Your phone already logged that catch: how photo GPS works

The worst moment to log a catch is the moment you catch it. The fish is flopping, the line is tangled, the light is going, and a friend is waiting for the net. So the log waits, and by evening you remember the fish but not the spot, and not the time.

You don't have to remember either. Your phone already wrote both down.

The photo already knows where you were

Phones and cameras with GPS store the location inside the photo itself, in a block of data called the Exif header, at the moment the picture is taken. This is called geotagging.

The same header records the date and time the original image was taken. So a single photo of a fish carries three facts you would otherwise have to type: what it looks like, where it was, and when.

What FishNerd does with that photo

When you log a catch from a photo, FishNerd identifies the species from the picture and reads the spot and the time straight from the photo. You type nothing.

The catch lands on your map at the place you shot it, not where you happen to be sitting when you log it. And it gets the weather, pressure, wind, sky and moon for that hour. At sea, the tide too.

Why the time matters as much as the place

Conditions belong to a moment. The pressure when you caught the fish at dawn is not the pressure at nine at night when you finally sat down with your phone.

Because FishNerd takes the time from the photo, the conditions saved with the catch are the ones the fish actually bit in. That is what makes a season of catches worth comparing: every entry describes the real moment, however late you logged it.

On Android, you'll be asked once

Android hides the location saved in photos from apps by default. To read it, an app has to ask for a specific permission, and you have to agree. That is why FishNerd asks for access to the location in your photos.

If you say no, nothing breaks. You can still set the spot yourself with your current location, an address search or a pin on the map. You just lose the part where it happens on its own.

Make sure your camera is saving location

None of this works if location was off when you took the picture: there is nothing in the photo to read. Check that location is on for your camera before your next trip. It is a one-time setting.

The short version

• With location on, every photo stores where and when it was taken
• FishNerd reads both from the photo and identifies the species
• The catch lands on the map where you shot it, not where you logged it
• Weather, pressure, wind, sky, moon and, at sea, tide are saved for that hour
• On Android, allow FishNerd to read the location in your photos

Why we built it this way

A log only works if you keep it, and nobody keeps a log that interrupts the fishing. So FishNerd lets the fishing come first and the paperwork come later, without losing what makes the record useful.

Shoot the fish. Log it when you can. It still lands in the right place.