Creating and using a session plan

A Session Plan is preparation guidance for specimen angling, not a guarantee of a carp or other specimen catch and not a replacement for checking the water on the day. It helps you turn your own session history and current conditions into a plan you can review at home, adjust as preparation changes, and use when creating a session.

Explore the Sessions workspace to understand how History, Plans and Presets fit together.

For the wider planning and evidence features, see Weather Intelligence and Understanding Solunar Intelligence in CatchMate. For the full Help index, go to the CatchMate Specimen Help.

What a Session Plan is

Today's Fishing Plan uses your logged specimen-angling history, the current season, and available weather and venue context to surface recommendations such as:

• Best Venue
• Best Rod Setup
• Best Bait
• Peak Window

Confidence reflects the amount and quality of supporting history. A tentative or low-confidence recommendation is a starting point, not a promise that a lake, peg, rig or hookbait will produce fish. Check the water, conditions and fishery rules when you arrive.

Open Today's Fishing Plan

1. Tap Intelligence from the home screen, or open it from your customised navigation bar.
2. Find Today's Fishing Plan.
3. Provide today's conditions using the location, postcode, saved-venue or manual weather controls currently shown in the app.
4. Review the updated recommendations.

Changing the planning conditions can change the recommendations. Weather evidence, venue history and a directly selected saved venue are different kinds of context: general weather can narrow the conditions being compared, but it is not proof that a particular venue or peg will produce fish. Select a saved venue explicitly when you want a venue-specific recommendation.

Review the recommendation and evidence

Read each recommendation card together with the supporting context. The plan can show a matching-session count or a similar evidence summary, along with confidence indicators. This tells you how much of your own history supports the suggestion.

• A saved venue must be explicitly selected before the plan can make a venue-specific recommendation.
• A peg recommendation needs enough confidence-gated history at that peg. Weather can narrow the evidence, but it must not manufacture a peg choice.
• Manual choices remain available if you want to override a recommendation.
• The recommendation is associated with the conditions and evidence visible when you approve or save it.

Avoid treating a low-confidence or insufficient-data suggestion as a guaranteed result. If your history does not support a strong recommendation yet, use the plan as a starting point and keep logging complete sessions.

Save and name a plan

1. Review the proposed plan.
2. Tap the visible save action.
3. Enter an explicit name for the plan.
4. Confirm the save.

The name is the lasting identity of the plan, not just an automatically generated date or venue label. If CatchMate supplies a contextual starting name, edit it before saving when a clearer name will help you find the plan later.

An unlinked saved plan can be adjusted as preparation changes. Those practical adjustments do not rewrite the original Intelligence recommendation or the evidence that informed it.

Adjust a saved plan

Open the saved plan and review the preparation fields the current editor provides. These can include the selected venue, peg or swim, hookbait, groundbait, notes, planned tackle and alternatives.

Changing the venue, peg or planned tackle changes the current plan draft. When CatchMate asks you to save the adjusted version as a new plan, do so rather than assuming the original saved recommendation has been rewritten. Practical preparation changes are separate from the historical evidence behind the recommendation.

If a plan has already been linked to a fishing session, it is part of historical Plan versus Actual information. Do not treat it as a freely editable record of what was recommended. If the current editor offers a new-copy or reuse action for a linked plan, use that action to prepare an independent plan.

Choose a tackle profile

The shared tackle-profile picker can be opened from Today's Fishing Plan, Session Plan editing, and Create Session. For profile creation and the full list of specimen rig fields, see Tackle profiles overview.

When the picker is available:

• Profiles are grouped when you have created groups; ungrouped profiles remain available.
• Search can match a profile name, group, tackle type or bait.
• Profiles compatible with the current recommendation appear first.
• Incompatible profiles remain visible so you can make an informed override instead of having them silently hidden.
• A row can show useful setup details such as tackle type, hookbait or rig.
• No saved profile remains available where the current flow offers it.
• Create new profile remains available where the current flow offers it.
• Profiles stay in the planned order. Browsing the library must not silently reorder them.

Choosing a profile for a plan or session does not permanently edit the saved profile. A plan-specific or session-specific change is separate from changing the profile itself.

Align bait and profile choices

CatchMate may use the recommended hookbait to identify compatible saved tackle profiles. When an appropriate profile has a matching configured hookbait, it is the sensible automatic choice.

Review the selected bait and profile chips using the wording shown in the app. If the plan requires saved bait or groundbait presets, choose them from the relevant library rather than relying on arbitrary free text; this preserves the bait attribution used by your history.

You can change the practical bait or groundbait choice without changing the original historical recommendation snapshot.

Planned alternatives and Rod Roost

If the plan editor offers alternatives, add more than one planned tackle setup so you have prepared options for the conditions. Alternatives are options to take or prepare; they are not simultaneously active rods unless the session is explicitly configured that way.

Rod Roost lets you prepare multiple saved tackle setups or profiles for a session. Each planned setup should use an owned saved tackle profile when CatchMate requires one. Your configured Rod Roost maximum still applies. If the limit is reached, remove an existing setup before adding another; a plan must not silently exceed the limit.

Use a plan to create or start a session

For the session form, see Starting a session.

1. Choose the saved plan when creating a session.
2. Review the session form.
3. Confirm the venue, tackle, bait, groundbait, notes and alternatives that the live form carries across.
4. Create or open the session, then use the separate session action to start fishing when the form shows those as separate steps.

Creating or opening a session is distinct from starting the fishing activity. A plan does not automatically start a timer or cast out unless the current app explicitly shows that behaviour.

Reuse an existing plan

An unlinked saved plan can be used for a live session and remains that same plan.

A plan already linked to historical session data contains Plan versus Actual information. Reuse it through the current Use, Reuse, or new-copy action shown by the app. CatchMate creates an independent plan so you can rename and adjust it without changing the historical record. Complete any confirmation or adjustment step shown before using the new plan.

Archive, restore and delete

Use the saved-plan controls in Home or Intelligence:

• Archive removes a plan from the active list without destroying it.
• Restore returns an archived plan to the active list.
• Delete requires the app's destructive confirmation.
• Deleting an archived plan is permanent, but it does not delete the linked fishing session.

An accidental tap should not be described as immediately deleting a persisted plan. If an archived plan is missing from the active list, look in the archived-plan view and use Restore.

What is preserved for historical attribution

When an Intelligence plan is linked to a session, CatchMate preserves what was recommended and the evidence shown at the time. Later weather, venue history, catch results or tackle associations can change, but the original recommendation remains available for Plan versus Actual comparison.

• The original recommendation and evidence are saved historical snapshots.
• Session outcomes are recorded separately from the recommendation.
• Reuse creates a new plan instead of changing the old one.
• Editing practical preparation details is not rewriting the original Intelligence evidence.
• Historical session details continue to identify the correct specimen pursuit and saved tackle-profile context, even if you later change the global discipline or edit another profile.

Troubleshooting

Why is there no strong recommendation yet?

There may not be enough matching history for a confident result. Log complete sessions, including difficult nights, and treat an early recommendation as directional rather than guaranteed.

Why did changing the venue or weather change the plan?

Those choices change the conditions and evidence being compared. A selected saved venue also adds venue-specific history, so the recommendation can legitimately change.

Why is my preferred tackle profile not at the top?

Compatible profiles are shown first for the current recommendation. Check the profile's tackle type and configured hookbait, or search by name, group, rig or bait.

Why is an incompatible profile still visible?

Incompatible profiles remain available so you can override the recommendation knowingly. Selecting one for this plan does not silently edit the saved profile.

Why can’t I add another Rod Roost setup?

Your configured Rod Roost maximum may have been reached. Remove an existing planned setup, then add the alternative you need.

Why did CatchMate ask me to save a new plan after an adjustment?

Changing practical details such as venue, peg or planned tackle can change the draft identity. Saving a new plan protects the original saved recommendation and its evidence.

Why did reusing a historical plan create a new copy?

A linked plan is part of historical Plan versus Actual information. A new copy lets you prepare and rename the next trip without rewriting the earlier record.

Where did an archived plan go?

Open the archived-plan view from the saved-plan controls and tap Restore when you want it back in the active list.