I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Brayden Jenkins for a 20-minute conversation about the ins and outs of his fishing-friendly Deep Dive app that he co-founded. Jenkins, a developer and avid angler, had a wealth of knowledge to share about the app as well as interesting plans for the future. We’ll keep this conversation confined to the present iteration of the app for now as we look at what all Deep Dive currently has to offer.
What is the Deep Dive app?
At its core, I believe the Deep Dive app is designed to shorten the learning curve for an angler that’s heading to a fishery for the first time, as well as put a wealth of knowledge in the hands of the local angler who would like to get to know their fishery even better. The tools, overlays and other features in the app truly give an angler the ability to take a deep dive into a fishery before they even get off the couch.
Important Fish Overlays
There are currently seven overlays in the app that are available in part or in whole depending on the fishery you select. The Deep Dive developers have prioritized which lakes to focus their attention on based on the overall popularity of the fisheries.
For instance, Lake Martin near where I live in Alabama is a big tournament fishing lake and a fairly well known lake on the national scene, having hosted a few pro-level events over the years. Six of the seven overlays are available on Martin, whereas three overlays are available on the two small, relatively unknown lakes nearby. But even with those three overlays, you can still learn plenty.
Each overlay has an information icon that you can click on to learn how to use the overlay as well as how the data for the overlay is collected. Visit this link to see which overlays are available for your fishery.
Overlays and Current Availability
- Best Areas (609 fisheries)
- Tournament Patterns (609 fisheries)
- Water Clarity (170 fisheries)
- Water Inflows (Every body of water)
- Streamflow (Every body of water)
- Wind Effects (Every body of water)
- Tides (Chesapeake Bay, St Johns River, Sabine River)
What is the “Best Areas” Overlay?
The Best Areas overlay is designed to give you a general idea of what sections of the lake are the most productive. And this isn’t just a shot in the dark. Deep Dive mined data from live coverage of professional fishing events to help them key in on which areas of the lake get the most bites. What’s pretty wild is that you can even use the time of day, season, depth, water temperature, lake level, and more to find the most productive sections of the lake, all within the Best Areas overlay.
I tested this out on a couple lakes near me and it’s pretty accurate. I know where several tournaments around here are won, and the Deep Dive Best Areas feature suggests some of the same areas. This feature is currently available on 609 lakes.
Bass Fishing Tournament Patterns
The Tournament Patterns overlay is also available on 609 lakes and takes the Best Areas overlay to a whole new level. If you use the Best Areas feature to select an area of the lake and then swap to the Tournament Patterns overlay, you can scroll through suggested baits for that area of the lake. Again, that info comes in large part from real life data of past tournaments fished there. You can also filter these suggestions by time of day, year, water temp, water clarity, cover, depth, and more.
I tested this out on Lake Martin, and many of the suggestions it gave throughout the lake were the exact same things I would suggest, with 30-plus years fishing the lake. That’s pretty darn impressive. What’s more though, when you click on one of the bait suggestions, the Deep Dive app gives you details on the specific gear you should use to fish the bait, as well as examples of the types of cover and structure to target. Plus, a video on how to work the bait.
Water Clarity Overlay
The Water Clarity overlay gives you a pretty good idea what areas of the lake have the most clear, stained and muddy water. You can either look at an overview of the whole lake that differentiates the water clarity using color. Or you can swap over to a filter, which isolates the same water clarity throughout the whole lake using a slider tool. There’s an additional slider tool that can be used to scroll back in time, to see what the water clarity was up to 30 days ago.
This is something pretty cool that I have not seen anyone else offer. But I would say at its current iteration this is more of a general guide when looking for water clarity information, as the most current data may be a week or two old on your fishery. Still, if you put your boat in and want to know where the clearest or muddiest water is on that day, this data will still point you in the right direction 90 percent of the time.
Water Inflows
The Water Inflows feature allows you to scan around a lake to see where water may be flowing in from ditches, creeks and rivers. There’s again a little slider tool at the bottom of the map that allows you to either see all the inflows on the lake or separate out the stronger ones.
Looking again at Lake Martin near my home, I can indeed tell you the data is reliable. As I slid the tool to the right, only the major creeks and the main river that feed into the lake were highlighted. As I slid it back to the left, more and more little drains and ditches lit up. This would be really useful on a lake like Hartwell or Smith, where bass get in drains during certain times of the year. Knowing which areas have the most inflow would almost always point you to the most defined drains in an area, helping you develop a pattern quicker.
The Streamflow Feature
The Streamflow bares some resemblance to the Water Inflows overlay. However this data is derived from NOAA’s National Water Model, then processed and pumped out by Deep Dive into a very user friendly format. There’s a legend near the bottom of the screen that has color coding for the different flow rates. Then you can use the slider tool to move backward as well as forward in time to see the past flow rates and the predicted flow rates. Lastly, you can even click on a stream flow and see the history for that exact section, as well as the forecast.
We had heavy rain two nights ago where I live. With the slider tool, I was able to go back around 60 hours before the rain came down and then scroll through the last couple days. According to the Streamflow overlay, the large creeks on the small lake below Lake Martin were calm two days ago, rolling yesterday, and slowing down today. Since I’ve fished that lake 600 times or more in my life, I can guarantee you that’s right on the money, even without going to the lake.
Wind Effects
The Wind Effects overlay is another feature that’s available for all fisheries. Using this feature, you can not only see a week-long wind forecast, but you can also see about two days worth of data from the past. The slider tool at the bottom shows you wind direction as well as miles per hour (MPH) readings. And then there’s a legend that shows you how to identify on the map where the windy areas, calm areas, and severely wind blown parts of the lake are.
Being able to forecast where the windy areas of a lake are in this much detail is a fantastic feature for the tournament angler. But being able to back track may be even more important. Oftentimes a strong wind will blow in over night and wreck an area from one day to the next. With this feature in the Deep Dive app, you don’t need to make a 20-mile run to find out.
Why Tides Matter
The Tides overlay is currently available on three popular fisheries, with plans to incorporate more on the Texas coast soon. As for now, you can find extremely helpful information if you like to fish the St Johns River, Chesapeake Bay, or the Sabine River. Using the slider tool, you can work your way backward two days and into the future a week to see where the high and low tides will be at certain times of day.
For the locals, this is helpful. For the out of towner, this is a game changer. Fishing tidal fisheries can be really difficult for anglers that aren’t used to these types of fluctuating water levels. Having a clear view of where the tides are and where they’ll be throughout the day and week is hugely beneficial when trying to level the playing field.
Bait Selector and Weather Feature
Outside of the overlays, there’s also a bait selector tool that can be used to help you determine what to fish with on your home water based on criteria like water clarity, depth, time of day, time of year, and more. You can even select an unnamed pond within the app, provide a few details on the body of water and then baits will be suggested to you for that specific pond.
There’s also a weather feature in the app tailormade with anglers in mind, offering up current readings and forecasts for rain chances, wind, and barometric pressure. There are even major and minor feeding windows listed out based on the moon phase. And sunrise and sunset times listed out for each day. All of this information is available a week out.
Final Thoughts on the Fishing App
There is a wealth of knowledge provided in this app that has somehow been compiled and filtered by the Deep Dive team and converted into digestible data for the everyday angler. I truly believe that putting all of this information in the palm of your hand will make you and me both more effective on the water. The pro version — with all of these features — is available for $19.99/month, or $79.99/year.
Based on what I was shown in just one 20-minute video call with Deep Dive co-founder Brayden Jenkins, and the subsequent half hour I’ve spent playing with the app since then, I’d say it’s worth the monthly subscription for most anglers. From bank fisherman to a Bassmaster Classic Champion, I’m confident anyone can become a better angler with the Deep Dive app.
