Apple no Angler Watch!
- Dave LeGear
- 1 hour ago
- 7 min read
As we have discussed in other articles about Situational Awareness when it comes to Flats Fishing and being aware and/or tracking what trends are happening in real time. What may encourage those fish you just found, to move or start/stop feeding than look no further than your Apple watch or as we now call it the Angler Watch!
Many of you might already own an Apple Watch (or received one as a gift) and may not yet know how to configure it to provide you with some valuable information at a glance, enhancing your Flats Fishing experience.
Flats Nation Here to assist you in setting up your main watch screen with excellent data points, ensuring you stay informed about what's happening beneath your hull or while trip planning, even before you leave the dock!
Let's take a quick tour of the above screen configuration items, and see how all of this information can help your day and work well, as your main full time screen at the same time.
The top left item is the next Sunrise/Sunset time pending what time of the day you are viewing it of course.
Next up, right in the center/right of the top row, is the Date and Time display, and I absolutely love the size of these items!
Center of the screen is the projected weather conditions throughout the day which (of course) are always subject to change... They like Alexa and others, cannot even tell with us with relative certainly if and when it is going to rain next week so, don't even go there on other Weather Theories that (some) are trying to make money from. 🙄
The bottom row is super slick! First up, we've got the current wind direction and speed.
Next on the bottom row center is the local water temperature taken from the nearest reporting station. Of course some of these may be some distance away and like the Weather conditions, might be skewed some... And, not as accurate as your onboard GPS/Sonar unit but, makes for a great way to monitor a trend before you even launch the Skiff.
Skiff with Simrad MFD showing the current water temperature on the display. Click on the picture for more information on this configuration.
Lastly on the bottom row far right, is what the tide is doing based upon what you have configured as your local station OR the one you choose to track.
You can dive even deeper into those data sets by touching and expanding many of those same Icons.
And no need to go though each expanded screen here but, there is even more expanded data behind each one when you tap on them so, let's cover one of the top level ones.
The one I use a lot is what the tide is and going to do at a quick glance plus (now) one does not have to step off of the bow to go back and take a look at your Chartplotter screen. Besides, many of us (guilty as charged) are at the point age wise, that we would forget that trend in the time it takes to walk back to the bow and jump up on the forward casting deck! 😁
Here though is one of those expanded screen shots to see how they look, just don't forget (again, guilty as charged) to have your reading glasses hanging around your neck so you can see them!
The screen shot above shows the follow on/expanded view when you tap on the bottom right tidal indicator from the watch home screen. Much easier to see that way, and has quite a bit of information at a glance including what stage the tide is now on. How much it is going to move (drop in this case), of course high winds can effect that some (click here for more on that subject) along with timings and current moon phase. Plus, if you swipe while on that screen, you can land even more targeted information.
So, what do you need to along with some recommenced add on components you may enjoy to help get yours to work the same.
Of course, you will need an Apple Watch, and I recommend the Apple Watch Series 11, which is what I did all my testing on (others should work), and mine has the 46mm face. That size is large enough for even me to see, since as my eye doctor (God bless her) said, "The problem is, Dave, you are suffering from a case of birthdays" And even without my readers on the home screen for the time. But only due to the fact that my arm is still long enough. Maybe not next year, but so far, so good! 😁
Then download and install on your IPhone the Apple Watch application so you can update your new or present watch for your unique use case.
Here are a few example screenshots to help you along... The first thing I do is set the App View to list, which makes it much easier to know (and much less to read) what each application does in that setting.
You need to make sure you have a Tide Application installed and configured. I have two of them on my watch, and still like the Tides Pro version the best! More information on that one not only for your Apple devices, but PC as well by clicking here and at one time, they were at offering a discount for Flats Nation fans and readers.
And the recommended watch weather settings to help support this angler style configuration.
Now, back to the watch face configuration, which for me seems to work well in all levels of light contrast-wise. The beauty of the system is that you can configure it for your needs and taste color-wise!
And yes, you can have more than one watch face saved. I have two, but I have found this one above to be my standard one that is now in use most of the time.
As the online grapevine has it, you can stash away thousands of watch faces like they're going out of style. But, like any computerized device, I tend to follow the "Less is More" philosophy—because who doesn't love a speedy gadget, right? So keep that memory spacious for turbo-charged performance! Of course, your experience and mileage my vary as they say... 😄
Options to consider for your watch that you may also enjoy and find comes in handy and neither one is very expensive.
I am not a fan of the original Apple Watch band. In my opinion, it feels hot, too large, and stiff, and it doesn't offer a quick or flexible way to adjust it during the day. Therefore as seen in the second picture above, I opted for a simple nylon cloth style band with a Velcro fastening.
Next, for those like myself who can be hard on a watch display, which I think is even worse for southpaws since many of us wear them on our right arm in a right-handed world (door knobs, stair handrails) for us to bump into, I picked up and installed a slick little waterproof cover for mine to help keep it from getting beat to death. Besides, it's much less expensive and quicker to swap out an $8.00 cover than a new watch. Here is the one I found, and it took me no time to clean up the watch face and install it!
Hope this helps you with your current or new Apple Watch, and that you find this way to configure and program it just what you needed. It's shocking what you can pick up today that has tides on it compared to what we had in the past. Now you have a device that not only tracks tides but also offers a full suite of other applications to meet your every need. What an exciting time compared to past decades!
In the meantime,
We invite you to take in a few Flats Nation Podcast Episodes to help "Scratch that Fishing Itch" when working or traveling and you cannot hitch up the Skiff and go by clicking Here:
Also, if you enjoy our content like and share it and check out the "Flats Nation" Merch and Swag collection! It has some new works, from T-shirts to our newer Technical wear, which can be found Here:
Tight Lines, and God bless!
Dave and the Team
