Deep Dive’s ‘Tournament Mode’ Complies with No-Information Rules
Ever since forward-facing sonar turned the sport of professional bass fishing up on its transom, tournament-fishing leagues have become more vigilant about the amount of technology flowing into bass tournaments. With the acceleration of Artificial Intelligence and the development of apps that deliver fishing suggestions right to your phone, Tournament Directors are taking steps to evaluate these new tools in an effort to maintain a fair playing field for all competitors.
Hats off to the leagues’ due diligence in vetting the specifics of how these new technologies could impact competitive advantage. During this process, the designers of the Deep Dive app have worked together with the leagues to be transparent about how their software information is sourced. Some leagues have determined that a few features of the Deep Dive app could be considered a breach of their no-information rules.
For example, Major League Fishing’s Tournament Department made it clear that anglers should only be allowed to view app information that can be publicly sourced on the Internet. Three of Deep Dive’s functions: The Best Areas map, Tournament Patterns, and Bait Tool are derived from thousands of tournament results across the country. Since some of those sources may not be publicly available anymore, the Tournament Directors voiced concern about greenlighting these particular tools.
As a solution, Deep Dive has specifically designed a “Tournament Mode” function that locks anglers out of app features that leagues believe might infringe on their no-information rules. When the Deep Dive app is put into Tournament Mode, the Best Areas map, the Tournament Patterns map, and the Bait Tool are locked so anglers can’t access them. However, Tournament Mode still allows some of Deep Dive’s most powerful tools to be used, including Water Clarity, Wind effects, Streamflow, Water Inflows, and Tides. These graphics provide real-time depictive mapping of critical variables such as water current sources, flow rates, and clarities. In addition, Lake Level, Outflow History, Generation Releases, and the Weather Tool are still permitted for use, as they are sourced from publicly available websites. Deep Dive brings all of these conditions to one app, so anglers can monitor a myriad of variables simultaneously to help them make better decisions quickly in competition. Most of these condition-monitoring tools provide a time-slider scale to view the condition’s history, present status, and predicted future, which is all allowed in Tournament Mode.
Deep Dive’s commitment to keep tournament anglers in bounds with the rules during app usage goes a step further by logging when the Tournament Mode is used and when it’s not. This way, if an angler is ever questioned about what app tools were used during a tournament day, the angler can prove that his phone was locked in Tournament Mode all day, and the Best Areas map, Tournament Patterns map, and Bait Tool were locked out.
When it comes to using new technology to track lake conditions, Deep Dive is on your side by working with tournament leagues to make sure the technology tools they offer during tournament hours do not breach fair play.
