Get the most out of FishIntel

1. Put your zone where you fish

Pick the station whose circle covers the water you actually fish, not the one nearest your ramp. Your zone is a 50 NM circle around an offered NOAA station or named fishing ground in US waters or the Bahamas, and the report describes only what is inside that circle.

Where: Account, then Zone Settings, or + Add zone on the dashboard.

1. Check the zone list first. "Add a zone that already exists" lists every zone we report on. Joining one adds it beside the zone you have; it does not move yours. Two anglers on the same station read the same zone.
2. Or build your own. Search by station id, fishing ground or place name, or tap the map to list the nearest stations and grounds. Make sure the circle covers where you fish. If you run offshore, pick a station out where you fish.
3. Named grounds are zones too. Wilmington Canyon and East Breaks spars (Boomvang) are offered as 50 NM zones. Search Baltimore Canyon, Spencer Canyon or Lindenkohl to find Wilmington, or Hoover Diana to find Boomvang.
4. A quiet buoy is not a dead zone. If the station's own buoy is silent, setup says so and names the nearest live station when it can. You can still sign up: the report also reads satellites and forecasts.

Two zones on the paid plan. The plan includes two; extra zones are $15 a zone a month. The zone marked ACTIVE is the water your alerts are checked against and the one a report you run right now would cover. To make the other zone active, tap Switch on its card in Zone Settings; a paid reader on one zone can switch twice a calendar month, and the button greys out when those moves are spent. Rename and Delete sit on the same card for a zone you built yourself; a zone another reader also reads cannot be renamed or deleted by you.

Calibrated or drafted. The picker lists only stations whose water has a fishery model. In the Florida Keys the species bands are calibrated against a season of observed water; elsewhere they are drafted from published fisheries sources, and every report says which applies.

2. Read your report in two minutes

Read the day rating, then the three spots, then the chart ages. The two guide pages go deeper.

1. The day rating is about the boat ride, not the fishing. It reads EXCELLENT, GOOD, FAIR or POOR from the seas, wave period, wind and any marine advisory for 6 AM to 8 PM, and takes the worse of seas and wind. Any marine advisory or warning makes the day POOR. The reason line under it names the numbers that set it. A rating never tells you it is safe to go.
2. The three spots are ranked, best first. Each shows the run in nautical miles from a named landmark and its center in degrees and decimal minutes, ready for a plotter. A far spot has to be clearly better than a nearer one to outrank it. Read the reasoning and the confidence, not just the order: LOW means thin evidence, and the report says so.
3. Check how old each chart is. Dashboard charts are dated and show the newest satellite pass. Email pictures are a snapshot marked "Current as of" and do not update. Under cloud, satellite color is often a day or more old; give anything the report calls old less weight.
4. The night before, open Upcoming Days. Read tomorrow's rating and reason line, then the National Weather Service marine forecast, and hold the seas and wind against your own boat.

Go deeper: How to Read Your Report (day rating, spots, charts, species labels, a night-before checklist) and the Convergence Map guide (how to check a spot on each layer). A spot's score is 0 to 100 and says how strongly the ocean layers overlap there; its confidence is HIGH when two main layers agree and a third backs them up on fresh data, MODERATE when the evidence is thinner or a layer is stale, and LOW when one layer carries it.

3. Set alerts for the days you care about

Set a line once and FishIntel puts it at the top of your report on the days your water crosses it. Alerts are checked against your ACTIVE zone each time the report is built.

Where: Account, then Alert me when. Fill in one box and tap Add alert.

The two score alerts use the same 0 to 100 scale as the spots. Alerts are checked once, when the morning report for your active zone is built, never against Upcoming Days; a fired alert shows in a card at the top of that report on the dashboard. Any account with a zone can set them. Pair alerts with phone notifications (next section) and your phone tells you when one fires, without opening anything.

4. Take your report offshore

Install FishIntel on your phone and open your report once before you lose signal; it stays readable with no bars.

1. On your phone, open fishintel.ai/dashboard and sign in.
2. Use your browser's Install app or Add to Home Screen option. On an iPhone that is the Share button, then Add to Home Screen. The dashboard shows an "Install FishIntel on your phone" card with an Install button.
3. Open today's report while you still have signal. That saves the copy.
4. Offshore, open FishIntel from your home screen. The saved copy shows its date and updates when you reconnect.

Do not sign out on that phone. Signing out clears the saved copy.

Notifications. Tap Turn on notifications on the dashboard or in Account. They are off until you turn them on, and set per device, so turn them on for each phone. Your phone then tells you when one of your alerts fires against the morning report, or when today's read lands. On an iPhone, notifications work only from the home-screen copy, so install first, then turn them on from there.

5. Ask FishIntel on Telegram

Paid readers can ask about their own zone in plain language, up to 20 questions a day, and get answers from that zone's report, not from a general chatbot.

1. Account, then Ask FishIntel on Telegram, then Connect Telegram.
2. That opens a one-time link that expires in 15 minutes. Open it on the device where you use Telegram and tap Start; that links your chat to your account.
3. Ask away. Good first questions: "where's the bite today?", "is it worth running offshore?", "how far is the Gulf Stream edge?"

You have to connect from the FishIntel site, not from inside Telegram, because a Telegram ID on its own does not prove whose account it is. With two zones, the bot answers for your ACTIVE zone.

6. Put the spots in your plotter

Export the day's ranked spots as a GPX file and load them before you leave the dock. Export comes with the paid plan.

1. On the dashboard, go to Convergence Zones.
2. Open the Export menu and pick GPX. JSON and CSV are there too, for spreadsheets and your own tools.
3. Load the file into your plotter or chart app. Every plotter imports GPX a little differently, so follow your own unit's instructions.

Export follows the zone on your screen, so switch zones first if you read two. On a day that has only a signup report, that report is what exports.

Runs are straight lines from the landmark, not routes. Check depth and your route on your own chart. A spot in Bahamian water needs Bahamas permits, and the report marks it.

7. Use the archive

The archive keeps the last 30 days of reports for your zone, each with that day's satellite map layers.

Where: the Archive tab on the dashboard, or Report Archive in Account. Each day shows its opening lines; tap View Report for the whole thing.

Three ways to use it:

• Your best day. Open the report from the day you caught fish and note the water: the temperature, the color line, how far out the edge sat. Watch for that setup again.
• How the edges moved. Step through a week of maps to see which way a break or color line is drifting.
• Hold the rating to the day. Check what the rating said against how the ride actually went, and learn where your boat sits on the scale.

Days follow your zone's own calendar day.

8. Get the email you want

On the paid plan your morning report lands by 6 AM your time. Everything else we send is your choice.

Where: Account, then Email Preferences.

• Daily Morning Report: your paid report by email.
• Product Updates and News: new features and improvements.
• Tap Save Preferences. Changes take effect right away.
• Unsubscribe from All Emails stops everything, including the morning report, and asks you to confirm first.

Two habits that help:

• Tap through to the dashboard. The charts in the email are a snapshot. The dashboard's are dated and show the newest pass.
• Keep the report out of spam. Add reports@fishintel.ai to your contacts. There is no delivery-time setting; the report is sent as soon as it is built.

Marine advisories for your zone, Small Craft Advisory and up, appear at the top of the email and the dashboard.

9. On the free plan

A free account gets two full reports. Spend the second one on a morning you will actually fish.

• Report one is built the moment you set your zone, from the newest satellite data. You can close the tab or lock your phone; it waits on your dashboard.
• Report two is booked for any morning you choose. It is built that morning and emailed to you. Your remaining credits show under Report credits in Account. To book it: on the dashboard, the card that says "One more free report, for a morning you choose" takes a date; pick the morning and book it. Once that morning arrives the report is final and cannot be moved. Credits never expire.
• Both read the same satellite and buoy data as the paid plan. The paid plan adds a fresh report every morning by email, the AI vision pass over the satellite charts, Telegram, exports and two zones.
• The paid plan is $29 a month or $279 a year. Cancel any time from Account; you keep access to the end of the period you paid for.

10. Get help and bring a friend

Email is the way to reach us, and a real person reads it.

• Email: support@fishintel.ai, or the contact page.
• What changed: the What's New page lists everything we ship, newest first.
• Invite another captain: Account, then Invite another captain, then Copy link. Send the link to the people who fish your water.

Seasons, size limits and bag limits change. Confirm current regulations with the state or federal agency before you keep a fish. FishIntel is for information only, not for navigation or safety-of-life decisions.