AI Fishing Assistant¶
The assistant is a chat window inside Bristol Maps. You ask a question in plain English, and it answers – and it can offer to make changes to the app for you, which never happen until you tap Confirm.
Opening it¶
Go to the Tools tab and find the AI Fishing Assistant section. The description reads “Ask about weather, regulations, app features, and more.” Tap Ask Assistant.
You need to be signed in. The section does not appear when you are signed out.
Live data, not just answers¶
The assistant does not guess at numbers. When you ask about tides, weather, openers or regulations it fetches the data itself and then answers from it:
| Ask about | Where the answer comes from |
|---|---|
| Tides – “What’s the tide doing at Naknek?”, “next low at Egegik”, “tides near me” | Live NOAA CO-OPS predictions for the station you name (or the nearest one to your position): height right now, rising or falling, the next high and low, and the next 48 hours of highs and lows |
| Weather – “marine forecast for Bristol Bay”, “wind tomorrow” | The NOAA/NWS marine zone forecast (wind, seas, Small Craft Advisories and Gale Warnings) plus an hourly and daily point forecast |
| Announcements and openers – “latest Egegik announcement”, “when is the next opener?” | The newest ADF&G announcements in the Bristol Maps feed, with the date issued, districts and a link to the PDF, and the opener times extracted from them |
| Regulations – “which district maps apply to me?” | The ADF&G regulation, forecast and statistical-area PDFs available in the app |
| The app – “how do I share my location with my group?” | The Bristol Maps documentation |
Answers name the station, the time zone (AKDT/AKST) and the date the data was issued. Tide heights are astronomical predictions above MLLW – wind, pressure and river flow move the real water level, so treat them as a guide, not a guarantee.
On the desktop app¶
On the desktop app (View → AI Assistant, or Ctrl+Shift+A) the answer comes with live cards under it:
- a tide card with the station, the height now and the next high and low, the same tide graph as the Tides window covering the past 12 hours and the next 48 (hover or drag to read the height at any moment; the amber line is “now”), a day-by-day table of the next 48 hours of highs and lows, and Open in Tides window / Copy table buttons
- a weather card with current conditions, the marine zone forecast and any advisory banner, the next 24 hours and the daily outlook, and an Open Weather window button
- announcement, opener and regulation document cards with links that open the PDFs
Below each answer the assistant suggests two or three follow-up questions you can tap. The suggestion chips on an empty conversation are built from where you are: the nearest tide station, your region from Settings, and the fishery you follow.
Asking a question¶
Type into the Ask a question… box at the bottom and tap the send arrow, or press send on your keyboard.
The first message you see is a welcome with a row of tap-to-ask suggestion chips:
| Chip | What it asks |
|---|---|
| My maps | What map layers do I have turned on right now? |
| Set up region | Set me up for Egegik – download the maps and switch my boundaries. |
| Nearest tender | Where’s the nearest tender taking fish? |
| Weather | What is the current marine weather forecast for my area? |
| Group help | Why can’t my fleet see my location? |
Long-press any message bubble to copy its text.
New Chat, at the top right of the page, clears the conversation and starts fresh. Otherwise the conversation stays put when you leave the page and come back.
Action cards¶
When the assistant proposes a change to your app, it shows up as a card with a title, a short description, and two buttons: Confirm and Cancel. Nothing happens until you tap Confirm.
The kinds of change it can offer include:
- Downloading a map, or applying a whole map set
- Turning a map layer on or off, changing a layer’s opacity, or turning all layers on or off
- Showing or hiding a boundary, or switching your boundary group
- Drafting a new boundary
- Setting up a region (maps plus boundaries in one go)
- Dropping a waypoint
- Changing a setting
- Scanning your Wi-Fi for NMEA adapters, testing a connection, or adding one
When a card kicks off a map download, the card itself shows the progress bar and the percentage, and reports Download complete. or Download failed. when it finishes. Tapping Cancel marks the card Cancelled. and does nothing else.
Boundary cards carry a warning¶
Any card that changes boundaries shows a red banner. For a new drafted boundary it reads:
Confirm every point is correct before you save or enable this boundary – a wrongly drawn line can put you in a closed area.
The card also lists the actual points so you can check them, and its confirm button reads Review points rather than Confirm.
For showing, hiding, or switching boundaries the banner reads:
This changes which boundary lines show on your map – confirm they’re the right ones for where you’re fishing.
Read the card, not just the answer
The text of the answer and the action on the card are two different things. Check the card says what you meant before you confirm, especially for anything touching boundaries.
What it is not¶
Not an official source
The assistant is a language model. It can be wrong, it can be out of date, and it can sound confident either way. It is not a substitute for official ADF&G announcements, emergency orders, or your permit conditions. Check anything that affects where or when you can fish against the real announcement – see Notifications & Announcements.
It also needs an internet connection. Offline, the assistant cannot answer at all, though your charts, waypoints, and logs keep working. Tide, weather and announcement data are fetched live when you ask, so a slow connection means a slower answer – the status line under the thinking dots shows what it is waiting on.