Fishbrain Mobile App Review
Fishbrain is your personal fishing log, map, and forecasting tool in one app. I will be reviewing the app, comparing both Basic (free) and Pro features. This is a review of only the Fishbrain app and I will not be comparing it to other fishing or angler apps on the market. As I describe the different features available in the app, I included a lot of screenshots to give you a good idea of what the app looks like for both Basic and Pro memberships. In order to accomplish this, I used 2 different Android devices; one logged in with a Pro membership and one with a Basic membership. However, you can download the Fishbrain app for Android or iPhone.
Full disclosure: Fishbrain graciously activated the Pro membership on my Basic account in order for me to give a more comprehensive review of the app and its features. I am also an affiliate of Fishbrain and I receive a portion of sales if you use my affiliate links.
Is it Fishbrain or Fish Brain?
According to Fishbrain’s official website, the brand is Fishbrain, not Fish brain or FishBrain.
Fishbrain Feature Comparison
Let’s first look at all the features and whether or not they are included in the Basic and Pro memberships. In general, the Basic membership provides an extensive list of valuable features. However, when I only had the Basic membership, I had found myself wishing I had some of the Pro membership features. Some of these features are only available with the Pro membership and some features are limited with the Basic membership. We will go over those features and limitations in each section.
Below is the current feature set for both Basic and Pro memberships as of December 27, 2020. The X indicates that the feature is available in the membership. The L indicates that the feature is available, but it is limited.
| Advertised Features | Basic | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Fishing spots ratings & reviews | X | X |
| Catch statistics | X | X |
| Weather forecast | X | X |
| Local catches | X | X |
| Exact catch positions | - | X |
| Best baits & lures | L | X |
| Ultimate fishing forecast | L | X |
| Depth map | - | X |
| Private waypoints | - | X |
| Private groups | - | X |
| Member deals & free shipping | - | X |
There are also a few features of the app that I would like to cover that are not advertised, but I think that they are very valuable and are worth mentioning and explaining.
| Other Features | Basic | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Spot Prediction (beta) | - | X |
| Gear Management | X | X |
| In-app Shop | X | X |
Fishing Spots Ratings & Reviews
The Fishbrain app features an interactive map that allows you to discover new fishing spots, see the ratings and read the reviews that other anglers have given for each location. This allows you to expore your local fishing area without physically going to those places. You may even discover fishing spots you didn’t even know existed. This can also be a huge time-saver and help you plan your next fishing trip.
I encourage you to submit your own ratings and reviews for the locations you visit. This helps build a community by providing value to others. When submitting a review, you have the opportunity to give a 1-5 star rating, give your review a title, and a max 2000 character review of the water. In addition, the Fishbrain app also asks what features are applicable to the location. This is answered with a simple tap on the checkmark (yes), the question mark (unsure), or the red X (no).
Catch Statistics
After catching a fish in a fishing spot you discovered using the interactive map, you have the opportunity to log that catch and share it with others.
Fishbrain Catch Log Details
For each fish that is logged, you can fill in all of the following details.
- a selfie of you and your lunker, including taking a photo from within the app or selecting an existing photo
- exact catch location (we’ll go into detail below)
- the size and weight of the fish
- the gear that was used to land it
- the fishing method used (e.g. casting, bottom fishing, fly fishing, etc.)
- whether it was catch and release
- date and time (which is captured automatically, but can be changed if you are logging at a later time)
- location privacy
- public
- competitive, where you share the water, but not the exact location
- private, where you do not share any details about the location
- the fishing water where the fish was caught
Species Recognition
After taking or selecting a photo, the app runs the image through a species recognition engine and automatically selects the most likely species for you. This can save you some more time, so that you can get back to landing the next one.
Aggregated Catch Data
The Fishbrain app takes these details that you and other anglers have logged and aggregates the data in several different ways. The data is aggregated per water and species, per water and bait, and of course you have a view of all of your own catches. Some of the details are limited on the Basic membership. These agregated statistics include:
- Species and the count of catches logged
- Top baits used on that water
- Forecast of BiteTime™
- Leaderboard per species
Weather Forecast
Another unique feature of the Fishbrain app is the weather forecast. For convenience, you can get the weather forecast right from the interactive map or while you are viewing a specific water. The current weather details include current temperature, wind speed and direction, and wave height. The weather forecast can be viewed by the hour and provides temperature and cloud coverage, precipitation, wind speed and direction, air pressure, tides, and sun and moon phases.
Local Catches
Another feature of the interactive map is the ability to search by species or month of the catch. This allows you to hone in on the types of fishing spots you are looking for, based on the types of fish you are targetting and the time of year you will be fishing. This can be a huge time-saver, since you don’t want to waste time targetting a specific species in a fishing spot that doesn’t even hold the species you are targetting.
Social Feed
The Fishbrain app also has a customizable feed of posts from other anglers. Your personal feed consists of catches from other anglers you follow, species you follow, fishing spots you follow, and many other criteria. You can like, comment, or share any post from your feed. Tip: If you’re scrolling through your feed and you see a post or an image that you like, you can just double-tap the image.
Your feed also suggests other accounts to follow, based on your preferences and current anglers you follow.
Recent Catches for a Location
Each water also has its own feed that allows you to browse all catches recorded on that specific water. This helps you discover what had been biting recently and what species you should target. It also allows you to discover other anglers that have caught fish on your local water and helps build a community and connect with other local anglers.
Exact Catch Positions
With the Pro membership using the interactive map, you will be able to see the exact position on the map where others have caught their fish. This can be very helpful in determining fishing spot predictions. In addition to seeing the exact location, you can also click on the map marker to see the details of the logged catch. The exact positions are indicated by the green markers.
Best Baits & Lures
From the individual water view, the Fishbrain app shows you the best baits and lures for each species, including a count of the number of times a bait was recorded. The baits are recorded over time from the logged catches from you and other anglers. This feature is available for both Pro and Basic members, but it is limited to the top 1 species for the Basic membership.
Ultimate Fishing Forecast
Another Fishbrain app feature is the ultimate fishing forecast called BiteTime™. The BiteTime™ feature shows you the best times of the day to catch fish. When you are in the interactive map, there is a button for BiteTime™ on the top of the map. This will show you the best bite times in the area shown in your map. If you are in a specific water, BiteTime™ shows at the bottom of the the Forecast tab.
As you might have guessed, BiteTime™ shows you a breakdown by hour of all of the species in the area or the water. This feature shows all species for Pro members, but for Basic members, it only shows you the top 1 species.
-for-Summit-Lake-area_Pro-membership.webp "BiteTime™ for Map Area (Pro membership)")
-for-Summit-Lake-area_Basic-membership.webp "BiteTime™ for Map Area (Basic membership)")
Depth Map
Another feature that is exclusive to the Fishbrain Pro membership is the depth contours in the interactive map. The depth contours in Fishbrain are provided by C-MAP® Genesis Social Maps and are crowdsourced from local fishing and boating communities. This feature can be enabled or disabled in the map layers (the icon in the top-right of the interactive map). It can be extremely helpful if you have some kind of watercraft. This feature is not available at all with the Basic membership.
Private Waypoints
The Fishbrain Pro membership also activates the private waypoints feature. This feature allows you to create custom markers on the map that are saved to your account. You can choose from lots of symbols to mark your waypoint. You can also name your waypoint, add a note, and upload an image to your waypoint. The uploaded image would help you identify the spot again in the future by capturing any unique structure or tree.
Private Groups
The Fishbrain app has the ability to create and join public groups. However, the Pro membership enables you to create private groups with your friends and fishing buddies. Private groups can only be found and joined by other Pro members. Whereas public groups can be joined by anyone in the Fishbrain community.
When creating a group, regardless of your membership type, you can upload an image for the group, the group name, and optional description, location, and topics.
Member Deals & Free Shipping
One last benefit of the Pro membership is that you get exclusive offers from the shop and you always get free shipping on all purchases.
There are also a few features that are not called out on Fishbrain’s website. I would like to highlight those features as well, since I find them very useful.
Spot Prediction
As of the writing of this article (December 27, 2020), this feature is in Beta and is only available to Pro members. This feature highlights spots that might be good for fishing. This feature is also only available in certain states—21 to be exact. Enabling this feature shows a pink heatmap overlay on the interactive map. The darker the pink, the more prominant the prediction. However, this feature is in Beta and may or may not be reliable.
Gear Management
Selecting gear is really a sub-feature of logging a catch. However, you can manage your gear in the app without actually recording any catches. Currently, there are 9 main types of gear that you can manage in the app—from baits & lures, to rods & reels, to terminal tackle. When recording a catch, you can record any and all gear that you have in your gear management, so you can get as specific as you want. If you are really into analyzing your catches to see what works and how to replicate the conditions and the gear you used, this is really good data to capture.
Inside the gear management feature, you can also write and read reviews for any type of gear. Gear management also makes it easy to add variations to the same type of gear, like color and weight.
In-app Shop
The Fishbrain shop is also available directly from within the app. If you’re scrolling through your feed and see posts with logged gear or someone wearing Fishbrain apparel, you can tap the Shop icon at the bottom of the app and find the product you are looking for. As a bonus (mentioned earlier) if you’re a Pro member, you receive discounts on items you purchase from the shop.
Pricing
You didn’t think that I would provide all of this information about the Fishbrain app and not give you the prices, would you?
First, it’s worth mentioning that the Fishbrain Pro membership has a 14-day trial. So, you can try all the Pro features before committing to a membership. The Pro membership currently has 3 subscription options. You get the same features with all 3. You just get a better discount the longer you commit to.
| Months | $ per Month | Total | Billed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | $6.25 / month | $74.99 | annually |
| 3 | $8.33 / month | $24.99 | quarterly |
| 1 | $9.99 / month | $9.99 | monthly |
Conclusion
All in all, I think that Fishbrain is an amazing app. It has a lot of features that I never would look for in a fishing app and it also has features I would have even thought of. If you are looking for a fishing app that allows you to discover fishing spots, record your catches and gear, and also allows you to interact with other anglers, this is the app for you. So, go ahead and download the Fishbrain app and check out the great features yourself.