ROLE + YEAR
UX Writer, Researcher, and Designer | 2023

OVERVIEW
HatchDaddy is a fly fishing app that began with a slight obsession with fly fishing and fly tying. Since I’ve been a remote worker for the past three years, I’ve taken full advantage of the possibility of being anywhere I might like to be. And where I’ve liked to be is on rivers, however, since I’m relatively new to the sport, I’ve had to find public river access points and fly hatches on my own without a guide. I went about interviewing anglers, sending out surveys, and creating personas to define the usefulness of a “do it yourself” fly fishing app.

PROBLEM
It takes quite a bit of effort to understand what flies to use on different rivers in different regions. A new angler is usually overwhelmed with the amount of information, especially when it comes to tying knots and choosing flies, not to mention where you might go to find fish in the first place. With HatchDaddy, I set out to make the process a little easier by allowing a user to find river access points according to their location with all of the hatches (the flies that are hatching and flying around) according to the date.

FINDINGS
I began by searching for as many fly fishing apps as I could on the app store. It turns out, there are dozens. Most of them cost a pretty penny too so in cases where I didn’t feel like spending $35 on an app, I did what I could: downloaded screenshots and looked up reviews to understand both the language used by other anglers (“conversation mining”) and basic functionality. It turned out that there were many apps that covered location and river access points but none that I could find that offered up the hatches by date along with their imitations. So I proceeded.

To test out the usefulness, I posted surveys on fly fishing forums and asked how fellow anglers went about finding out hatch information, how they kept up with the sport when they weren’t fishing (they all tie flies), and any other key information that might provide some extra incentive to download the app and keep users coming back. One of the key findings was that many anglers love to be involved and in communication with other anglers, especially local fly shops. As I developed my concept, in addition to being able to find access points on the river, I added fly shops as an extra data point so that the app would support local businesses.

CHALLENGES
One of the great challenges of fly fishing is selecting the right fly to use. Even if you know the hatch and select the exact size and imitation, there’s still no guarantee. That’s also what makes it fun: thinking you know what you’re doing, failing, and trying again. There is rarely a feeling of mastery, which keeps you coming back.

Your best bet is walking along a river, observing nature, turning over rocks, looking at spider webs, and any other ways you might be able to see living or dead insects to see what trout might be eating. Again, there is no guarantee but if you have a general sense of what kinds of flies are out there, you’ve got a better chance.

I could see with the app that it was becoming dangerously close to information overload. I was deciding on whether or not to show both the insect that was hatching along with all of its possible imitations. The problem is that there can be many types of imitations. From the interviews and surveys I conducted, I learned from many anglers that they typically try to stay away from technology when they’re fishing. It’s a sport that’s out in nature and many anglers like to keep it that way which means, oftentimes, phones are out of sight (unless they’re taking a photo). Instead of listing every possible hatch and imitation, I chose to only show samples of imitations that would lead them in the general direction of selecting the “right” fly to minimize overwhelm. I used flyshack.com as my source, which lists every major river across the US with all of the hatches by date.

SOLUTION
The solution for the HatchDaddy fly fishing app allows an angler to find the following:

- Use a map-based interface that shows public access points, weather, and water conditions (gage height and flow rates)
- Select a river, creek, or stream (search/filter by state)
- Identify the flies that are hatching by month (i.e. mayfly, caddisfly, stonefly, terrestrial)
- Find local fly fishing shops
- View “recipes” (instructions to tie the fly)

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