Improvement is a Constant Process

Do avid anglers care about improving their fishing?

Sorry for the rhetorical question, but this question is where our crazy journey began about two years ago.

Any passionate angler answers this this question with a resounding “YES!” We’re all on a lifelong quest of improvement and catching more fish.

We firmly believe you can’t improve what you can’t measure.

Since the genesis of fishing, the angler has attempted to “log” fishing activity in order to measure and improve. Even the most basic things like where we caught fish, what we caught them with, and when we caught them can translate into giant leaps forward with just a little analysis. But, frankly, even this data has always been a real pain in the butt to track and record (leatherbound logbook, clunky GPS units, or half-baked fishing apps anyone?).

So, is the the data worth the struggle to record it?

Once recorded, anglers love sharing their data with trusted friends, learning from it, competing with it etc. But, the process of capturing it? Yuck. Even the thought of pulling out a journal, reaching for a phone, or tapping around on a screen while on the water is very disruptive. In reality this just keeps us further away from being “on the water.”

ANGLR was created to solve this problem.

It turns out, it’s not an easy problem to solve.

Over the past two years we’ve learned a boat load about how anglers want to plan and analyze their fishing with data. Even more importantly we’ve learned what they want to do with it. We’ve learned anglers want to share it in very specific ways, compete with their friends, and yes–catch more fish.

We call this combination of data driven decision making and learning combined with community driven shared experience and knowledge “Fishing Intelligence.”

The First Step

August, 2016 we introduced ANGLR Tracker and ANGLR app to the sport fishing community. If you haven’t heard of Tracker, it is a rod mounted bluetooth sensor device that connects with our free fishing app. Together, they help anglers track valuable data like casting, catches, hooksets, waypoints, weather conditions, and tackle usage. The interest in what we were doing was overwhelming.

We learned that anglers do care to record, compare, and improve their fishing using data. But, we also found that anglers do not want to pull out their phone if they didn’t have to, nor do they want to fiddle with a device attached to their rod.

On a Journey of Constant Improvement

It was a step in the right direction, but we still had a ways to go.

We’ve done a lot of listening and worked tirelessly to build what savvy anglers need in order to use data to catch more fish and tell more powerful stories with less effort.

On July 12th, during ICAST 2018, we introduced something completely new: a fishing intelligence platform. This platform consists of three brand new products:

Bullseye
Completely redesigned web and mobile apps.
Community and social features.

This platform represents the only way to get all the data that anglers want, without all the hassle. It’s a whole new way to plan, analyze, and share their data in more meaningful ways.

The ANGLR Tour is born.

We believed so strongly that this new platform will change the way anglers track, measure, improve, and collaborate that we decided to put it to the test during what we’re calling the ANGLR Tour.

We connected with Jacob Jesionek and Alex Roahrig, two Ohio State University collegiate Bass anglers, fish biologists, Vloggers, adventurists, and planned an epic two month fishing trip.

Jake and Alex represent the avid angler who never wants to leave the water, who constantly want to measure and improve their skills, learn from others, and connect with other like-minded anglers. They are the humble and hungry fishing experts that we exist to support.

Come July 12th, Jake and Alex will have traveled over 10,000 miles across 35 states, caught over 50 different species, competed in the 2018 FLW college national championship on Red River, LA, and completed the trip of a lifetime in just 60 days. Here are just a few other quick stats from the tour:

255.5 hours on the water.
1070 miles traveled on the water.
36 different bodies of water.
223 total catches recorded.
833 waypoints marked.

Here’s a video from ICAST featuring Jake talking about the Bullseye and ANGLR app with a few people at our ICAST booth.

The Tour Introduces A Whole New ANGLR

The tour invited the passionate angler community to follow along and browse all the ANGLR trip summary pages for each stop. Nothing like this tour has ever been done and nothing like these summary pages have ever existed. These pages summarize all the catches, conditions, and moments of each trip, including a unique feature that let’s a user replay the entire trip on a satellite map via a interactive video fishing report. A whole new category of fishing reports has been born.

New social elements will allow for collaboration between anglers, but of course still keep everything private by default. We are serious about tools that capture the fishing experience for anglers so they have all the details for improving, competing, collaborating, and more on their smartphone, tablet, or desktop. We lay in bed thinking about fishing, so we believe having our passions accessible 24/7 is a great thing.