How a fish becomes a leaderboard entry
Fishing tournaments have always had one hard problem: proving what somebody caught. Fish Masters Live solves it with the device already in your pocket, in about fifteen seconds, without the fish leaving the water for long.
Lay it flat
Put the fish on the ground, a dock, a mat or the boat deck — wet, and as flat as you can get it. Mouth closed, tail squared.
Point and capture
Hold the phone square above the fish. The app finds the plane the fish is lying on and reads the length off the scene. Capture unlocks when the measurement is stable.
Confirm and enter
Adjust the box if you need to, confirm the species from the ranked candidates, then choose which of your active tournaments the catch counts toward.
Release and watch
Fish goes back in the water. Your entry hits the manifest, the standings recalculate, and everyone in the tournament sees it.
Measurement that comes from the scene, not from you
The most important design decision in the app is that the angler never types in a number. On LiDAR-equipped iPhones, ARKit detects the horizontal plane the fish is lying on and measures against it in real time. Capture stays locked until all four hit-test points sit on the same plane within about 1.5 centimetres — so a fish photographed at an angle, or half on a cooler lid, will not produce a number at all.
Once you capture, you can drag the corners of the box to correct the fish extent — pull the tail lobes together, tighten to a closed jaw — before anything gets submitted.
- Total length in inches, plus girth height
- Estimated weight from species, length and body condition
- Flashlight toggle for low-light and after-dark fishing
- A duplicate warning if a nearly identical fish was logged in the last 90 seconds
Species identification that runs on your phone
A YOLO object-detection model ships inside the app and runs entirely on-device. It looks at the capture and returns up to five ranked species candidates with confidence scores — no upload, no server round-trip, no cell signal required.
This matters for two reasons. It works on a river you cannot get a bar of service on, and it means a species claim is backed by something other than the angler's word.
- 25 species recognized on-device
- Ranked candidates so close calls are yours to settle
- Full species library for manual override
- Custom species entry, plus a form to request new ones
What actually keeps it honest
Automatic measurement and automatic species detection get you most of the way. The last stretch is social and human, and it is deliberately built in:
- Every submission is public within its tournament. Other anglers see your photo, your length, your species and your timestamp. Nothing is hidden behind an aggregate score.
- Anyone can report a submission for a bad measurement, a wrong species, inappropriate content or a fake fish.
- Moderators can act. A reviewer can adjust a measurement box, release a submission from scoring, or disqualify it outright. A disqualified entry gets a visible badge in the tournament and the angler is notified.
- Adjusted entries lock. Once a moderator has confirmed a measurement, the angler cannot edit it further.
- The audit trail is append-only. Moderation actions are recorded and never deleted.
None of this makes cheating impossible — nothing does. It makes it obvious, and it makes it worth someone's while to say so.
Offline, and then online
Good fishing tends to happen where the signal is bad. If you log a catch with no connection, everything — image, measurement, species, tournament selections, GPS location — is saved locally as a pending submission. A background worker keeps retrying the upload even after you close the app, and you get a notification when it lands.
What gets stored with every catch
| Captured | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Length and girth height | Tournament scoring and species records |
| Species | Which boards the catch counts toward |
| Photo | Verification, the public feed, and your log |
| GPS coordinates and address | Boundary checks for custom tournaments, and your personal map |
| Weather at the time of catch | Pattern-finding in your fishing log |
| Fishing details | Lure, retrieve, structure, depth, water clarity — optional |
| Estimated weight | Context alongside the official length-based score |
Some of these are Pro features. See the app for current tiers — subscriptions are sold only through the App Store.
Common questions
What if the app measures my fish wrong?
You can drag the four corners of the measurement box before you confirm the catch, so you always have the final say on the length that gets submitted. After a submission is live, other anglers in the tournament can report it, and a moderator can adjust the measurement or disqualify the entry.
What if it picks the wrong species?
The species detector returns ranked candidates rather than a single answer, so you can pick the right one from the list. If none of them match, the full species library is one tap away, and you can enter a custom name for a fish the app does not yet recognize.
Does the app work without cell service?
Yes. Species detection runs entirely on your phone, so it works with no signal at all. If you are out of service when you log a catch, the submission is saved as a draft and uploads automatically once you have a connection again — including in the background.
What happens if I catch a fish bigger than one already in my bag?
In a Weekly Bags tournament with a full bag, a bigger fish automatically culls the smallest one you already have. The culled fish is marked released rather than deleted, and culling earns you a bonus toward your XP.
Stop arguing about who caught the biggest one.
Every catch is measured from the photo and checked against the species you claimed. No weigh-ins, no honor system, no driving to a boat ramp at 4 a.m. Just fish, log, and watch the leaderboard move.
Free download. Optional subscription unlocks your full fishing log, weather data and custom tournaments — available only in the App Store.
