Why I Built TidalMap
From Navionics to Weather Underground, Windy, OnX, tide apps, and Rutgers SST images — I've always been frustrated that I have to go to so many different places to get the information I want to plan a day of fishing. It isn't the kind of frustration that would stop me from going, but it's a nagging annoyance that hangs in the air.
Since much of my professional career has been about understanding data and visualizing information in a way that makes intuitive decisions easier, I figured it was time to build the app I needed for my weekends. Many nights of burning the midnight oil, a lot of tokens — whatever those are — and a lot of arguing with a black screen that looks like Ghostwriter later, I think there's something useful here. At least it's useful to me, and it was a good learning experience.
One of the challenges I set out to address: the tide isn't the same in every location at the same time — even within the same watershed. Yet every tide app I've used makes me click into each station one at a time, then hold two or three high-tide times in my head and average them to guess the tide at some spot in between. With TidalMap you can see the current tide at multiple locations at once, without clicking.
There's another thing hiding in plain sight: real water levels are often very different from the predictions. Only a handful of tide stations have real-time readouts — but with that little bit of calibration, you can really put together why the fish were, or weren't, there that day. It's all about the water.
Wind, weather, water, and satellite images make for the cocktail of a great day on the water. I hope you find the app useful — and if there's data you want, or a different way you'd like to see it, I'd love your feedback.
Drop me a line on the Contact page!
—Greg Barnes