cooked to perfection and the trout was delightfully seasoned with the dill butter and rice mingling to become a divine sauce for fresh fish flesh.

Rainbow Trout on white rice with asparagus in dill butter

Because I was going back to the office, I selected a diet coke to accompany this dish, otherwise the plate would normally be served with a chardonnay or any light white white.

English style Fish and Chips is comfort food for most people.  Contrary to popular belief most whitefish, such as haddock, halibut and seer, contain very little fat (usually less than 1%). Beer battered Fish and Chips however is quite calorific.

Beer battered Fish and Chips served with beer is like beer squared and we love beer in all shapes.

Halibut and Beer battered Fish and Chips

Fish and chips became a stock meal among the working classes in Great Britain as a consequence of the rapid development of trawl fishing in the North Sea, and the development of railways which connected the ports to major industrial cities during the second half of the 19th century, which meant that fresh fish could be rapidly transported to the heavily populated areas. In 1860, the first fish and chip shop was opened in London by Joseph Malin.

The English got it right. Halibut tastes best when the breaded fish crust is crunchy, the chips are salty and the beer is cold!

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Believe it or not, scientists in white lab coats really do grow crystals to make electronics that are so advanced they seem like magic, and near perfect geometric mineral creations are now required for even more rapid calculations and energy transmutations. Today scientists need crystals grown in space.

All Semiconductors Use Different Types of Synthetic Crystals

Electricity and crystals were made for each other, and this fundamental truth was first noticed by ancient writers long before either of these two concepts were fully isolated or understood; gemstones were magic.

Crystals and Ancient Magic

Theophrastus in 381 BC had in his possession a magic gemstone called Lyngourian which would attract bits of straw and dust when it was heated. Today we believe the stone was made of amber, which isn’t a gem at all, but fossilized tree sap. Amber was the first precious stone noted in human history, and has been used as a healing stone and protective amulet for at least 7000 years.  This is probably because amber becomes electrically charged when rubbed vigorously with cloth or fur, causing it to attract small particles. Archeological evidence found alongside its presence in burial mounds suggests that it was an object of wonder for ancient man.

Tourmaline is a Piezoelectric Crystal

The gem called tourmaline has also long been considered magical; its electrical properties seem to manifest themselves in the strangest situations including during electrical storms and when heated, or in one famous case, by the action of a cotton curtain rubbing a fist sized stone to make static discharge that rippled blue light up the white fabric. The occurrence was documented in 1800s London by gem collectors and it did scare the living daylights out of the original homeowners who must have believed the rock to be possessed by spirits trying to burn down their house.

Piezoelectric crystals are transducers which convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. So that means if they are physically squeezed they will make a voltage.

Piezoelectric Ceramic Transducers are used in Sonar Fishfinders

Certain piezoelectric crystals will vibrate when electrified, and they make sound which is a type mechanical energy. The ping of sonar is what you hear when piezoelectric crystals turn electricity into sound.  We don’t use sonar in our everyday lives, but might own a TV remote control or a fishfinder that uses piezo crystals, and both of these contrivances are rather magical gadgets that are made with lead zirconate titanate crystals grown by white coated lab workers.

The use of piezoelectric materials to harvest mechanical power is becoming more popular these days.

Piezoelectric materials harness a crystalline ability to transform mechanical strain energy into electrical charge. Piezo elements are being embedded in public walkways to recover the people power of thousands of footsteps.  Some sensational European nightclubs use piezo energy harvesting pressure plates under the dance floor to electrify their strobe lights and complimentary sound systems. The club owners advertise the gimmick as people powered dance parlours, and its quite a show when the errant force of hundreds of people pounding on piezoelectric lined dance floor affects music and sound. A famous exercise gym in Portland Oregon is powered by a combination of piezoelectric weight machines and generators applied to stationary bikes.

What are the Magic Products of the Future?

Piezo electric crystal insoles will cushion new running shoes to recover energy spent walking and use it to charge devices and illuminate clothing, or perhaps someday it will power an invisibility cloak!  Already today there are energy harvesting backpacks http://gearjunkie.com/piezoelectric-pack   with straps that contain piezoelectric crystals to produce enough power to charge GPS devices, headlamps, a cell phone, or an iPod Nano inside the pack, while on the go.

Most piezoelectric sources produce very small amounts of power, but better crystals and more knowledge and engineering science could see them become much better power sources, recovering some of the huge amounts of energy we spend simply moving every day.

Crystals grown in space will be the next big step toward improving semiconductors for use in next-generation communication systems, more advanced computers, a fusion power propulsion engines.

The Space Shuttle Program Grew Low Gravity Protein Crystals in 1992

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11536985

Protein crystal growth aboard the U.S. space shuttle flights STS-31 and STS-32 showed very promising results.  The report states that the “…results from these missions indicated that the microgravity grown crystals for a number of different proteins were larger, displayed more uniform morphologies, and yielded diffraction data to significantly higher resolutions than the best crystals of these proteins grown on earth.”

Certain semiconductor alloy crystals which are special blends of germanium and silicon must be grown in space because the crystals simply won’t form in Earth’s gravity. These advanced crystals will be used to make magical products like self-charging cell phones and personal conveyance devices that never need fuel – the stuff of magic.

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The best fishing apps come with sonar attachments that transform smartphones into portable fish finders!

A combination of knowledge filled fishing apps and sleek sonar gadgets is set to erode the traditional sonar fishfinder device sales, and could possibly shift customer appreciation away from the heavy-duty boat-mounted units, and towards the newfangled portable sonar product category that connects to smart phones via Bluetooth wireless.

Which Mobile Phone Fishing Application will be the one that History Remembers as ‘The App that Changed Fishing’?

Mobile phone fishing app software is a ‘game changing’ product category – some titles are packed with so much knowledge and useful data that they positively affect the experience of fishing. It’s fun to learn and smart phones are invaluable to urban fishing explorers spelunking in the city. One positive effect is increased productivity, but more interesting is that the devices really do seem to bring an element of ‘hunting’ to what was otherwise considered a passive sport. Although these are still early days for this high tech device category, its easy to see why enthusiasts predict that mobile phone centric applications will change fishing like they have already changed so many other industries and practices. But which fishing app will become the most popular in 2013? In 2014? And beyond that, which will be the one that history records as the app that changed fishing?

FishHunter Fishfinder $199

“You can swim but you can’t hide” From seemingly out of nowhere, this orange tennis ball-sized floating electronic accessory emblazoned FishHunter has crept up to pounce on the portable sonar marketplace. The FishHunter sonar system is recognized here as best in class, partly because it has such terrific pedigree.

FishHunter Inc puts the best hardware and software together. The sonar transducer inside the rubber polymer ball was designed and built by Sonartech, who certainly seem to be some of the smartest sonar specialists in the world and have naval construction contracts to provide and maintain submarine detection equipment for the US Navy and other marine forces.

FishHunter combines sonar technology with a world class fishing app.

The software interface was designed by Appetite Lab in Toronto, Canada. The free fishing app has more options than any of the other fishing apps we reviewed below, and is the most intuitively designed – this app has raised the bar in terms of useful functions. The sonar is sharp and accurate and really does locate marine wildlife underwater. Furthermore, that guy pictured on the phone screen hefting the bass can do more with that photo on this application than any other such software because of the on-board social sharing features combined with exclusive photo contests. He can win prizes and build fame and amass a huge following as a genuine FishHunter with a popular public Logbook filled with great Catches, and Pictures.

FishHunter SONAR weighs about five ounces and floats on the water, which makes it really handy to track surface water currents. The device works and turns ON as soon as its placed in the water, beaming Bluetooth wireless signals back to your Android 2.2+ or iOS 4.0+ smartphone. The system immediately shows the temperature of the water body. Using the Sonar page on the FishHunter fishing app, the consumer can access the device’s powerful on-board sonar equipment to peek at the bottom topography of the lake below, pinpoint schools of bait fish and chart the places in between where predator fish are most often found. This attachment is first generation cybernetic interface to transform humans into fishing machines.

Deeper Sonar $235

Deeper Sonar is a media darling and heretofore the brightest light in the smartphone mobile fishfinder marketplace. But where is it? They have missed the 2013 Fishing Season in North America. They are the most famous and most findable device because they produced good videos that appealed to everyone’s imagination; they used the media to activate an effective crowd-funding campaign to help find investors that would come on board and help float the dream. It was all very smart, and a well executed start-up business model.

Much like FishHunter, their product is a sphere which is water resistant and well designed to appear sleek and efficient at its submarine mapping task. BUT UNLIKE THE FISHHUNTER, THE DEEPER SONAR DOES NOT HAVE A PROTECTIVE RUBBER EXTERIOR AND HAS SOME EXTERIOR ACCESS POINTS. The spherical waterproof device beams back individual fish depths and location info, along with temperature and floor depth to your Android 2.2+ or iOS 4.0+ smartphone or tablet within 150 feet via Bluetooth. According to all literature it can operate in temperatures ranging from -10 to 40 degrees Celsius (14 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit) and sends signals back to phone via Bluetooth. Interestingly, the Deeper App can also measure air temperature. The app conveys moon phase readouts, and has some social media functionality that lets you post fishing updates to Facebook or Twitter so all of your less fortunate friends can see how much fun you’re having catching fish using advanced technology out in nature.

Deeper is a terrific example of a new age technology company harnessing crowd funding internet websites to raise money for innovation. What’s even more interesting is how effectively the campaign to raise money for the product development created buzz and awareness of the product long before it came to market. The imaginative campaigns appealed to everyone’s imagination because it offered portable insight in to the aquamarine world of the fishes.

But where is Deeper? Can you buy one today? Soon the tech story might shift to become a public inquiry… Where is it?

Go-fish App Free

The Go-Fish App is a live and interactive fishing logbook – it basically turns your iphone into a diary-of-catches. They write, “The Go-Fish app will help to record an up to date angling history of the world and make you part of it.” Sadly it’s for the iPhone only; we could not find an Android version.

This UK based mobile phone application shares its name with the popular American card game, ‘go-fish’ and is eclipsed by the popularity of apps devoted to the card game. That being said however it might actually gain more traffic and attention for that association.

Most remarkably, the UK company has a very active Twitter feed @fishingapp. Pictures of men holding fish come floating down their pipe all day long and this drives awareness and they have grown a huge following and have a huge base of app users.

Another fascinating element to the Go-Fish app are the small insights we get into the creative people behind the content at the firm; we can read and quietly marvel at the colorful diction in the descriptive fields of their app’s download page. The author writes, “More features than a gravel pit and cheaper than a pint of maggots. With an instant entry into an online hall of fame. At the touch of your screen you will have the ability to record the minutiae of your catch, the weight of your tench or the number of roach in your keepnet.” I love good copy, and I reprinted here faithfully. The author really nailed it; we wouldn’t change a thing.

The Fishfinder App $2.99

A market leader, this application has been around for almost three years now. And it’s still only available for iPhone? We can’t believe this app is NOT available for Android?! We ask, why?

The FishFinder App was developed for anglers to use while exploring the Great Outdoors. The apps’ basic framework relies on the phone’s built-in GPS and Google earth functionality. The app also comes with other tools that every angler relies on including moon charts, tides and weather information.

When first activated, the app will locate your position on Earth and as you move about the app will track your position. Any time you want to save the current location just hit the “mark spot” button. The app will save the Latitude and Longitude of your position in a Logbook. As well as the date, time, barometric pressure, moon phase and current weather condition in which you are or will be fishing. Then the user has the option to take a picture, enter the depth, choose the icon color, or choose who if anyone they would like to share the spot with and enter the appropriate message.

This app is older than all the rest – the description page at that link above is long and very detailed. The best part of the web copy is, in our opinion, the author’s reason for creating the app in the first place. He writes, ” The idea behind this app, people sharing information about fishing spots with each other, was hard to imagine at first. Being a life long fisherman I know how hard it is to get legitimate information out of other fisherman (I was a master of deception for most of my life). So I know some people will be hesitant about sharing, and that’s fine, they can still take advantage of all the other people’s spots wile keeping all their spots to themselves. But the more you share the stronger this app will become. There is a lot of public domain that has already been imputed into this app with more accumulating everyday.” and that snippet of text is so truthful and heartfelt it made us download the app.

UFindFish app $5.99

U Find Fish app is the most expensive software-only fishing app solution at $5.99 (and there are ads in the app). The software is different than all the others in that there are fishing celebrities connected to offering – registered users can ask the pros expert questions. Like all the other apps this system also lets users search for fishing hot spots in nearby lakes and rivers. The software utilizes GPS to find the fisherman’s position then searches for the nearest body-of-water using an advanced Google Maps interface. We searched the shoreline of the Toronto harbour looking for any hot spots (there are none) and were pleasantly surprised to see all of the tall buildings pop up in accurate 3D renderings as we passed along the downtown core.

We were surprised to find that there are no fishing hotspots along the lake shore in Toronto ? But yet there are 36 points of interest in the Greater Toronto Area, and more being recorded all the time. Users can create and track their own fishing Hot Spots and either keep them private for their own use, or share them with other anglers within the UFindFish community. That’s pretty standard these days, and a core feature of all these apps and UFindFish database appears to be growing a little slower than others, due to the high price and the mixed reviews in The App Store.

UFindFish was made to showcase fishing celebrities; it was developed by Canadian Sportfishing Productions Inc and hit the market in early 2011 with obvious good connections in the fishing tackle and equipment marketplace. Italo Labignan is probably Canada’s second most popular fishing icon behind Bob Izume.

Italo Labignan is a founder and partner of Canadian Sportfishing Productions Inc. and host of the Canadian Sportfishing show. Italo maintains a leadership role in the company, which is expanding and part of the growing media empire is the digital offering of the UFINDFISH Mobile Fishing App.

In what must be a complex arrangement within this organization, the makers of this app have wrangled a dozen or more additional fishing personalities from across North America to champion the existence of UFindFish with links to the software download page from their blogs and fishing charter websites, and to make themselves available in a timely fashion to answer user’s expert level questions.

CHART : Fish Finder Reviews – Fishing Apps

Use this handy chart to easily spot the differences including prices:

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Amelia Earhart was America’s ‘Queen of the Air’, primarily because she was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Her first solo flight on May 20 1932 (she landed on May 21st in Londonderry) catapulted her to international fame.  The flight lasted fifteen hours which was five hours less than the last time she crossed, in the company of a man who did all they flying five years earlier in 1928.  Even still, after that flight she was recognized as being the first woman to cross the Atlantic in the air.

In 1932 she flew the plane herself, and four years after that in 1936, as one of the world’s foremost feminist  celebrities she announced her plans to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by air.  It was while on this adventure on behalf of women everywhere that she went missing.  Earhart and her navigator vanished without a trace on 2 July 1937 after they took off from Papua New Guinea. They were more than halfway through the mission.

Sonar Mapping is a Search for Anomalies

Nikumaroro is one of thousands of tiny desert islands between Australia and Hawaii, and is now gaining fame as the point where Amelia Earhart could quite possibly have crash landed and died seventy five years ago.

The sonar image, taken during an expedition on July 15, 2012 by a company contracted by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), depicts a narrow object, similar to the shape of an airplane wing, nearly 22 feet long lodged in the side of a steep underwater cliff off the coast of Nikumaroro Island. The island, in what is today the Republic of Kiribati which sounds like a cool place to visit and go fishing.

Sonar mapping is all about searching for anomalies. “When you are looking for man-made objects in a natural environment, it is important to look for things that are different, and this is different. It is an anomaly unlike anything else in that underwater environment,” says Richard Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR.  Gillespie and his team uploaded the images taken from the July 2012 expedition onto their online forum in March 2013 for the public to see. “It was somebody online who noticed the object and directed our attention to it,” says Gillespie.  “The object makes for the best target to check out with an underwater vehicle,” he said.

TIGHAR cannot confirm that this is a piece of Earhart’s wreckage, but the sonar image fits with what  Gillespie believes happened to Earhart.

“She landed the plane safely on a reef off Nikumaroro Island,” says Gillespie. “The wreckage washed into the ocean with the high tide and broke up in the surf. There is archaeological evidence on that island that we believe indicates that Earhart was marooned there  until her death several days later.”

New clues have surfaced on a coral atoll called Nikumaroro

There were a variety of objects collected by archaeologists at a site on the uninhabited island. At one point it was reported that  may have originally been American beauty and skin care products, all dating to the 1930s, says a new summary of research by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery or TIGHAR.

TIGHAR researchers had already suggested that a small jar, found broken in five pieces, could have contained Dr.‭ C.H. Berry’s F‬reckle Ointment. Marketed in the early 20th century, the concoction promised to make freckles fade. “This broken bottle was found partially melted in the remains of a cooking fire,” Thomas King, TIGHAR’s senior archaeologist and author of the summary article. “It may have been used in an effort to boil or distill drinking water — there is no fresh surface water on Nikumaroro except what can be caught during sporadic rain squalls,” King said.

“It’s well-documented Amelia had freckles and disliked having them,” Joe Cerniglia, the TIGHAR researcher who spotted the freckle ointment as a possible match is quoted as saying.  Cerniglia also identified two other bottles as containers of skin products. One green bottle was possibly St. Joseph’s Liniment, which had applications in first aid and as a mosquito repellent.

Other beauty products included a shattered bottle with the word “Mennen” embossed on its side in Art Deco lettering, apparently a 1930s lotion or cosmetic container of American origin, and small fragments of red material chemically identified as probable cosmetic rouge.

“Earhart is known to have carried a compact which, if it was like others of the period, would have contained rouge,” King said. “Chemical analysis on one of the metal pieces indicate the presence of carminic and alginic acids, often used in cosmetics,”

No beauty case is complete without a mirror, and indeed two small pieces of thin beveled glass that match the mirror of a known 1930s vintage American woman’s compact were found at the site.

Spectrographic analysis on another bottle revealed it likely contained Campana Italian Balm, a popular American hand lotion in the 1930s. “Traces of a substance found in the Nikumaroro fragment matched well with residue from an intact 1934 Campana Italian Balm bottle,” Cerniglia said.

In July 2012 TIGHAR fundraising allowed researchers to finally charter a specially equiped vessel from the University of Hawaii to scour the seabed around an uninhabited atoll where Earhart and her navigator may have crash-landed after losing their way. The expedition used sonar equipped robotic underwater vehicles to map the seabed but at first this initiative found no sign of any plane.

Everything changed in March of 2013 when an online visitor noticed an object in a sonar picture that the expedition had just made public. It amounts to no more than a thin golden line on a grainy image taken in 180-metre-deep water, but this particular anomaly matches surviving parts of fuselage from other Electra accidents.  Richard Gillespie believes that Amelia Earhart crash-landed on the atoll and survived for a while as a castaway after the plane was swept into the ocean by rising tides. From the edge of the island the seabed drops off sharply, reaching a depth of 7,000m in parts.

TIGHAR’s next expedition to the island of Nikumaroro, and everything it uncovers there will be captured by a film crew from Discovery Channel and aired as a documentary in August.

At FishHunter, we’re watching this story develop alongside our own real life Amelia whom we all desperately hope she doesn’t decide to circumnavigate the globe and then crash in the Pacific and die on a hot sandy beach surrounded by a wide array of expensive cosmetics.  Post by Robert Campbell on 31 May 2013

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Urban water systems are often narrower and deeper than what’s found in nature, and they run faster, but other than that they’re much the same. People still need a license to fish there.

USE NEW MAPS TO FIND FORGOTTEN FISHING HOLES

Most authors on this subject are fond of telling readers to get outside and explore their city with their own two feet, but that is terrible advice. In most cases it’s impossible. It’s definitely not recommended to try to follow an urban water course for any length, through any metropolitan center as it disappears in and out of concrete drains and culverts en route to a larger water body.

Google Maps on the other hand, has revolutionized the search for urban fishing holes because it allows enthusiasts to easily see what’s on the other side of buildings and streets without physically spelunking through drainage channels.

AUTOMOBILE DASHBOARD GPS MAPS SHOW URBAN WATER SYSTEMS

Another recent breakthrough that benefits urban fishermen is the handy GPS map displays on new cars and trucks, and how they always show detailed overlays of water systems. These are brilliant for fishermen exploring a region for the first time, following a river or stream through populated areas; the dashboard display details hidden ponds and tributaries that even locals don’t know about. And bonus, the research is done from inside a motor vehicle, so the explorer can literally drive around probing the terrain for real life access points.

Hidden rivers and water systems deep in the concrete jungle can be especially dangerous because they run fast and deep and nobody will hear you scream if you fall in at night, especially near hydro dams. But of course these same lonely water streams that nobody visits probably have the most and biggest fish, and so that dangerous solitude is what most urban fishermen seek– the harder the fishing spot is to find and access, the better it is!

One thing Google maps doesn’t show is the terrain under the surface of the water, but there’s a sonar add-on for the iPhone or Android called FishHunter for that research.

PORTABLE FISHFINDER IS PERFECT FOR URBAN FISHING

Mobile phones displaying Google Maps are essential for scouting above ground, and iphone Fishfinder with military grade sonar attachment, FishHunter connects via Bluetooth and accurately maps the underside of dark water to expose any fish hiding under the waves, right on phone’s display screen.

FishHunter™ device floats in the water and sends high resolution images back to an iPhone or Android device with speed and precision.

So this innovation is perfect for fishermen exploring waterways when they want to see under the waves to know where to cast, and what they might hope to catch. FishHunter app is stocked with all sorts of fishing information too, and profiles several common fish species, bait and habitat preferences.

DON’T OVERLOOK NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS, SHOPPING MALLS

Landscape architects like to engineer water systems around big box parking lots, retirement homes and new housing developments. Ponds are comforting for people to look at and the growing popularity of ice hockey in northern climate cities is making ponds a more frequent landscape amenity. Shopping malls, racetracks and golf courses are three more examples of big properties that have engineered water systems which are worth examining, especially during high water season.

BRING A SHORT FISHING ROD, AND A GARBAGE BAG

It’s recommended to carry a short six foot fishing rod only. Urban fishermen don’t need a long rod because they don’t need to execute long distance casts – they seek instead a simple accuracy and ease of movement. Long rods get fouled up in trees and power lines. Also exploring urban fishermen should carry a garbage bag they can hold up if anyone asks what they’re doing on the other side of the fence. “Just picking up trash” is the best answer. These enthusiasts should restrict their tackle box to a knife with a serrated edge, and an eight chamber plastic pillbook filled with hooks and lures. Eight compartments allows the sportsman enough bait variations for most fishing contingencies while still being compact enough for rapid transit in and out of secure areas.

Good luck.

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WIN an Apple iPad Mini – full prize details on FishHunter Blog.  Users must be 18yrs old. Please see the Privacy Policy for territorial exclusions., ie Contest is not valid in Quebec.

First Catch on FishHunter photo contest has been specially designed for new users to say Hello World by uploading pictures of themselves holding their first ever catch while using the FishHunter fishing app.  Their catch should be pinned to a map, and they should use the photo Description Field to share the details of that logbook entry with visitors, voters and Judges.

Tweet it out – read other tweets collected under the hashtag #FirstcatchonFishHunter. Say Hello World by entering this match.

CONTEST RULES

In keeping with FishHunter’s Photo Contest Privacy Policy,

The contest began on November 19th, 2013, and ends on February 19th, 2014.

The judging period is from February 19th, 2014 to March 3rd, 2014.

The winner will be announced on March 4th, 2014.

Voting will END at exactly 11:59 pm on February 29th,  2014 and the FishHunter Judges begins their deliberations on the Top Ten image grouping on February 29th whereupon they have four days to declare their two favourites and WHY they chose those two specific images – as much as possible, that information will be recorded on the FishHunter blog.

The WINNER is announced on March 4th, 2014 along with new photo contest challenges.

The Prize is an Apple iPad mini – the perfect portable companion to FishHunter.

The Winner’s information will be posted on the FishHunter web site homepage and in a fresh blog entry on the FishHunter blog which will be updated when we receive a picture of the winner holding their Apple iPad mini.

TIPS TO WINNING

These winning photos should NOT be filtered in anyway but rather snapped and uploaded right at the scene of the catch. You can enter as many times as you like, but only the Top Ten photos as ranked by user voting will advance to Judges.  Users can vote once per day.

First Catch on FishHunter Photo Contest lets everyone make new friends and get to know each other.  Be sure and share your #firstcatchonFishHunter photo on Facebook, Twitter to collect user votes and be vaulted into the Top Ten image grouping.

See the FishHunter’s Photo Contest Privacy Policy  for more details.

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The glasses had the disembodied bones of a human hand painted under the finish of the lenses. The app shows fish in any water body you can point to with your phone.

Uploaded on 29 Jan 2012, the ‘How To Use the FishFinder app in iphone’  video on YouTube comes up quite frequently in searches done for ‘iphone fish finder’.   It’s been viewed 100,000 times since it debuted last year.  The video is presented as the testimonial of a British consumer, a recreational fisherman who claims to have used the app to catch fish the night before.  It cannot be true.  The video was made entirely to deceive viewers into purchasing a fake three dollar app.

The narrator  never shows his face nor offers any explanation about how the phone could possible acquire the information it shows on screen, which looks like a very accurate and easy-to-read fishfinder display comparable with the most expensive units on the market. Viewers listen as he describes how, in the previous evening he used the Fishfinder iPhone app  ‘to catch a 28lb common’ as he says, and again at the end of the video he says ‘to catch a cranking 28lb specimen.’

The narrator makes no mention whatsoever of the technology at work inside the iphone – it would be indeed be a marvelous piece of machinery that could send sonar signals through the air to penetrate the water or as the narrator calls it, ‘the swim’ and identify the presence of anything therein of any size.

HOW DOES IT WORK? It doesn’t work as a fishfinder, but making the whole sonar deception is reasonably sophisticated. The app requires the user take a picture of ‘the swim’ just so it can recognize the dimensions of the water body and create the appropriate response. The app then plays the same sonar sound effect from the 1954 Hollywood movie, Jules Verne 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Eventually it will model the digital readout according to the dimension of the water body in the photo and show different size fish at various depths as you can see in the video.

Even gag products like X-Ray Glasses sold in comic books thirty years ago gave some clue as to their actual composition, and their true value proposition… Note the word ILLUSORY in the sales copy.

The description left by the developers in the Apple store does not clearly specify that this is a gag item; they write, “Fishfinder app simulates a sonar detection system which shows information on the swim you are fishing in such as depth of river/lake, contour of river/lake, size of fish in cms, distance fish are away from you in meters.   Fool your fishing mates into thinking that your iphone is able to show the fish in their swim!”  And the You Tube video is even worse – that narrator shamelessly extols the merits of the app and ends with a call to action advising viewers purchase the app.  The comments have been disabled on the YouTube video so its not possible for people to leave any warnings.

Carp Lakes has other mobile software products on the market which do seem to be altogether reputable and are getting good reviews. You would think someone would have complained about the fake Fishfinder App on their discussion forum yet there is no thread I could find on the subject.  yet their discussion forum makes no mention of the social malaise of misleading fishermen into believing this app could possible work. Playing the part of an investigative blogger, on behalf of the FishHunter blog and in the name of all reputable iPhone fishfinders, I have left this thread in the app developer’s discussion forum asking if they are troubled by the video’s deception ?

If ever anyone needed a reminder that these are still the early ‘wagons west’ days of the mobile phone apps , it would be the presence of gag apps and fraudulent testimony supporting their efficacy.  This is #ifraud.

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No matter what make or model fishfinder you have, there is a sonar transducer at work inside. Regardless of whether you have a new FishHunter fish finder that connects to an iPhone or Android device, or an old-school boat mounted unit, the bit of advanced electronics that makes the whole thing work is called a transducer.
The transducer itself is a piezoelectric crystal or nowadays more likely it’s a synthetic crystalline material that transforms electrical energy into mechanical energy (sound) and back again. Let me break it down into simple science.

You remember that Disney movie, The Dark Crystal, which had all those Muppets and… well…  This science has nothing to do with that story. But some of the best transducers are mineral crystals!
A transducer is any substance that converts one form of energy into another form of energy.

Many different types of energy can be converted by transducers into other forms of energy including electromagnetic, photovoltaic, electrical, mechanical, chemical energy, and acoustic and thermal energy, and more. Today the term transducer generally means the use of a sensor or a detector of some kind, but any system which changes energy from one form into another is considered transductive.
Transducers are found everywhere today and have been helping our society for the last hundred years. They’re widely used in all types of everyday things, including antennae, microphones, speakers and magnetic tape heads, and especially in measuring devices like hydrogen meters, pH meters, electrostatic meters, all types of audio transmitters and receivers.
Ultrasonic transducers transmit sound waves through air and these were used in early television remote controls and garage door openers. Those same ultrasonic transducers now are mounted on new luxury vehicles as echo location systems to help drivers determine the distance from the rear of a car to the concrete curb.
In the case of sonar, the transducer is usually a single mineral crystal lattice that converts electricity into high frequency sound by vibrating the crystal lattice. Another device called a hydrophone is often used to collect the return sounds, and another device measures the differences in the data which is fed to an imaging processor for display.

WHAT DO THE PIEZOELECTRIC CRYSTALS ACTUALLY DO?

Piezoelectric crystals change shape when electrified.  They will expand or contract when subjected to DC current across their lattice structure, depending on the placement of the electrical leads that apply the voltage.  USING DC CURRENT, the amount of voltage applied and the orientation of the mineral will cause the crystal lattice to expand.  When the polarity of the charge is reversed, the crystal will contract in the opposite way.  So when scientists USE AC CURRENT or alternating current it causes the crystal to expand and contract, and vibrate, rapidly. These vibrations make sound. The sound waves travel through a medium (salt water or freshwater) and bounce off whatever is hard enough to return the sound waves back to the associated ‘listening’ device.
A hydrophone is historically what was used to detect the returning sound wave and report it as another form of energy, often an electrical signal.

The Best FishFinders Have High Quality Transducers with Cultured Piezoelectric Crystals

Any anomalies in the mineral crystal lattice will cause the associated electronic device to work improperly, so lots of care is taken when growing the crystals. The science of creating these semiprecious gemstones is a well-funded field of study.  Much like Star Trek Voyager episode where the search for dilithium crystals takes the crew to strange new worlds, our own search for the best piezoelectric crystals on Earth is equally intense.
Table sugar crystals are piezoelectric.  Although relatively easy to find, in that of the 32 different crystal structures, 20 exhibit piezoelectric properties, the piezo crystals we have and can make ourselves are not very efficient.
After World War II, the Japanese discovered a new class of synthetic materials, called ferroelectrics, which exhibit piezoelectric constants many times higher than natural materials. This led to intense research to develop barium titanate and later lead zirconate titanate materials with specific properties for particular applications, including echo location devices and sonar fish finders.

HOW WOULD MACGYVER MAKE A SONAR FISHFINDER?

MacGyver would grow Rochelle Salt Crystals. It would take about 10 – 14 days, and perfect conditions, but he would grow the salt crystals from three drug store ingredients: cream of tartar, sodium carbonate (soda ash) and distilled water.  Rochelle Salt crystals are white and look like rock salt and are piezoelectric. With crystals in his hand, MacGyver would then smash apart a ‘quartz’ clock radio and use the guts to charge the rocks and send out his first PING. Then he has to build another rig to listen for the return, which might somehow feed into his iPhone or android device to make a digital readout, or any TV tube or flat screen – the writers would gloss over the six weeks of machine programming it would take to create even the most basic display, because he is MacGyver.
If you were in business making a better Fishfinder, you would probably put your scientists to work on improving the transducer and or the related audio sensors, and more specifically focus on making better piezoelectric crystals, better than  barium titanate or lead zirconate titanate crystal arrangements. In the not so distant future, such crystals will be grown in space to take advantage of low gravity environments.

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