Aingler — Fair, Fast, Fishing Tournaments

Industry: Recreational & pro angling
Use case: Catch-and-release tournament management with AI-assisted judging
What we built: Organizer console • iOS app • Android app • AI bump-board measurement system • Judge review tools • Offline mode

Why AiAngler

Catch-and-release tournaments rise and fall on three levers: fairness, speed, and accessibility. Organizers need clean operations and credible results; anglers need simple capture that works without signal and a leaderboard they can trust. AiAngler tackles all three with an offline-first mobile app, an AI measurement pipeline that reads bump-board photos, and judge tools that focus attention on edge cases rather than every single catch.

Automation and AI where it helps, humans where it matters.

Features

For Tournament Organizers:

• 3x faster event setup with streamlined tournament creation, payment processing, and participant management
• 90% automation rate where AI validates most catches automatically, letting judges focus only on edge cases
• Real-time results with drastically reduced time to leaderboard, keeping participants engaged
• Geo-fenced boundaries that ensure fair play and enable zone-based competition

For Anglers:

• Zero lost catches with offline-first design that works anywhere on the water
• Auto-submit to multiple tournaments eliminating duplicate entry across weekend events
• Instant feedback on submissions with clear status tracking
• Fair competition through consistent AI measurement and transparent judging

The Technology:

• Advanced computer vision for bump board reading and fish measurement
• Fraud mitigation and duplicate fish detection technology
• GPS validation with offline caching for location integrity
• Confidence-based routing that knows when to involve human judgment
• Background sync that handles connectivity seamlessly

The Angler Journey (Mobile)

Anglers discover nearby events, join with one tap, and focus on what matters: fishing. The app quietly handles the technical complexities—quality checks before you shoot, offline queuing when there's no signal, and auto-submitting eligible catches to all joined tournaments. No more micro-managing entries across multiple events.

[Figure 1 — Mobile: Nearby Tournaments]

Creating a Submission

Why auto-submit? Multi-event weekends are the norm in competitive fishing. Without automation, anglers waste precious time manually replicating entries across tournaments, creating duplicate effort and increasing the chance of mistakes. Our smart eligibility logic ensures a single capture automatically routes to every relevant tournament where it qualifies, keeping the experience seamless and reducing cognitive overhead.

[Figure 2 — Mobile: My Catches (Statuses + Auto-Submit)]

Notice how the status shows "Approved" for all submissions—this single catch was automatically submitted to all 6 eligible tournaments, completely eliminating manual entry across multiple events.

Taking the Perfect Catch Photo

[Figure 3 — Mobile: Capture Interface]

The capture experience is designed to be foolproof, even in challenging conditions. When an angler taps "Add Catch," the camera opens with intelligent guides and real-time feedback:

• Smart framing overlay shows exactly where to position the fish and bump board
• Precise GPS capture grabs the most accurate location possible at the moment of capture
• Offline queuing stores the photo locally if there's no signal, with automatic upload when connectivity returns

This guided approach dramatically reduces unusable photos and eliminates the frustration of rejected submissions hours later.

[Figure 4 — Mobile: Leaderboard]

The leaderboard becomes your strategic companion, showing not just where you stand, but exactly what it takes to climb higher. Real-time standings highlight your current position with contextual intelligence: "Need 2.5" more to reach 3rd place." This clarity transforms the tournament from a guessing game into a strategic pursuit, keeping anglers engaged and motivated throughout the competition.

The Organizer Workflow (Web)

Tournament organizers get their command center: a unified web console where they draft rules, process payments, communicate with participants, and manage every aspect of adjudication. Geo-fencing capabilities let them define precise tournament boundaries, ensuring catches only count from designated waters. The goal? A completely spreadsheet-free tournament experience.

[Figure 5 — Web: Organizer Dashboard (All Tournaments)]

One console for events, payments, messaging, and results. The dashboard shows high-level KPIs—Registered, Submissions, Items Needing Review, Disputes.

Submissions & Triage

The magic happens as catches stream in: our AI pipeline instantly measures fish lengths and cross-references them with angler submissions. When AI and human measurements align closely, we have high confidence in accuracy—these catches auto-apply to the leaderboard in real-time. Significant discrepancies trigger our human review system, where judges see visual overlays highlighting exactly where measurements differ.

Human-in-the-Loop (HITL)

When AI confidence wavers or measurements disagree, tournament directors step in with precision tools that reveal exactly where the AI detected fish endpoints. This transparency builds trust while maintaining the speed benefits of automation.

[Figure 6 — Web: Human Review Interface]

Tournament directors can adjust measurements with visual overlays showing AI detection points. The interface provides side-by-side comparison with AI measurement vs manual override controls, clear visual indicators of fish head/tail detection, and simple approve/adjust interface.

Live Results & Leaderboard Segmentation

Validated catches appear on leaderboards instantly, complete with timestamps and detailed species/length breakdowns. Smart geo-fencing enables sophisticated leaderboard segmentation—organizers can create separate rankings for different zones, ensuring fair competition even when fishing conditions vary dramatically across locations.

How the AI Measurement System Works

1. Quality gates up front – Before accepting any photo, we check for blur, glare, orientation issues, occlusions, and bump board detection. This prevents unusable submissions at the source.
2. Fish segmentation – We segment the entire fish, specifically identifying the head and tail as separate components. This precise segmentation is crucial for accurate measurement.
3. Mouth analysis – We detect whether the fish's mouth is open or closed, which affects the measurement starting point according to tournament rules.
4. Bump board number reading – Using advanced OCR technology, we read the numbers on the bump board to establish the scale and reference points for measurement.
5. Combined measurement calculation – By combining the segmented fish parts (head, tail, body), mouth state, and bump board scale readings, we calculate the precise fish length.
6. Confidence scoring – We assign a confidence score based on the quality of segmentation, OCR accuracy, and image clarity.
7. Location validation – GPS coordinates are checked against tournament geo-fences to ensure catches are from eligible areas.
8. Smart routing – High-confidence measurements auto-apply to leaderboards instantly. Lower-confidence submissions route to human judges with visual overlays showing segmentation, detected points, and measurements.

This multi-factor approach ensures accurate measurements and location compliance even with varying fish positions and board conditions.

[Figure 7 — AI Measurement Visualization]

AI segmentation showing head, tail, and bump board number detection. The visualization includes colored overlays for fish parts, OCR reading boxes on board numbers, and mouth state indicator.

Offline-First, For Real

Picture this: you're on a remote lake at dawn, the fish are biting, but your phone shows zero bars. In traditional tournament apps, this moment of triumph becomes a source of frustration. AiAngler changes that equation entirely.

No bars? No problem. The app captures everything locally—photos, GPS coordinates, timestamps—then intelligently syncs in the background the moment connectivity returns. Your tournament experience never misses a beat.

Results & Impact

With 40 million anglers in the US alone, the fishing industry represents a massive market ripe for technological innovation. AiAngler pioneers the first comprehensive AI-assisted tournament management system, combining cutting-edge computer vision, bulletproof offline architecture, and intelligent human oversight to deliver unprecedented fairness, speed, and accessibility.

• Speed: Event organization is 3x faster with streamlined setup and management workflows.
• Scale: 90% of catches are automatically validated, requiring minimal human intervention.
• Efficiency: Time to leaderboard is drastically reduced, providing real-time results to participants.
• Quality: Clearer evidence and overlays reduce disputes and improve tournament integrity.

Risks & Mitigations

• Environmental challenges (glare, water droplets) → Strict quality gates with instant re-shoot prompts
• Equipment variations → Supported bump board presets with intelligent fallback to ruler mark reading
• Fraud prevention → Multi-layer protection including duplicate detection, EXIF validation, and optional watermark challenges
• Fair play enforcement → Pattern analysis identifies suspicious behaviors like duplicate fish submissions or unusual catch patterns
• Rule compliance → Automated warnings for positioning violations (fish placement, mouth closure, board alignment)
• Boundary integrity → GPS validation against geo-fences with offline caching for seamless operation

Call to Action

For Tournament Organizers:
Tired of disputes, delays, and spreadsheet chaos? Ready to run tournaments that are faster, fairer, and work flawlessly even in remote locations?
Let's transform your next event.
Visit: aiangler.ai

For Developers & Businesses:
Want to build AI-powered solutions for your industry?
Let's discuss how TUUL can turn your ideas into a beautiful, functional product. Contact TUUL: hello@tuul.ai