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Apps like fishbrain12/7/2023 And we have to educate newcomers on the delicacy and importance of issues like fishing easements on private land, and what the proper etiquette is when you’re on the water.Īnd we need to more effectively connect anglers with resources such as fly shops, guides and conservation groups. And that directly reduces overcrowding and all of the problems that come with it.īut we also have to talk about conservation and education. Anglers who use the TroutRoutes platform can make new choices about new waters they hadn’t otherwise fished. We know that overcrowding is becoming a very real issue in many of the more popular watersheds like the South Platte in Colorado or the Driftless in the Upper Midwest. The primary purpose of TroutRoutes is to help anglers explore new waters. But that growth can be very hard on our streams. That’s great for our guides and fly shops, and that’s important. ZP: I’ve mentioned the growth over the last several years. FL: What purpose do you feel TroutRoutes serves to the fly fishing space? What role can mapping apps, in general, have in the fly fishing space? Our maps are really intended to contain every piece of mapping information a trout angler could need – all available offline as well. So no more Atlas maps in the passenger seat. We consolidate information from hundreds of different sources – government agencies, proprietary data sets, and our own on-the-ground research into one single app – TroutRoutes. We’ve spent years putting together relevant mapping layers and insights on cold water fisheries so the angler can focus on being on the water, instead of looking for it. Think of Google Maps for trout streams, with a bunch of enhanced layers to help you scout trout streams. So TroutRoutes is a multi-layered mapping tool that brings all of that information together into one easy-to-use app. Like where can I park? Where can I hike in? Where are the public and private lands? Which streams hold trout and which ones are worth driving to? All of the information we have to research and think about when we’re looking for new streams. At first, I built it for Minnesota just to see what it might look like. I was familiar with other mapping apps like Alltrails and OnX Hunt, and thought we needed something like it, but strictly for trout streams. But we needed a better tool to explore these new waters. It seemed clear to me that there was way more water than anglers, and too many of us focus on only a few well-known fisheries. Anyone who’s out there could see that the community was growing, even way before the pandemic. ZP: I’ve been fly fishing for about 15 years, and my home waters are mostly in the Driftless area of the Upper Midwest. FL: Before we get to the various issues anglers care about, tell us a little bit about yourself and TroutRoutes? Pope is an avid fly angler with home waters in the Driftless, an active TU member and on the Board of his local TU chapter in Minnesota, and has been pursuing the TroutRoutes startup project full-time for a few years now. It’s in this vein of curiosity that we reached out to Zach Pope, founder of TroutRoutes, a new mapping app that has taken over the fly fishing scene in many states, to explore his thoughts behind this new moral conundrum, and how he feels his app fairs in the conversation. However, the obvious elephant in the room is whether or not services like these are truly helpful, or harmful to the sport they aim to enhance… These mapping applications, not to be confused with “spot-sharing” apps such as fishbrain, offer anglers new methods of exploring waterways, and are presented as a solution in order to make fly-fishing increasingly accessible. Understandably, these apps such as OnX, originally designed for hunters, or newer, more fishing-focused apps such as TroutRoutes, have raised a lot of eyebrows. Apps designed for anglers to e-scout, and find new places to fish without actually having to visit a physical location to see whether or not a stream is navigable. Recently, mapping apps have come to the forefront of such conversations.
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