EP 689: Turn Your Phone Into A BOAT GPS on Steroids!

Joe Simons

Welcome to the Salt Strong podcast disrupting fishing entertainment as you know it. Prepare to laugh, prepare to get to know fishing legends in a whole new and unfiltered way. And on occasion, you might even learn a thing or two about fishing. Here's your host, Joe Simons.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

Like diamonds. How to turn your phone into a gps, like a boat GPS on steroids. Luke, got a question for you. You like, you like steroids?

Luke

Do I like steroids?

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

Yeah. The answer is yes, of course. Remember how excited we are? Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa going back and forth, Barry Bonds. It was a good old days. You use steroids in baseball. Now we got steroids in fishing, looks like. Where you going with this? We are going to talk about how to turn your phone. I'll do a picture of my lovely wife there on, on any phone. If you have a quick little app that we're going to talk about into a GPS on steroids. So, Luke, you've been playing around with this. If you guys are listening to the podcast, you probably want to go watch this one. We are going to use the desktop just because it shows better on a podcast, because this all goes on YouTube. But everything we're showing you works the exact same on your phone. It's just obviously a smaller screen. So you've been playing around with these routes and been kind of blown away. You're like, man, I'm not even using the GPS on the boat anymore that we spent a lot of money on. So talk, kind of talk about what this is, what's going on? How are you using this? I don't think a lot of. Even our insider members know they have access to this.

Luke

Yeah. And so this is a feature that we've been just building out on the app. And so I'm holding my app in my hands if you're watching and if you're, if you're on the main screen. What.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

To be clear.

Luke

What's up?

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

Need to name the app.

Luke

Oh, yeah, the Smart Fishing Spots app. This is the, the app that we, we built for inside our club members to, to help make sure that, that all members can have the. The latest and greatest technology for finding fish, for making the act of going out and catching fish as easy as possible. It includes this route system that will show, but also a really catch log. And so the reason why I, I truly do believe that that this app, I, I place more value in, in my phone right here on this app then I do my $4,000 GPS unit on the boat, because I can do this. I can, I Can use both. I can. I can visualize everything on my phone or on my computer and I can simply take pictures of my catches and, and just post them, like upload them to the app. And now I can see like this yellow line is the. Is the track that I took. And I was. I was basically I was going out trout fishing. I was just drift fishing to help members who don't have trolling motors just to show how to do it and how to make it easy. And so each of these pins is a. Is a catch. And so you can see, you know, I literally started the track leaving the boat ramp here in, in. In Tampa. And then I went a mile and then I started catching. I caught on my first 21 cast was this section. I was doing a lure contest too on a. A plug versus a paddle tail. And yeah, first 21 cast I. I caught three. Three fish and then did a couple more. But yeah, anyhow, like no GPS unit allows you to have this much data. So quickly and click, click on, click

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

on one of the first one or any of them and show like it talks about like it gives you all this information automatically. It's all private to you. No one else can see this. Saltron is not using this. I think people like oh man, Saltron is using this. No, this is a hundred percent for you. Uris only never shared. There's no one else can get access unless you personally want to go share it with someone privately. Uh, but this is all for you. And it shows when you caught it on the tide chart, obviously the exact day time. What else we have here? I guess you put some notes in there personally but shows you what all the temperature, the. The wind was doing crazy amount of information.

Luke

Yeah. And then on top of that too. So what I all I did. You have two ways to upload images like to upload your pins or they're based their waypoints. And number one is to go to the community which is our. Our public forum or sorry our private forum for. For members. And you can just make a post in there and your images will automatically get placed on the map and it'll include the description of the post. So I just made this up for members to see just to see latest and greatest intel on what lures are getting the best results this day. In particular, the plug, the skinny looper completely dominated the paddle tail, which is a surprise. But anyhow, yeah, so the other way is to go in here and upload them directly so you don't have to post in the community. You can upload them here in the, in the tool section. Either way, they're private to you. So even like when I post this in the community, only I can see the actual pins members, can just see the pictures, kind of like a, kind of looks like a Facebook feed. And, and then for, for benefit of me though is I can actually, you know, go in and have this. And over time what's really valuable is I can filter by month to see the pins. All of my catches that I've uploaded by month I can see. I can filter by tide cycle, incoming, outgoing or even slack. I can even do temperature. So what the system does, even if you go back and like if you go to your, go to your phone and import your last five years of pictures, it'll place them on the map number one from the metadata, assuming you have it turned on, like assuming you never turned it off when you got your phone. So it'll place it on the map and it'll see the date and time and then go back and check the weather and the tides for the catch and then it'll be part of, of this filter. So you can filter by wind, including like northeast wind. If you really want to get technical. You can do the wind speed right. If it's windy or not windy. Where have you historically caught the most fish? Even the barometric pressure, even the moon phase. And then we're going to be adding species also in the near future. So again it is, it is completely GPS unit on steroids because it shows so much. And here's another, another section. I went out and drifted this, this bar a couple times. Even, even sight. Fished a little bonnet head shark there too. The paddle tail ended up getting the shark.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

Heck yeah. Well, let's talk about these, these routes and tracks and stuff because I, I don't think a lot of people even know how to use them, how to turn them on. What are you doing?

Luke

Yeah, so the tracks, the routes, the routes are more for pre planning. So let's just, I'll just make one real quick. I, I do routes only really when I'm going to new areas. But like, like if I, if I knew I was going to fish this area and like I was gonna be going there and at night or something or when I, when I couldn't really see very well, I would go in and make a route just to make sure that I get myself away from the shallow zones and then I can just click it, save it and I do it on my computer because I have this nice big screen and as soon as I Hit save. It might actually take a little bit of time, but I'll see it automatically.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

It should automagically happen.

Luke

Yeah. And so, and so now, assuming you're

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

on an Apple iPhone, of course.

Luke

Yeah. So literally I just did it like, this is the live. We're not editing this. And so that route is already on my phone. Pretty sick. And so now when I'm, when I'm on the water, I can see, I can watch where I am based, you know, offspace on gps. It literally shows myself, I can see myself going along the screen and I can follow the track that I just, I could follow the route that I just made. And as far as the track, right, just on the tool section, there's a little, a little tracks icon. You can see it on the desktop too. And just turn it on. I just turn it on and forget it and just let it, let it, just let it go. And the phone will track throughout the entire trip pretty soon, like you said.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

I think it's so cool. I mean, regardless if you're in a kayak or boat, anyone who needs to know where you're going, you do all this stuff pre trip planning, like, right, you just did this route and you went. For people who are listening. Luke basically went through a little channel, looks like it's a little bit deeper, safe. Kind of went around this, you know, grass flat to make sure he's going to be a safe area. And then when you have your phone on you as you're pedaling or paddling or you know, going full blast in a boat, you can literally watch yourself on the line that you drew the day before. It is so cool. And as you catch fish, it starts planting those on the line that you're on. And I mean, it, it really is crazy. Even like, you know, captain Ryan Harrington, who is very well known, you know, that guy not only is a captain in the Tampa Bay area, but I mean, he gets paid a lot of money to go be the captain on really, really nice boats and really, really high end expensive tournaments to get him because he's just, he's that great in what he does. And he's using this app. He's like, man, I was kind of skeptical. I thought it was for more for like weekend warriors. But he's like, dude, this is like pro level stuff. He's like, I'm using this way more than I ever, ever thought I would because it, it does so much and it's, and obviously the club has a lot of stuff, but this is less than 97 a year. Assuming you use anything else in the, in the club. Because that's the cost of everything. Yeah, one payment is crazy. That's, that's nuts.

Luke

And just, I know initially with the steroids thing I thought you noticed my, my, my gym participation and I thought it was a compliment. But you weren't talking about my, my newfound muscles at all.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

I can only see above the shoulders. I couldn't tell.

Luke

Yeah, but, but as far as. Just another reason why this, this system in my opinion is so much more valuable than my much more expensive, you know, boat GPS unit is number one is I can't. Maybe there's a way to build a route like that on my GPS unit, but it's definitely not easy. Creating like marking spots as you're there is easy on the gps, but it's the same thing here. I can just tap it and I definitely, again, I definitely cannot make a route like that. And even just, even just placing pins on areas you've never been to before, like if I, if I wanted to go and hit this, hit this little unique looking little bar, I can just create a pin right there. Hit, create, do that on my computer where I can zoom in and really see stuff. And then that is going to show up on my first, I've refresh this and it'll show up on my phone so I can have it while I'm on the water. So like, and another thing too that's frustrating with boat GPS is over time the, the little card in there loses the, the memory and you basically lose your tracks. Whereas here, this track is saved to my profile and regardless if I'm on my boat or on my paddle board or I'm out weight fishing or whatever, or I'm here in my office talking about it, I can access it from my phone, my computer and it doesn't go away like unless I delete it. You know, you can't delete them. So if you don't want to see a particular track, you can go in there and delete it. But, but otherwise I just keep, I just keep them on because I can always hide them if I don't want to, if I don't want to show the, the tracks or whatever, I could just you know, turn them on, turn them off as needed. It's, it's just good to have it. And most importantly, I can use it when I'm on my boat or on a buddy's boat or, or whatever. It's not, it's not fixed to, you know, affixed to my boat like The GPS is.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

Maybe we should have said GPS in your back pocket versus steroids.

Luke

But I just.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

I know how much you love steroids.

Luke

That would have been. And then I wouldn't have been wondering what the heck's going on. I thought I was a little on podcast for a second.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

Yeah. Geez. What's going on here? So cool.

Luke

And so even. So just another. Another just. This was like a real time example. So my plan was to just get out here, catch a couple quick fish, and then go explore this zone, which I've half fished before. Like couple times. Like three years ago.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

Had you been drinking while you're doing this?

Luke

There's a lot of squiggles and yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't using trolling motors. We have a lot of members who are like at Fre Boat Club and, And just boats without trolling motors. And so I. I was just using the wind and current and so you can kind of see when the wind or when the wind kind of changed or not. Granted, right here, that was me. I was. I was about to go back through this channel again, and I only caught two fish that drift. So I was like, let me go try this side. So I went around. I went around this way. So. But anyhow. But after that, when I got to this one, I was going to keep. What I realized is that most of my action was. Was out here on the edges, so that the very tip of it was more sharks like this. That's where the bonnet head was. Most of my strikes that I missed a lot of strikes right here on the deep side. And then I missed multiple after this catch. So I realized, okay, I need to find some deeper water. And so, um, had I had time for more drifts, I would have really spent some more time in. In these deeper sections. But when I got to this spot, there was a storm building up, so I had to go. I wanted to get closer to the boat ramp. And so what I did is I went back. This is my trail back. And so I went back to the first spot just to continue building catches for that lure contest. And so I. I had my phone on me and I was. I had my track. I. I knew that I was catching my fish in this zone. So you can kind of see like the general depth that the fish were holding in. They weren't up shallow. They were on the outside edge of the grass. And knowing that I was able to get in here and then quit and then do a nice little drift to pluck off a couple more fish on that Last. The last drift and then. And then after that I had a little more time. That storm wasn't quite on me yet. So then I thought, hey, I've actually never fished this zone before. So they let me just see if there's anything there. And plucked off a couple more fish with. With one on B. And this was like a. Probably about an 18 inch or so on the, on the skinny lipper. So anyhow, really powerful like this is. We've been, we've been working on this for a while. Like, in case you tried it like three months ago, you might have had some issues. Like when your phone, your phone times out, like for you members who tried it, like if your phone like times out like it is right now, initially it was actually like losing the gps and so there'd be like a squiggly or missed time. And we made an update so that it actually has continuous, continuous tracking. Even if you lose your gps, like, even if you go outside of GPS coverage, the. The phone will, will. Will save it and log it. And as soon as you save the track and then get back into a, you know, online access, it'll. It'll upload onto your profile. So really, really cool and stupid.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

And like, what I would have done on the, I guess the other side of the bridge from where you were earlier, where you said you missed a bunch of fish, is when you got your phone there, just drop one of those waypoints like Luke did, and put a note like, hot trout spot, you know, incoming tide. Just to put a quick little note there to come back to. Because even though in the moment you remember it, let's be honest, once you've done a bunch of trips, you're like, man, where was that spot exactly? Was it over here or there? And we have some members. I mean, I know they've told me that they have thousands of these waypoints and thousands of these, you know, these pictures, these catchlog pictures they put in there. And then you can, as Luke showed that filter, start looking at your own data, right? Because this in the system we're building some stuff too, will help do it for you. But even right now, just kind of manually to say, all right, like, where am I catching all my redfish? And if you start seeing a trend that you always crush it. And the month of August, you know, incoming tide on this moon, you're like, oh, well, I should probably go fishing around that same time in area. So powerful. And like you said, unlike, you know, that nice unit we have in our boat that we share and in your boat. It's there, it's stuck, it's built in. It's not something you can just take out real quick and go put it on your friend's boat or just sit there at home and play around and do routes. You do all this stuff on your phone. You're. Right now you're. I assume you're on your laptop, your desktop, your tablet, whatever you got. It works and, and syncs up in seconds like, like Luke just showed.

Luke

So cool. Yeah, it really, it really is powerful. I mean I, I know I personally, I do a lot of paddle board fishing and I was debating like getting a unit so that I could see what I was doing like you know, a few years ago. And I'm so thankful that I didn't bother doing that because I really don't care about using them in shallow water when I'm paddle fishing. So I don't care so much about the depth beneath me. I want to be able to see like where I'm going and, and plan, you know, and be able to get back safely too. Of course. And, and yeah, it's like now that this system or that, that this feature is, is built out, it's like I said, it's, it's way better than any like actual boat GPS unit I've ever used. So literally saved multiple thousand dollars to not bother, not bother putting that on my paddle board.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

It's like having a boat GPS on creatine. Does that make you feel better? Creatine, Remember that legal version of steroids? Not legal. So anyhow.

Luke

Well, cool.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

We just wanted to share that Luke's been playing around with it and we've talked to some members like I didn't know that was there. So I mean we got to get on a podcast and do this. So go try it out. Play around with those. You know the routes beforehand and then do the tracks is when you're on the water and let us know what you think. If you have any other layers or other features that you want us to go over or maybe you're not sure how to use, let us know. We love talking about this stuff. It's what we live and breathe. We just had an all day being yesterday on some ways to make this even better and the kind of the overall just user experience to make it just super intuitive. So some new positive changes coming. We're just always refining this thing and making it better. And if you don't have access, go to saltstorm.com you can join the insider club, get unlimited access to that The Smart Fishing spots app, which is where Luke was on, you know, the tackle discounts we're doing, we just started it as we're recording this this week. The free tackle tester. That's where we send out free tackle every month to our members that want to try some new stuff. Just pay the shipping, otherwise it's all completely free, yours to keep. And, and obviously the, the coaching and education and all the other awesome, awesome things we have there and tackle discounts year round. So.

Luke

And even just seeing latest trends too, like, you know, you know me, other coaches as well as you know, we now have over 60, 000 members are posting reports in the community like every, every time we fish. So there's. I don't know how many per day are coming in now, but I feel like it's one every five minutes or so come through and, and it's just a great way like if you're not able to fish once, you know, every day or every weekend or whatever, if you have a little bit of hiatus for whatever reason, you can get in there, filter down to your region and just see the recent trends, like, see what's happening. That is. That is so much more valuable than any other intel. And it's all part of the community, which is part of the club. And there are two ways to get that app. Some people actually go to the App Store and buy it there. I recommend against that. You're going to pay the same price to join the club from the website. And when you do the website, you get a gift package, so it's the same price. And when you join from the website, you get the app for free. And it's just, it's just the best. It's the way. It's how you can get the best deal possible and, and get the same stuff.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

30, 30. So free. Free stuff. So might as well take the freebies. Yeah, cool. Well, super, super helpful there, Luke. And as you guys can see, this is not just for beginners or even beginners at all. I mean, this is pretty advanced stuff that even guys like captain Ryan Harrington are using it now. Peter Deeks using the app, someone who's got multiple world world records under his belt. So we, and we might even do a podcast on that. That was another thing that we heard just online. Someone had said, oh yeah, I haven't joined Saltron because it's just for beginners. Like, what the heck you talking about? In reality, the beginners, we talked about this in our meeting should be going to the fishing school and getting some Free education and, you know, upping their game pretty quickly just by watching 45 minutes of videos. But this is, this is, I would say, more advanced than anything else. It's certainly not just for. For beginners, really just for anyone who wants to catch more fish on a consistent basis, which I think that's everyone.

Luke

So. Yeah. And another two. I remember I saw some, some questions come in as, hey, like, when I upload my spots, can everybody else see them? Or like, are they. Are they being used for the smart spots? And the answer to both are no. So the, the default you're able to share with, like, with friends if you want to, but the default is that they're private. And all of our smart spots, so another layer that we have in here really for, for everybody, but. But particular people who are new to an area, you can get on, on this map and it'll actually highlight smarts like the actual smart spots, like area areas that are likely to have fish based on the. On that particular day. And check this out. So I just turned it on in that zone that I was fishing, right there is red. Granted, this is for right now versus a few days ago. But so, so those little zones, the smart spot zones, those, those are, have nothing to do with people's pins. These zones are all done from fishermen, like from professionals that we hired to go in and manually mark spots that, that are likely to hold fish. And then, and then they specify the season that it's best, the tide cycle that is best, the wind direction that you know that it's best and worst for on the score of 0 to 10. And what the system does is then it looks at, you know, whatever day you're going to be fishing at whatever time you select, it'll look at the tides and the weather. And then the, the guides, you know, that's not the guide, not the, the. The users, you know, data on that particular spot and they'll rank it. Right. So if it's good, it'll be colored red. Yellows, I guess. Red's great, red's good and purple's fair. But. But yeah, very, very helpful stuff. And, and so you know that again, your, your individual stuff is private and it's not used for those, those smart spots. Just wanted to clarify that in case you're on the fence on, on using it. Because it's helpful. It is, it is extremely helpful having having your own pins and waypoints in there. It just makes the actual active fishing so much easier.

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

That is it. All right, guys, we'll go check it out. It's all inside of the app, in the desktop and the tablet version. All of it. There's and stay tuned. In the next episode, we'll talk a little bit more about some other things that we hear online and questions people have. So we'll keep these up. So if you have anything, let us know in the comments down below. We'd love to hear from you. Otherwise, talk to you on the next episode. Peace Sleep.

Guest or Narrator (Possibly a tribute to a family member or mentor)

Find us on the water if there was a way it's been said my papa he wrote the book on catching big reds and 20 pound sh. I wish I knew all the things he knew today

Host/Co-host (Possibly Joe Simons or another Salt Strong team member)

for he's the reason

Guest or Narrator (Possibly a tribute to a family member or mentor)

why we are this way and he put fish in our souls Stay.