This whole AI thing is a little much for many of us, especially anglers who fish to unplug, not to get more “screen time.” That said, it’s also basically unavoidable. And today, that even means on our boats and when we go fishing. Wait a sec – could that actually be a good thing? It’s debatable. We can look at something like tech in kayaks and it’s obvious how much it’s helped turn simple paddling shells into advanced fish-slaying machines. So we have to guess that it may prove useful in certain cases.
- AI in Navigation – This may be the venue in which AI becomes accepted as an additional safety feature. Furuno has been pioneering its use in TZtouch XL units in the form of what they call Risk Visualizer and AI Avoidance Route. In a nutshell, the silicon brain inside of the MFD watches what’s going on around the boat using radar and bathymetric intel. If it “sees” another boat cruising along, it can “watch” it, recalculate the course your own boat is running on, reconsider the courseline you’re currently on if there’s a collision hazard, and emphasize or deemphasize the other vessel on the chartplotter accordingly.
- AI in Finding Fish – There are already apps which use AI to consider variables like weather, moon phase, and tide to predict the best times to fish and the lures most likely to be effective at specific times and places. The most interesting ones, however, are still under development. Conceptually they combine physical geography seen via your phone’s camera with known bathymetry. So you can basically take a picture of a cove or shoreline, and AI will be able to spot the hotspots. Let’s say there are three deadfall trees within view, for example. The AI knows that trees A and B are laying on flat bottom but tree C is laying across a drop-off at an underwater point, so it highlights tree C as having the most potential.
- AI in Fishing Lures – While lures developed with AI haven’t yet hit the tackle shop shelves, they’re coming. Generative AI can look at just about all the lures ever made, figure out which have been most popular, and come up with new creations that incorporate all of their key characteristics. Like most lures these may turn out to catch more fishermen than fish – time will tell – but expect to see AI-designed lures hitting the market very, very soon.