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Gift Card

Introducing: The Fiskher gift card

Many of you have asked, and – just in time for Christmas – we’re happy to introduce the Fiskher gift card!

Share the joy of fishing with a gift card from Fiskher. Let your friends bring a professional guide on their next fishing trip, along with a set of advanced nautical charts and satellite maps. In the Fiskher app, you’ll get all this. We have gathered the experience of some of Scandinavias best fishermen and women, who tell you where to go fishing what, and how – in Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

The app is a complete fishing tool, essential for anybody with a rod in their hands, from amateurs to professional anglers. Downloaded by 340.000 since the launch in 2020.

To buy a gift card, simply download the app (for free), in AppStore or Google Play. (You’ll find it in the app menu, bottom right). Remember to register with an email adress, and choose between one year (249 NOK) or three months (149 NOK) of Fiskher premium.

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Using artificial intelligence to locate fish

Fiskher has received 4.7 million Norwegian kroner by The Research Council’s innovation pot. The money is to be used on researching how artificial intelligence can predict the movement patterns of the fish

– As a new and small start-up company, competing with more established companies all over the country, we have really had a lot of support from the start. According to entrepreneur and managing director of fiskher, Trond Are Gjone, this has given them some wonderful opportunities.

It was recently known that his company, along with 65 other companies, will be receiving funding through the Research Council’s innovation pot. 602 million has been distributed, of which 4.7 million goes to fiskher in collaboration with the research center NORCE.

Senior researcher Boyan Yuan at the Department of Technology at NORCE, together with mathematician and development manager Trond Svandal at fiskher, has in recent months carried out a preliminary project that led to an application to the Research Council. The results of the pilot project show that they are well on their way to reach their goal – to locate fish using artificial intelligence.

Combining knowledge with AI

– The 45.000 fishing grounds that are registered in the app today are all reg-istered manually. It took Asgeir Alvestad and Tommy Egra a year to regis-ter and draw them by hand. And this is only the coast of Norway. If we were to do similar work for the rest of the world, it would cost enormous amount of time and resources. What we are doing now is that we are digit-izing their knowledge. We feed the data that we have, the experience of some of the country’s very best anglers, into a computer. We are, to put it simply, making a digital copy of their heads, which can predict the fishing grounds for us, Svandal says.

By digitizing the parameters that determine where the fish moves, such as bio-top, bottom conditions, meteorological data and food supply, the com-puter can calculate where the fish stays, all year round. In practice, this means that the static fishing grounds can be replaced by dynamic fields. Meaning that from an office in southern Norway, you will be able to predict the movement patterns of fish along the coast of Chile with the same precision as in the southern archipelago.

 

– Besides locating the fish, we can contribute to good management of it. Fiskher can play a major role in this field, Yuan says.

– The societal values are enormous, especially in a sustainable perspective. It is difficult to estimate, but there are hundreds of millions of people who fish regularly worldwide. Herein lies a great economic value. But at the same time, it does come with some negative consequences, which fiskher can help reducing. This is exciting, and we are so grateful to be a research partner, and that the Research Council appreciates this work, Yuan says.

Contributing to sustainable management

– Sustainability is a key word, and we have a social responsibility. Fiskher is not meant to contribute to overfishing. What we want to do, however, is to give recreational anglers the best recommended places to fish, and at the same time contribute to good management by making it easier for them to report their catches. A lot of illegal fishing is due to the lack of information about where it is legal fish and what kinds of fish people are obligated to report, Svandal says.

Svandal is the mastermind behind the fish recognizer at fiskher, which shows you what kind of fish you have caught. Svandal and his team is working on expanding the function to also measure the size and weight of the fish.

Unique reporting tool

– If you can take a picture with your phone, press a button, and then you have reported a catch, we believe more people will do it. It will make it eas-ier on the authorities. With the funds that we have received, we will be able to develop this, Svandal says.

– Not only will this be an important tool for the authorities, but a planning tool that everyone who fish can benefit from, adds Gjone.

– Fiskher will play a very important role as an intermediary between the au-thorities and the recreational fishermen. Their work and dedication come at a favourable time, and they are working towards something no one else in the world is doing. They are also the first to turn artificial intelligence into economic value, Boyan says.

 
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Get the most out of the app

Fiskher uncovers 45.000 fishing spots. Asgeir Alvestad lets you in on how to find the rest for yourself.

– After launching the app, we have updated it with thousands of new fishing spots and are now in a total of 45.000 fields along the entire Norwegian coast, where the chances are high to catch 16 different species of fish. We get a lot of questions on how we can possibly know all of this, Asgeir Alvestad says.

The market for marine fish. Street market. Sale of fresh fish. Freshly caught fish. Fish shop

Think like a fish

The merited recreational angler explains how he and the map expert at fiskher, Tomme Egra, have discovered the fishing areas with a great deal of help from local anglers all over the country.

– Me and Tommy have both been fishing along the entire Norwegian coastline, and devoted large parts of our lives to fishing. This experience means that we know how the fish thinks, what it needs – and thus where it is, Alvestad says.

– All the species are different, with different demands regarding living conditions. They eat differently, and therefore they don’t all stay in the same place. Therefore, we look for different conditions when we look for haddock, than when we look for sea trout. This is knowledge we possess, and it makes it possible for us to locate the fish, he explains.

– We have studied the best available charts and aerial photos, and hand-drawn fishing grounds based on information about depth conditions and bottom formations. When we add this information to what we already know about the species’ food migration, spawning migration, the seasons, and other conditions, we have a good foundation for stating what kind of fish there is in the different areas. We know which species prefer shallow water, which thrive on gravel or sandy bottoms, and where they swim to find food, Asgeir says.

How to discover your own areas

Most people don’t know this much about fish, and that is why for the last ten years he has travelled across the country to give lectures about the art of locating fish.

– People are incredibly eager to learn the tricks and are always wondering how I get the fish on the hook. No matter how great of an angler you are, and what fishing gear you have, it won’t do you any good unless you know where the fish is hiding, says Asgeir.

That is why he has written 16 short articles, one for each of the fish species you will find in fiskher. In the articles he lets you in on how the fish behaves all year round, and what kind of conditions it prefers to be in.

– With this knowledge comes great opportunity. Although we have many fishing spots in our app, around 45.000, this is only a small fraction, maybe as little as ten percent of the good fishing areas along the Norwegian coastline. We have chosen the best places for you, but that does not mean that these are the only places you can catch fish. Use the information from our fields and look for similar areas elsewhere on the map. If you know one specific fish’s needs, you also know where to look for it, Asgeir says.

Sunset over the islands of Halong Bay in northern Vietnam.
Fishing

Combining old with new

– Our grandfathers did the same, when they researched the terrain and pointed out where the big cod was swimming. This knowledge is about to be lost and has already been lost for many of us. Tommy and I are happy to share our knowledge with others. Today we have tools that makes it possible for us to study the terrain below water in the same way as above water. With fiskher we have had the opportunity to pass on this knowledge, Asgeir says.

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The app that locates the fish – and recognizes it for you

Did you hear about the new app everyone is talking about?

Fiskher makes it easy to become a better angler.

Have you ever experienced the excitement of the fishing rod pulling, you reel in a big fish – but then you’re not quite sure what kind of fish you caught?

The more experienced and skilled you feel, the more fun it gets. And even more fun when you know what kind of fish you actually caught, a smiling Jeanett Brudeseth Bersås says.

Fish recognition

Jeanett herself can tell the different species apart even before she has them reeled in. But then again, she is more experienced than most people. If it were up to her, the recreational angler from Odda would be fishing every single day.

This summer she is testing a new tool in the pursuit of fish. She has been working on quality assuring the new app, fiskher, which has already been downloaded more than 135.000 times.

– The app is amazing. It makes the fishing trip even more fun, even for me, a complete fishing nerd. Not only does the app show you where to fish for what and how to do it, but it also recognizes what type of fish you caught. Just look, Jeanett says, and snaps a photo of the fish she just caught.

– It’s pollack. The app is 99 percent sure it is pollack, and I am even more sure. Besides, it was caught at a spot where there is a lot of pollacks, Jeanett tells.

 

Locates the fish for you

With a spot for pollack, she means that it is an area where pollack is typically found. The app has a map with 45.000 great areas for fishing along the entire Norwegian coastline.

– Fiskher is developed by some of the country’s most experienced anglers. Using advanced maps and knowledge about topography and the fish’s biotopes, they have managed to map out the best chances for the users off the app to catch fish. In the app they have revealed the hidden gems for a total of 16 different fish species, from Lindesnes in the south, to Honningsvåg in the north. Not only do they know where to catch the fish, they also know how to catch the fish, she says.

– The app also includes tips on everything from technique to fishing gear. You can read about the different species and watch videos on how to catch the fish you want. You can log your catches, share them with your friends, and see what your friends have caught. You even get cooking tips for preparing the fish you caught. Fiskher is a unique tool, that makes you feel like you are on a fishing trip with an expert, only in the form of an app, she says.

 

A favourite amongst the users

Jeanett is not the only one who loves the app. After it launched in AppStore and Google Play in 2020, the app has been one of the most downloaded apps. The feedback from the users has been overwhelmingly positive.

– It has exceeded all expectations! We knew we had a great product, because we developed the app the same way we would have wanted someone else to develop it, but this was way beyond what we could have hoped for. Every day we get feedback from people who are using the app, telling us how much they love it. Not only are they catching more fish, but they are also telling us that they are having an overall better fishing experience. That is what matters the most to us, Asgeir Alvestad, co-founder of fiskher, says.

Being one of Norway’s most merited competitive angler, Asgeir has caught 149 different species of fish, the most ever in Norway. He is especially excited that the app works for both new and experienced anglers.

– We developed the app with everybody in mind; from the person who has not been fishing in years, but is thinking about starting again, to the parents who want to take their children fishing, but really don’t know anything about fishing. The person who is a frequent fisher, to the person who only fish once a year. And for the people like us – who cannot get enough of fishing; wanting more challenges, experience new areas to fish in, and new species to catch. Fiskher is for everyone, according to Alvestad.

The summer of 2021 the app will launch a new feature for inland fishing, and the app will also be available in Denmark and Sweden.