Logging a catch
A catch is a single fish you have caught. You can log catches as you go while fishing, or enter them afterwards.
How to log a catch
- Tap the plus button (Add) in the middle of the menu bar at the bottom, and choose New catch.
- Choose the species under "Which species did you catch?".
- Fill in the fields you want.
- Tap Save catch.
Only the species is required, everything else is optional. Fill in as much or as little as you like. The more you enter, the better your statistics become over time.
The fields
The fields are in the order you usually work in: first when, then the photo while the fish is in your hands, and then the species, the place and the measurements.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Time | When the catch was made. It is at the top and is set automatically to now, but can be changed. It is the first thing you correct when you enter the catch afterwards. |
| Photo | One photo of the catch. You choose the crop yourself. The photo also decides whether the catch can be posted in the public feed. |
| Species | Which fish species it is. Tap Change species to switch. See Fish species. |
| Where did you fish? | Which water or location. See Choosing the place below. |
| Exact point | The precise spot on the map. See Exact GPS point. |
| Measurements and weight | Weight and length are together and are optional. Weight in kilos or grams (you choose the unit above the field), length in centimeters. See Limits for weight and length below. |
| Depth | How deep the fish was. Only shown when the catch is at a place in the sea, and optional. You choose meters or feet above the field. See Depth below. |
| Bait / lure | What you caught the fish on, for example Silver spoon 25 g. The field is behind the Add bait / lure button. Above the field you choose the bait type, and the baits you have used before are shown as suggestions below it, see Bait below. |
| Note | Free text about experiences, conditions or anything else you want to remember. |
Special catch in a fishing session
If you log a single fish inside a fishing session, it is called a special catch. The form is the same, but the place is always the session's and cannot be set separately. If you correct the water on the session, the special catches follow along to the new water.
The time can also be corrected on a special catch. If the time is outside the session, the form tells you and shows when the session started and ended. It is only a warning, so you can save anyway if the time is correct. If you move the session's start time, the special catches move by the same amount.
How the weight is shown
The weight is shown in grams when the fish is under a kilo and in kilos from one kilo and up. A perch of 315 grams is therefore shown as "315 g", not as "0.32 kg", while a trout of 1,250 grams is shown as "1.25 kg". This applies everywhere the fish is shown, that is in the journal, in the friends feed, on the map, in the statistics and on the board for the biggest fish, so the same fish has the same number wherever you see it.
The unit you typed the weight in has nothing to do with this. Kilos and grams in the form are just two ways of typing the same thing, and the app always saves the weight in grams.
Limits for weight and length
Each species has a ceiling for how heavy and how long the fish can be. The ceiling is set well above the Norwegian record for the species, so a fish that beats the record by a good margin goes in without any trouble. The point is to catch numbers that have been typed wrongly, before they end up in the statistics, in the species analysis and on the board for the biggest fish.
If you type a number that is too high, it says below the field what the highest value is for that species, and the catch cannot be saved until the number has been corrected. The most common typing mistake is grams written in the kilo field, and then the app asks about it: if you type 500 in the kilo field on a trout, you get "Did you mean 500 g?". The same applies to a length written in millimeters.
Depth
The depth field is below weight and length, and appears as soon as you have chosen a place in the sea. In fresh water it is not there: there, the depth is rarely something you know, while at sea it is often what separates one cast from the next.
The number can be written in meters or in feet. The selector above the field switches the unit, and the number you have already written is converted, so you do not need to do the maths yourself when the echo sounder in the boat shows feet. Whatever you write it in, the depth is shown in meters when you open the catch again.
The field is optional, and catches you have logged before stay as they were, without a depth. If you move a catch from the sea to a lake or a river, the field disappears and the depth is removed from the catch.
Bait
Above the bait field you choose what kind of bait it was: spoon, spinner, plug, jig, fly, pirk, worm and natural bait, or other. The choice is optional, and tapping the same button again turns it off. It is the field below that says which bait it was; the category says what kind. The species analysis is built on the category: it shows which bait type gives you the most of the species.
Baits you have logged before stay untouched, without a category. They can get one when you edit the catch; the app never guesses on your behalf. In the analysis they are shown as "Other", so the fish you caught on them are still counted. The breakdown itself appears once you have chosen a type on at least one catch of the species.
The bait field is behind the Add bait / lure button, so that the form stays short for those who do not record bait. If you edit a catch that already has a bait, the field is open straight away.
The Bait / lure field accepts whatever you like, but you rarely need to type anything. If you have logged bait before, the four most recently used are shown as buttons right below the field, and one tap fills in the whole name. If you start typing, the rest of your baits come up as a list you can choose from, with the number of catches on each.
The point is that the same bait should have the same name every time. If you write "Silver spoon 25 g" on one trip and "silver spoon 25g" on the next, those are two different baits in the list, and the spoon you fish with most is then split into two suggestions instead of being at the top. If you choose from the suggestions, the name stays the same by itself.
The app also groups spellings that obviously mean the same thing, whatever you have written before. Upper and lower case, double spaces, "25g" versus "25 g" and "gram" versus "g" count as one and the same bait among the suggestions. What you have written stays as you wrote it, nothing is changed in old catches.
Choosing the place
Under Where did you fish? you can link the catch to a water or a location. There are three ways to do it, and all three are visible at the same time: the search field at the top, and below it the buttons Use my location and Choose on map. If you just want to type the name of the water, start typing straight away. The place is used both in the statistics and on the map, so it is a good idea to fill it in.
For the really precise position, that is, the exact cast, you use an exact point. It is explained on a separate page.
Many waters have more than one name, and you will find them whichever one you know. This is explained under Sami and other names.
Use my location
If you tap Use my location, the app works out which lake, river or sea area you are in, and fills in the place for you. If you have already given the app access to your location, this happens by itself when the form opens.
If you enter a catch afterwards, that is, with a time more than half an hour from now, the app does not fill in the place by itself, because then it is where the phone is now and not where you were fishing. The button is then called I'm at the water now, and it finds the water without saving your location as a point. If you set the time back after the app has found the place, the place is cleared again, so that you do not end up with the lake by your house on a trip to the cabin.
If the app found the place, the nearest other places stay right below it, at most two at a time. That is often what you need: if you are standing by a stream that runs into a bigger lake, the stream is nearest, but the lake is usually where you are fishing. The lake is then there as a suggestion, and you switch with one tap. Once you have chosen, the suggestions disappear, and the place you chose stands alone. If you want to change your mind, tap Choose a different place and search for it or go to the map.
The lookup works without coverage. The lakes, rivers and sea areas are stored in the app, so it works just as well in the mountains and out on the fjord as it does at home.
Large lakes are recognized across their whole extent. If you are in the middle of Mjøsa, the app answers Mjøsa, not a small tarn on land that happens to be closer. Rivers are measured against the river channel itself where you are standing, not against one point far down the watercourse, so if you are standing on the river bank it says a few meters and not a few hundred.
If the app is not sure, it does not guess. You then get the nearest places with their distance and choose yourself, at most three at a time. The list appears right below the location button, where you just tapped, and above Choose on map. It stays within one kilometer: if nothing is shown, it is because there is nothing nearby, and you search for the place instead. The same thing happens when you are in a basin with several named waters, for example Tyrifjorden with Steinsfjorden and Holsfjorden: the app asks which of them you are on, instead of choosing the wrong one for you.
Places that lie in a river
Waterfalls, pools, rapids and outlets are separate places in the place names of Kartverket (the Norwegian Mapping Authority), but they do lie in a river. Hellefossen, Døvikfossen and Katfoss all lie in Drammenselva.
If you search for such a place, it says which river it lies in, for example "Waterfall in Drammenselva" instead of just "Freshwater". This makes it easier to see that you are at the right place, especially where the name is repeated: 133 places in the country are simply called "Fossen".
If you log a catch at Hellefossen, it counts both at Hellefossen and in Drammenselva. On the map the whole river lights up green, and if you open Drammenselva, you see everything you have caught in the river, including what was caught at the waterfalls. The same applies to sessions and observations.
If you open such a place on the map, the river is at the top of the card. Tap it to open the river.
The number of fish is added together. The number of species is not: if you catch trout at two waterfalls, you have fished one species in the river, not two.
Tributaries are kept separate. A river with its own name is a separate place, even where it flows into a bigger river.
Who can see the catch?
At the bottom of the form it says Who can see this?, with three levels. Friends lets your friends see the species, weight, photo and which water. No place shows them everything except which water you fished in. Private keeps the catch to yourself.
If you share species data, the top level is called Friends and shared species data, and below each level it says whether the catch is sent in. Only Friends sends it in. No place and Private keep the catch out, so the water is never published in the shared species data.
The catch always counts in your own statistics, whatever you choose. A catch marked Private, however, does not count in anything others can see: it is kept out of the numbers on your profile as others see it, out of the number of fish per species, and out of the longest and heaviest fish on the board. On your own profile you still see the whole journal.
TIP
If you have set an exact point and choose Friends, your friends can see the point. If you choose No place or Private, nobody else sees it. If you want to control whether your profile is visible at all, use Private profile.
Posting the catch in the public feed
Right below the visibility choice is Public feed. If you turn on Add to the public feed, the catch becomes visible to everyone who uses MinFangst, not just your friends. It is a separate choice alongside "Who can see this?", which is still only about your friends. The choice is only there when you have turned on Friends and public feed under Privacy.
Only catches with a photo can be posted. If you have not added a photo, the switch is turned off and explains why.
When the switch is on, two more choices appear: Show the place and Show weight and length. If you turn them off, the post is shown without the water or without the measurements. The photo, the species, the date and your username are always shown. The note, the bait, the time of day and the weather are never included, and the exact point is never shared in the public feed.
If the catch is marked Private and you still turn on the public feed, you get a warning: the photo and the species then become visible to everyone who uses MinFangst.
You can also post a catch you entered earlier, with the Post to the public feed button on the catch. If you want to take the post down again, tap Remove from the public feed on the catch. The post then disappears along with the hearts it has received, while the catch stays in your journal as before. See also Public feed.
Editing or deleting a catch
Open the catch from the journal (you may want to choose Catches in the row at the top) to see the details. From there you can:
- tap Edit catch to correct fields and save again.
- tap Delete catch to remove the catch for good. The species stays in your collection.
If you correct the date or the water on a catch, the weather and the water conditions are fetched again for the new day and the new place, see below.
Weather and conditions on the catch
When you save a catch, the app also saves the conditions there and then: the weather, the water temperature, the tide on the coast, and the water flow and the water level from the nearest gauging station where there is one. If you enter the catch afterwards, the weather is fetched from a weather history for the day and the hour the fish was caught, so old trips also get the right weather.
The figures are saved for everyone, but are shown on the catch with Premium. Without Premium there is a card that tells you which readings are saved on that particular catch. They are waiting for you if you unlock them later. If you have set an exact point, the conditions are fetched for where you stood.
Photos
You can attach a photo from the camera or from the gallery. The photo is saved with the catch and synced safely, so it is there even if you change phones. See Sync, backup and export.
Crop and rotate
When you have taken or chosen a photo, photo editing opens in full screen. There you decide for yourself what is included:
- Drag the photo with one finger to move it, and pinch with two fingers to zoom. You can also use the slider or the plus and minus buttons.
- Rotate the photo 90 degrees at a time with the rotate buttons. This is useful when the phone has saved the photo sideways.
- Choose the aspect ratio: Whole photo (nothing is cropped away), 4:3, 1:1 or 3:4.
- Reset puts the photo back the way it was.
Everything inside the white frame is included. Tap Save to keep the crop.
If you want to change a photo you have already added, tap Crop / rotate below the photo.
See the photo in full size
Tap the photo, on the catch or in the form, to open it in full screen. There you can pinch or double-tap to zoom in on details. Tap once, or tap the cross, to close it.