Tips and techniques from master bass angler Bill Dance
Well known bass fisherman Bill Dance has hosted a television program for years. On the program Dance offers fishing tips and techniques to help fishermen catch more and bigger fish. Now many of those same lessons are available in this free universal app appropriately named Bill Dance. The app runs on iOS 6.1 or later. Some areas of the app are more useful than others.
First let's take a look at the information included in the app that will be helpful for fishermen. The app breaks down the information into six areas: Fishing Knots, Fishing Tips, Bill's Favorites, Photo Gallery, Fishlopedia, and Boating. Each section contains a number of specific areas of coverage. For example in Fishing Knots users will find six popular knots with a narrated video and written instructions on how to tie each knot. All of these knots appear to be used for attaching your hook to your line although they will work in other instances. It would have been better to demonstrate how they could be used for different purposes.
In the Fishing Tips area users will find helpful information on how to fish certain types of lures, tips for certain conditions, structures and patterns, and how to approach your fishing trip with the proper mental attitude so you can learn from mistakes and concentrate on all the conditions such as water temperature, clarity, depth, under water structures, and the condition of the bottom to make sure you have the best chance of catching fish.
The other section that can be useful is Fishlopedia, which has pictures and background information on more than three dozen species of freshwater fish. This includes several kinds of bass, salmon, catfish, pickerals, and sunfish. You will find a color picture of each species along with the current World Record catch for that fish plus when and where it was caught. Additionally the Bill Dance app provides an overview of where and what type of water structure the fish can be found.
Two of the other sections deal more with specific brands of products. Bill's Favorites features a variety of products. According to the app developer's site these products are all from sponsors of Dance. The Boating section features a specific boat manufacturer and different models it produces. In each segment in the section Dance introduces a video and then the video deals with areas such at engine operation, and trailering your boat. While the videos do provide good information, each of the videos is the same in all six different areas. Why are their six copies of the same video? Likely because they have six boat models to show off.
Overall I found the Bill Dance app contains quite a bit of useful information and can be helpful to fishermen, especially the less experienced anglers. While a couple of the sections fall short of what you might hope, users should still gain valuable knowledge from the app.
