Early on, mankind relied on fishing as a means of survival. However, over the years, fishing has evolved from solely a means of survival to a sport. In addition to the reasons for fishing itself having changed, so have the methods employed. While the first fisherman may have relied on rudimentary spears, nets, or even their bare hands to capture fish, today anglers heavily rely on live bait, artificial lures, and a variety of technologies to increase the likelihood of catching a fish, and increasing the size of fish caught.
Currently, there are a variety of live bait available for use, and even a much wider array of surprisingly sophisticated fishing lures available to bolster the success of any fisherman. These lures come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. This, in part, is a result of the fact that each size, shape, and color scheme of a particular lure strongly affects the success or failure of a fisherman under particular conditions. However, the currently available technology is not configurable to have an effective appearance and produce acoustical signals to entice surrounding fish. Such acoustical signals alert fish to the lure and help the fish determine lure location.
Additionally, current technology is not capable of being programmed to mimic specific live bait species, as would be advantageous in attracting fish who eat those live bait species. Moreover, another problem with current bait and lures is the inability to generate other aquatic life sounds and/or to monitor aquatic life and report findings back to the angler. Such information may assist the angler in determining whether conditions are prime for fishing and/or what type of bait is best suitable for the present conditions.
Additional frequently used fishing tools include a scale to measure fish weight, and a ruler to measure fish length. These tools are particularly important during fishing tournaments, where limitations on either or both the fish length and fish weight may be imposed on the anglers. Should an angler disobey these regulations, whether intentional or unintentional, sanctions may range from not counting a particular fish to total disqualification of the angler from a tournament, and even to fines by local fish and wildlife protection agencies.
Currently, fish are weighed by scales which are held in the air by the angle while the fish dangles below such. However, current scales fail to perform a number of valuable actions, including obtaining a GPS position when weighing the fish. Moreover, current scales fail to indicate when such weighing is complete, thus requiring the angler to guess such while the fishing is moving while coupled to the scale which results in a constant change in the measured weight. Thus, the weight read by the angler while the fish is moving may be more or less than the actual fish weight.
Fish rulers as currently employed are typically rudimentary, such as being engraved across an igloo or cooler, and the angler must attempt to hold down the moving fish for measuring its length, and then write down the measured length by hand. Such a method is slow and introduces substantial possibility for error. Thus, it would be advantageous to have an electronic fish length measurement device which could quickly measure and automatically stores the fish length. Additionally, similar to the fish scale, a similar problem is lack of GPS knowledge and/or association of the fish length with the location from which it was caught. Knowledge and tracking of such GPS position may be vital to an angler in tracking and remembering where each catch is made, thereby indicating where optimal fishing conditions exist.
Further technology typically employed while fishing is a cull system. As known to those skilled in the art, such a system keep track of the fish onboard the boat. Such is advantageous, for example, when a large fish is caught, the smallest of the fish onboard will be culled and thrown back into fishing waters. Some current cull systems typically include a “tag” that is coupled to the fish and dials associated with each tag (possibly numbered or varying in color) which can be manually manipulated to indicate fish weight. However, such a system poses problems during night time, and may require more time to locate the desired tag. Moreover, current cull systems fail to keep track of any further information other than the fish weight.
Additionally, while each of the above technologies exist separately, there is no current system which enables communication between, and thus combination of all to give the angler an overall picture of what fishing conditions are like, what lures are working best, and what fish are currently onboard. Thus, in view of the above described limitations, a great need exists for a fishing system with increased monitoring and communication abilities.