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App For Anglers Will Squash Any Fights Over Who Caught The Biggest Fish

  

Jeff Blood has been fishing for more than 50 years. He’s cast his line for steelhead in Lake Erie, trout in State College and mined waters as far away as Alaska, Europe, South America and Central America.

“I have lots and lots of memories,” Blood said.

He's one of more than 800,000 licensed fishermen and women in Pennsylvania, according to Angler Labs founder Nic Wilson. It’s a growing sport, Wilson said -- one he loves. And it's that passion that inspired Wilson to create a soon-to-launch data tracking app for fishing enthusiasts.

Dubbed Anglr, the app keeps a log users' trips, including how long they were out, their route on the water and where they caught fish. It also logs the size of a catch and water conditions to give consumers individualized reports.

Wilson said the initial concept sprouted from some friendly competition after a group outing.

“We actually got started fishing up on the Allegheny River, and we had the age old argument of who had the best fishing day,” Wilson said.

Blood said he likes the app because it tracks his journeys on the water.

“I wish I would’ve caught and captured every one of those memories,” Blood said. “And that’s what this app is going do, this piece of hardware.”

The smartphone app pairs with a Bluetooth device hooked onto a fishing rod. It works something like a fitness tracker or pedometer, Wilson said.

“There (are) all sorts of crazy things we can do with this accelerometer technology, and the sensors they want to bring into this and the stories we can tell,” said Pittsburgh app developer Nick Anthony. “It’s compelling.”

Anthony works at PiMios, which paired with Angler Labs to help create the app.

“We asked ourselves, ‘How can we take same concept and apply it to fishing where anglers are curious about their casting movements and how tackle works under certain conditions given weather and water conditions or with certain species of fish?’” Wilson said.

The Anglr app is scheduled for release June 21, 2016.

In this week's Tech Headlines: 

  • Social media users became victims of another security breach involving passwords. The website “LeakedSource” said it received a cache of Twitter data containing 32 million records, including passwords. Twitter officials said they're looking into it. Some Myspace and LinkedIn accounts were hacked earlier this month.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.