Fishing forecast
The fishing forecast gives you a pointer to when it is worth heading out. It calculates a score from 0 to 10 for every hour, so you can quickly see which periods look most promising, and which fish are doing best.
Opening the forecast
You will find the fishing forecast under Profile → Fishing forecast. You can also get there from the map: if you have Premium and tap a lake, See full forecast appears in the card with the conditions, and the forecast opens for exactly that lake.
The three tabs
The forecast for the place you have chosen is shown in three views:
- Overview is the answer right now: the score in a ring, the best time of day, the day in three-hour blocks with a weather symbol and temperature under each block, the species at the place and the key figures at the bottom.
- Hour by hour shows every single hour through the day, with weather symbol, temperature and wind next to the score. Hours that have passed are dimmed.
- 3 days shows one card per day, with the curve, the best periods and which species does best that day.
The colors
The color says the same as the number, and it runs in one direction: red for poor conditions, through orange and yellow, to green for the best. The same scale is used everywhere the forecast says something about strength, that is the hour by hour bars, the dots per species, the numbers next to them and the ring at the top, so that a whole day can be read at a glance.
| Color | Level | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Green | Excellent | 8.0 to 10.0 |
| Light green | Good | 6.5 to 7.9 |
| Yellow | Average | 4.8 to 6.4 |
| Orange | Slow | 3.2 to 4.7 |
| Red | Poor | 0.0 to 3.1 |
The information icon next to "General fishing forecast" opens the same table in the app, together with an explanation of what the number answers.
What the score is based on
The score is calculated from the species that live in the water, not from the clock alone. For each species the species model is run, which weighs up to ten signals according to what drives that particular species: water temperature, season, time of day, light and cloud cover, solunar, wind, air pressure, moon phase, tide and water flow. Pike and burbot do not share the same daily rhythm, and the model does not treat them the same either.
The general score then weighs the best performing species together with the others, with most weight on the best one. That is deliberate: if the perch are biting in the middle of the day, the fishing is good in that lake, even if the trout are asleep. At the same time the other species hold the score back, so the whole day does not turn green just because the lake has enough species.
Because the general forecast and the species forecast now come from the same model, they can never say different things about the same lake.
TIP
Use the forecast to choose your timing, not as a guarantee. Fishing depends on many things the forecast does not know about, but it helps you hit the most active hours.
Only figures we actually have
The forecast never fills in a figure it does not have. The water temperature comes from the water temperature model, the hour by hour weather from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, the water flow and water level from the measuring station that actually stands in the water, and the sun and moon are calculated on your phone. If one of them is missing, that field is not shown.
The information button at the top right opens a sheet showing what the forecast had to work with for that particular place, and what was missing. If a source is missing, its weight is spread across the rest, so the score is always the best we know.
Choosing a place
You can search for a place to get the forecast where you plan to fish. The search field suggests your favorites and places you have been recently. Under the name you see the water type and the area, such as "River · Drammen" or "Lake · Gransherad", so you can see straight away that you have found the right water. The place where you have the most trips is marked with a flame, as long as you have been there within the last week.
Best fishing times today
The periods are picked from the curve itself: the consecutive hours where the score is actually high, never longer than five hours. They are listed in time order through the day, not by strength, so you read the day as it comes.
Fishing forecast by species
The card "Fishing forecast by species" shows the species worth fishing for at the place, with a picture of the fish, its level today and a row of dots for the day. The dots divide the day into night, morning, midday, afternoon and evening, so you can see when the species is on without reading a single word. The number on the right is the species' level for today, calculated as the average of the four best hours, which is roughly the trip people actually go on.
If you tap a row, the species opens in its own view with the full daily curve, the best time of day, and what matters most for that particular species. The advice on how to fish for the species is behind a separate button in the same view, so the curve and the figures stay at the top. Drag the sheet down to close it, or close it with the cross.
The order of the list says how sure we are that the species is there:
- Species you have caught yourself at the place come first. They come from your own journal and work without coverage.
- Species others have logged in the same water come next. They are fetched from the shared data and need a connection.
- Species documented in the water in public species data over the last twenty years come after that. They are stored in the app and work without coverage. See The map for where they come from and what is required before a species counts as documented.
- Species with older records, that is species documented in the water but not recorded there for more than twenty years, come after the recent ones. The fish community in a lake can change over that much time, so they are included, but further down.
- If nobody has logged anything there yet, and the water has never been surveyed either, the app shows the species that are likely based on the water type and where in the country the place is.
Only species that the app has its own forecast profile for can be calculated, and there are 50 such profiles spread across freshwater, river and sea. Each species has its own temperature window, its own season and its own daily rhythm. Where knowledge about a species is thin, the species view says so, and the forecast does not claim more than it knows. If you fish in saltwater, the brown trout is called sea trout and the Arctic charr sea-run charr, as elsewhere in the app.
Key factors
At the bottom are the figures that explain the day: sunrise, sunset, moon phase, air pressure, and either the water flow from the measuring station in the water or the next high and low tide on the coast. All of them are measured or calculated values for that exact place.
Alerts from the forecast
With Premium, the app can let you know the evening before when the forecast for one of your favorite places is good the next day. The message is called "Good bite window tomorrow" and tells you when the best time is. It is calculated on your phone, so it also arrives without coverage. If you tap the notification, the fishing forecast opens for the place it was about. The same happens with the alerts that the water has passed a new temperature mark, that the river is dropping or that calm weather is on the way.
You turn the alerts on and off under Settings → Alerts about conditions, and you can find earlier notifications again under Profile → Notifications.
Premium
The fishing forecast is a Premium feature. Without Premium, the page shows a real forecast for Mjøsa (Vänern when the app is in Swedish), calculated the moment you open the page. The page is the same as with Premium: the search field is at the top, the tabs below it, and below them the same cards in the same order. The search field and the tabs "Hour by hour" and "3 days" are locked and lead to the offer. The answer right now with the ring, the best time today, the weather, the air temperature, the water temperature, the wind and the key factors with sun, moon and air pressure are free to see. The day in three-hour blocks and the species in the water are shown with their own content, that is weather symbol and temperature per block and the species with picture and name, but the bite figures are removed and shown as two dots. It is the same calculation Premium gets, just for a fixed example lake instead of the water you are going to fish yourself. You can get there from the map: if you tap a lake without having Premium, "See an example forecast" appears at the bottom of the card with the conditions.
If you have Premium, the forecast also works without coverage. Sun, moon and season are calculated in the app, while weather, water temperature, tide and water flow need a connection and are taken from what was last downloaded when you are offline.