I'm about to open a can of worms here and I'm sure there will be much heated debate. Some will dismiss it outright, and some will embrace it or at least give it a try. This morning, I entered this simple prompt in an AI system:

 

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Provide GPS coordinates for the best bass fishing spots on Lake Tobesofkee for this Saturday. Take into account seasonality, water clarity, wind, and weather forecasted for that date.

 

Below is how the AI system responded. I was a bit blown away as I saw it gathering data and then providing the output. In the response below, I did not include the hourly weather forecast that it provided.

 

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Here’s a dialed-in game plan for Saturday, August 23, 2025 on Lake Tobesofkee—built around the forecast (cloudy with scattered storms midday, hot), typical stained 2–3 ft clarity, and late-summer patterns (high water temps). Expect light NE wind ~5–10 mph; prioritize shores and points that get wind in the face.

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Best late-summer bass targets (GPS included)

Hit these at first light and again late evening; slide deeper/near shade by late morning. All are proven structure and fish-holding areas; I’ve converted the original waypoints to decimal.

1. Moseley Dixon (bridge #1) riprap & nearby blowdowns – classic summer current/rock + shade
   32.830867, -83.769583. Crank the riprap early; then pitch a 3/8–1/2 oz jig or Texas worm to wood.

2. Steep apartment bank & outside point (ditch intersects channel) – bait funnels with depth nearby
   32.826450, -83.766583. Parallel crank/medium diver, then Carolina-rig a green-pumpkin worm along the ditch edge. 

3. Defined mid-lake point w/ overhanging bushes/grass – shade + grass + quick access to deep water
   32.825933, -83.769383. Walkers/buzzbaits at gray light; then shaky head along the brush in 8–15 ft. 

4. Dam—east clay point & ramp – hard bottom, drains, occasional current
   32.820333, -83.768683. Lipless or squarebill across the clay; drag a C-rig down the ditches when sun’s up. 

5. Big round point below north swimming area (flat/underwater island) – roaming feeders
   32.824000, -83.778650. Fan-cast small cranks over the flat early; back off to a deep crank/Carolina-rig later. 

6. Moseley Dixon (bridge #2) riprap – rock + shade; excellent with a touch of wind
   32.831050, -83.783433. Cover both sides; if bites concentrate, switch to a crank that runs that exact depth. 

7. Arrowhead Park—stumpy ledge bank – textbook summer stump line (shallow to deep)
   32.822533, -83.804733. Burn a squarebill by visible stumps; then slow-roll a football jig over deeper ones. 

8. Lower Thomaston Rd bridge riprap – staging fish, all day potential in shade
   32.834017, -83.814600. Crank pilings and ends; flip a compact jig to posts. 

9. Steep bank just above Lower Thomaston (trash collects; quick drop) – ambush wall
   32.838983, -83.813717. Run a mid-diver parallel; then probe the break with a drop-shot if it’s slick calm.

 

How to tweak for Saturday’s conditions

• Wind (NE 5–10): Focus on south and west-facing banks/points where that wind piles bait; bridges and the dam point fish best with a little chop. 

• Water clarity (~3 ft, stained): Lean on chartreuse/white or craw hues for moving baits; green pumpkin/red shad for plastics. 

• Heat & storms: Best windows are first light–9am and pre-storm/last light. If thunder approaches, get off the water.

 

Bait/rig shortlist for late August Tobesofkee

• Moving: No.5–7 shad-profile cranks, squarebills, small walking topwater/buzzbait (dawn).

• Bottom/slow: 3/8–1/2 oz jig (black/blue or GP), Carolina-rig or shaky head (GP, watermelon), drop-shot for midday suspenders.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to get out and fish this weekend to test out what AI reported, but I plan to try it in the future and provide more detailed prompts.

 

Have you ever tried consulting AI? Do you think the pros do this? If it's accurate, it could really be beneficial along with map study when you go to a new lake.

 

For what it's worth, I think that in the next few years that software like Hummingbird's SmartStrike will incorporate AI. I also think that fishfinders will employ AI for species and size identification.

 

One more thing - AI asked if I wanted to export the coordinates to a GPX file to import into my electronics.

 

No I have not tried AI for fishing, but I can't wait for the day when some AI robot is going to be handed a fishing pole and enter into tournaments and whip up on the humans!

 

I'm trying to imagine AI winning $100,000.00 and then make videos telling us humans how to fish!

 

Ironic justice? Or cruel trick to replace us humans?

 

I wish tournaments would pass rules blocking all technology. No more GPS. No more waypoints. No more sonar. No FFS.

 

Just a boat, rods and reels, and fish by the seat of our pants. That's how I do it again these days.

 

I removed my sonar years ago. Fishing is so much more enjoyable when I don't have to watch it on TV while in the boat. There is a mystery magic to slowly arriving in bass heaven on earth and having it all yourself and pure Nature without being bothered by intrusive overbearing technology making the enjoyable part non-existent to some degree. Its not fun when its work.

 

I think what you are doing with AI is interesting, but we still have to go out and trick fish into biting. Humans need to get back to being human!

That's fairly impressive, actually.

However what it does a great job at,

is reminding me just how much knowledge & experience I have.

More importantly, I know how to apply it.

Plus I can tie my own shoes.

Try that with AI.

A-Jay

F3 said it all. I second what he wrote.

 

Like F3, I'm a relative primitive. Two of my canoes are simply hulls. My third canoe does have two rod holders. I'm the engine, the GPS, and the fish finder. Most of my reels are 25 to 40 years old. When I fish, my head is up to watch the swallows and to see the grass stir as a bass twitches. As the Shakers wrote:

 

"Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come 'round right."

 

 

I doubt seriously that I will ever knowingly consult with AI. Not to sound like Randy Blauket, but I purposely keep my life, along with my fishing fairly simple. I don’t chase the latest and greatest anything. 
 

All of that said AI and the stuff it can do are amazing, just not for me. Like Henry David Thoreau said, “simplify, simplify, simplify.”

9 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

F3 said it all. I second what he wrote.

 

Like F3, I'm a relative primitive. Two of my canoes are simply hulls. My third canoe does have two rod holders. I'm the engine, the GPS, and the fish finder. Most of my reels are 25 to 40 years old. When I fish, my head is up to watch the swallows and to see the grass stir as a bass twitches.

 I get that. When I'm fishing for fun I would say that 50% of the time the only electronics I use are my maps and the depth readout on that screen.

 

But oftentimes I go to a tournament and have never seen the lake before and I get little or no practice time. I fished an event on the Kissimmee chain this spring (and have another one there this winter) and I have 14 or 15 lakes to choose from. Even with 3-4 days of pre-fishing and map study it can be a shot in the dark. There's no way to cover a lot of water in a kayak, especially with that many lakes or fishing huge reservoirs.

 

If this pans out, it can help narrow down my pre-fishing locations or give me a place to start on tournament day if I can't get in town early enough to pre-fish.

As someone who uses AI a lot for work it can be a great tool or a crutch. It all depends on how you intend to use it and your actions after using it. I notice younger people at my job using it to basically do their job for them. They ask it to do a task and then they put it out of their mind. A lot of the more seasoned folks, including myself, use it as a learning tool. If we get stumped on something or try to get something (data, word doc, etc.) to be organized or written better we analyze it after its spit out of AI. We use it as a tool to help us look at things in different ways and use that experience to apply next time we have to perform that task or have that situation rather than just plug it in AI again. 

 

I was meaning to plug fishing into AI the next time I hit a lake worth using it but just havent done it yet. I can see it as a great learning and supplemental tool if its fairly accurate, especially as pre prep. For myself I'd like to think as its predictions play out true (hopefully) I can rely on it less and less and I learn to see those patterns myself. Nothing I couldnt learn on my own, just cutting the curve a lot quicker. 

 

The problem with AI is it takes data it finds from the internet anywhere it finds key words and phrases. It's like a popularity contest, the most of something written is what it will spit out even if it isnt completely correct. I've had to challenge AI on a few things I've known to be incorrect that it gave me. The good part is it's always come back with the correct answer after being challenged. 

 

Great tool, but not the end all be all. 

8 minutes ago, Functional said:

 

The problem with AI is it takes data it finds from the internet anywhere it finds key words and phrases. It's like a popularity contest, the most of something written is what it will spit out even if it isnt completely correct. I've had to challenge AI on a few things I've known to be incorrect that it gave me. The good part is it's always come back with the correct answer after being challenged. 

 

 

I think the real problem is not accuracy or inaccuracy, but when AI becomes a living being with its own mind, and we fishermen like to mess with other fishermen like when tournie guys are tearing up a lake, us locals will sometimes put some bogus lure on a rod and let them see it as we pass by.

 

AI will do the same thing.

 

So trusting AI may be a mistake the smarter it gets. It may intentionally tell you where to fish that is completely bogus. Brings us back around to depending on what we know and less reliance on AI and other technologies.

 

How far are we willing to take this I wonder? Here is the REAL problem with AI.... and for ONCE I actually agree with Neil Young on this one:

 

https://nypost.com/2025/08/17/entertainment/neil-young-ditches-facebook-over-policies-for-ai-chatbots-and-children/

 

 

I'm waiting for the day when a new, perhaps younger, BR forum member asks a bass fishing-related question. As always, there will be various responses, with each one differing slightly from the others.

A common occurrence as location and/or personal preferences kick in.

 "But AI says . . . . What should I do?" which may be contrary to any of the real-life and experience- and reality-based responses.

It's likely merely a question of time.

#hal9000

A-Jay

 

It is increasingly rare that a conversation about AI does not make me sad.

  This isn't one.

3 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

It is increasingly rare that a conversation about AI does not make me sad.

  This isn't one.

It's only been a hour...give it time. 

Fear of new technology is a common thread through the centuries.  This is no different.

 

Take a deep breath, and Let's go fishing!

It'll likely help you until you start pulling on spots loaded with other fishermen that ask AI too. I know the lake well and the info looks good.

I'm a retired computer geek and I've spent a lot of time playing around with it and using it for helpful task.  A while back I uploaded an image from a topo map and ask it where I should fish.  It made some good suggestions.  It understood what the contour lines meant and read the text that noted the location of vegetation.  It was impressive but I certainly wouldn't call it superhuman insight.  It's reasonable to think that AI can save you time doing map study like it can save you time doing so many other things.  It will only get better.  

 

I’m convinced that AI will bring about unimaginable change. That scares people—it scares me a little, too. I think it will be even bigger than the invention of the automobile. Automobiles drastically changed the way we live. They’ve probably killed more people than any other invention in history, yet you don’t hear many people say cars should be banned. I believe AI will improve our lives in ways we can’t yet imagine. The scary part, for me, is what people with bad intentions might do with it. I’m an optimist, so I’m looking forward to seeing where it takes us.

6 minutes ago, Glenn said:

Fear of new technology is a common thread through the centuries.  This is no different.

 

You are correct, Glenn, but I'm not afraid. I'm just not interested in having AI tell me where and how to fish. I enjoy deciding where to fish and what lure to use. And I trust my hunches.

 

As I've written about a depth finder and line conditioner, I'm not looking to add more steps to fishing. All my energy is already taken by managing my considerable, current gear. You should see me bumbling through the woods in the dark with my six rods, tacklebox, paddle, bear spray, camera, phone, etc., which is why I sometimes take a break and go fishing with two rods and a few extra lures in my pocket. 

@Kayak Koz  I would encourage you to dig deeper in conversation with it.  Ask what spot you should fish first.  Then ask it why it likes that spot.  Just keep digging and you'll start to sense the limits of what it knows and how it made it's recommendations.  

The thing with AI is you still need to be knowledgeable enough to know when it's wrong or it's fairly useless. Some confirmation is always nice to have but what if it told you to go fish a jerkbait in 40ft of water with 15 second pauses? You'd probably scratch your head, but that's because you already know better. 

 

The real benefit of AI is automating mundane tasks that we know how to do but would take us forever to actually do.

 

Imagine giving it a topographic map of a 30 mile lake and highlighting the areas that meet specific criteria. If you're trying to fish secondary points at certain depths it could spit you back a map in seconds with those locations highlighted for the entire lake, which might have taken you hours to do yourself. 

 

Imagine uploading the last 5 years of your tackle warehouse purchase history to AI, asking it to analyze your most frequent purchases, and then monitoring their price history and notifying you when they go on sale. 

13 minutes ago, Swamp Girl said:

 

.... but I'm not afraid. 

I am.  Not afraid of technology.  Afraid for us.  Afraid for how easily we surrender... critical thought; appreciation for human creativity; how easily we continue to put massive faith onto something which few bother to comprehend (or care about the source data/info and limitations.)  And just as few care whether there can or should be limitations... or whether controls, if necessary are even possible any more.  

  AI isn't a hammer or slide rule or data compression program.  It is truly rapidly changing the way people live, think, interact...not just making some tasks easier.    I'd rather figure 'em out on the lake this afternoon than have AI bag 20 lb. for me.

No AI for this old salt.

I don't have the Deep Dive App, but I'm pretty sure it does something similar.  It pulls data from tournaments, weather, wind, topo, etc and makes recommendations.  I don't know it's full data sources and I don't think it is spitting out GPS coordinates, but it will give you 'outside current breaks', 'south facing banks mid lake' and similar level of detail per the couple demo videos I've seen on it.

 

I can see the benefit for scouting/prefishing if you don't have a wealth of knowledge and experience to start from to narrow down the areas.  I can see if you're going to a lake you don't know and would ordinarily do some map prework, this can simplify that.  @A-Jay- you've mentioned your spring and fall methodology and types of areas that you look for for jumbo brown fish on your lakes- go do that in northern california or another place and AI could show you similar places on other lakes before you could pull up the topo makps for those lakes. 

 

Of course this is all just a starting point.  You still have to go check those areas and catch the fish that are or are not there.  And of course the model is only as good as the information it has learned from which means if you're just using internet knowledge, well we know how good that can be at times. 

I have used it. I used it this past weekend actually. It gave me three areas with gps spots and all three spots were holding fish....

There are far too many changing variables in bass fishing. I think people rely too much on Siri, Alexa, Echo, etc. to do things they would be better off doing themselves. AI is only as good as what it can get from other computer sources. Like all computers, it is what is put in. Garbage in , garbage out. I have found times where AI was dead wrong or somehow confused. After all it is in the name (Artificial) intelligence.

I will not be using it for fishing. I find the less screens in fishing the happier I am. Nature is much better than any computer screen.

I always find it funny when you see a pro's bassboat and the drivers seat looks like they are flying a 747 and most of the time they use very little of that stuff.

34 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

  @A-Jay- you've mentioned your spring and fall methodology and types of areas that you look for for jumbo brown fish on your lakes- go do that in northern california or another place and AI could show you similar places on other lakes before you could pull up the topo makps for those lakes. 

I can see where that would be "helpful."

But the bottom line when it comes to the entire fishing experience,

Using 'that type of help' would totally ruin one of the most satisfying aspects of the sport for me.

I had a 'Smart Strike Card' for a while, which is a super basic version of what we're discussing here.

I tossed it

#useless.

 A-Jay

1 hour ago, Glenn said:

Let's go fishing

That's no fun to put in an AI prompt. There's one area where a human will always be better...well, most humans anyway. 😂

AI was one of my favorite basketball players 😎