Catch Log

For New Zealand commercial divers and fishers

Know before you get wet.

New Zealand's fishing rules are scattered across marine reserves, taiāpure, mātaitai, temporary closures and size and species limits. None of it was written to be read on a boat. Catch Log does that reading for you and gives one answer for the water you are floating over: yes, no, or check first.

That part is free. Skipper is the paid part, and what it does is keep what you record: your marks, your catches, the ground you have worked. It is on the phone on the water and on a dashboard at your desk, one record in both, edited in either. Without it the app answers the spot you are on and stores nothing.

Open the closure map See what Skipper adds

Already using Skipper? Sign in to your dashboard

A first check, not the last word: it shows you where is closed, not whether a catch is legal, and coverage is still growing. Where the app and the official rules disagree, go with the rules. Read the full terms.

The Catch Log dashboard in a browser: a chart off Kaikōura with the peninsula's closure shaded, marks and catches offshore, a drawn area of good ground selected with its corners showing, a Selection panel with a note being typed and a Save button, and a table of records underneath.
The Catch Log phone app near Porirua, with a red bar across the top reading CLOSED, Pāua diving, where you are, plus or minus 7 metres, over the shaded closed area.
One record: the phone on the boat, the dashboard at the desk.

App screenshots

The app as it runs on the water.

Real screens from an iPhone, from the answer at the top of the map to a season of marks. The closure map and the warnings are free. The screens marked Skipper are the part that keeps a record.

Swipe or scroll sideways to see screenshots from the app.

  1. The map, zoomed out over the Kāpiti coast, with closed areas shaded and a red bar reading CLOSED, Pāua diving, where you are, plus or minus 7 metres.

    Map

    Closed or open, where you are

    The bar names what is closed and how close your GPS fix is, and checks again as the boat moves.

  2. An iPhone lock screen showing a Catch Log notification: Still closed to pāua diving, Waikanae River mouth, taking pāua is not allowed here.

    Warnings

    Warned with the phone in your pocket

    Switch on warnings and the phone alerts you as you approach a closed area, screen off, then reminds you every half hour you stay inside.

  3. The map zoomed in at Lyall Bay, with the activity chip set to Pāua diving, Dates, Layers and More buttons, a Warnings off chip, and Mark this place, Log catch and Draw an area buttons along the bottom.

    Map

    Everything under one thumb

    Pick what you are after, set dates or layers, turn warnings on or off. With Skipper, mark, log or draw from the row along the bottom.

  4. The Log catch sheet: position from GPS plus or minus 49 metres with an Adjust button, a count of 1, size 130 millimetres, conditions Strong, small, 15 degrees, and a large Pāua diving button.

    Log catch

    A catch in one tap

    It opens at your GPS position. Set how many and the size if you want, then tap the activity and it is saved.

  5. The Conditions sheet with wind set to Strong, blown out, swell set to Small, 0.5 to 1 metre, and water temperature 15 degrees.

    Conditions

    Conditions, set once a trip

    Tide, wind, swell and water temperature, stamped on every catch after it until you change them. Skip it and nothing slows down.

  6. The Mark dropped sheet for Mark 2005, Pāua diving: a visit on 27 October rated ok, a note reading Good spot at low tide, photo buttons, and a green badge reading Open here on 27 Oct 2026.

    Marks

    Mark it now, describe it later

    A mark saves the moment you tap. Rate the visit, add a note and photos then, or leave it for Tidy up on shore. It keeps what the rules said that day.

  7. The Marks list from a demo account, titled Marks, 2,004, sorted nearest first, each row showing the species, position, number of visits, last visit and rating.

    Marks

    Thousands of marks, nearest first

    Search by name, note or species, and sort by distance, recent visits or rating. Bring yours in from a GPX or GeoPackage file.

  8. A mark's page: a small chart with the mark, Rock lobster diving, its position with a Copy button, 2 visits rated ok, a rating strip, and the visits listed under the 2025-26 season.

    A mark

    How a spot has fished

    Every visit to a mark, a season at a time, with a rating strip you can read at a glance, oldest to newest.

  9. The Draw an area screen over Clifford Bay, with an eight-cornered shape drawn on the chart, a line reading 8 corners, about 12.1 kilometres across, and Undo, Move a corner, Cancel and Done drawing buttons.

    Draw an area

    Draw round the ground

    Tap each corner and it counts them and says how far across. Nothing is kept until you say what the ground is like and save it.

  10. The Areas tab from a demo account, with Good 33, Poor 33 and Worked 35 filter buttons and a list of good ground areas, each with a small outline of its shape and the day it was drawn.

    Areas

    Good, poor and worked ground

    Your own read on each patch, grouped and filtered by kind. Your notes, never a verdict.

  11. The Ask Catch Log sheet over the map, answering the question How do I use the map with no signal, explaining that the rules and a chart of the coast download by themselves.

    Ask

    Ask how the app works

    With a free account and signal, ask in your own words and it answers from the app's help. Whether a spot is closed, it leaves to the map.

On shore · part of Skipper

The dashboard is for the desk, not the deck.

A mark dropped on the boat this morning is open on your screen by the time you are back at the desk, and a correction made at the desk is on the phone the next time it finds signal. One record of your fishing, not two copies to keep in step.

  1. Logged on the boat

    A mark, a catch or a drawn area is kept on the phone the moment you tap, signal or not.

  2. Backed up on its own

    It goes up when the phone finds signal. Nothing to press, and photos wait for wifi.

  3. Open at the desk

    The same records on the dashboard, ready to fix with a real keyboard. What you change goes back to the phone.

The Catch Log dashboard on a demo account: a chart off Kaikōura with the peninsula's closure shaded and marks, catches and drawn areas offshore. One area of good ground is selected with its corners showing, and the Selection panel beside the chart has a note being typed into it, Unsaved changes, and a Save button. Underneath, a table of the account's areas with Edit and Delete on each row.
A season's marks, catches and areas on one chart, with the records beside it. Here an area of good ground is being given a note: drag its corners, change what it is, and nothing is sent until you press Save.

  • Everything at once

    A season on one chart

    Every mark, catch and drawn area across every trip, rather than one day at a time. Ground that keeps producing and ground that has gone quiet are a shape you can see, on a screen big enough to see it on.

  • Editing

    Fix what wet fingers got wrong

    Drag a pin to where it should have been, reshape a drawn area corner by corner, retype a note with a real keyboard. Fixes flow straight back to the phone.

  • Numbers

    Totals, not a list of pins

    Catch by species, how ground performed over a season, which marks produced more than once. It turns the diary from a personal log into numbers you can actually review.

  • Filters

    One date range, everywhere

    Narrow the map, the numbers and the record list to this trip, this season or a range you pick. All three move together, so they always describe the same window.

Ask about trialling it Sign in to your dashboard

At catchlog.co.nz/dashboard, in the browser on any laptop or desktop. Nothing to install: you sign in with the same email and password as the app.

What you get

One answer, in a sentence, not a section number.

Pick what you are fishing for. The chart redraws to show only the closures that apply to that choice. Tap anywhere and you get a plain-English reason, and a link to the official rule behind it for when you want to check.

  • No, you cannot fish here

    You are inside a closed area for at least one of the things you ticked. The banner names which one.

  • Check before you start

    A rule applies here that depends on something the app cannot see, such as a permit or a season. Too close to tell, also amber, means your GPS cannot say which side of a line you are on: treat it as closed.

  • Yes, open here

    Nothing you ticked is closed at this spot today. Rules resolve against the date the map was built.

Where it is up to

Still checking the closed areas, one patch at a time.

The closures are built from the official data and rebuilt every day, but turning the wording of a rule into a line on a map is fiddly work, and I am still checking it area by area. If something looks wrong on ground you know, that is the single most useful thing anyone can tell me.

  • If it looks wrong

    Tell me and I will look at it

    An area shut that you know is open, one open that should be shut, a boundary sitting in the wrong place. You know your ground better than any map does. There is no form: tell me roughly where and what you expected to see, and I will go back to the official rule and check it.

  • Where it comes from

    MPI, DOC and LINZ, rebuilt daily

    Marine reserves, taiāpure, mātaitai, temporary closures and the commercial rules, taken straight from what MPI, DOC and LINZ put out. Every closure links to the official rule behind it, so you can check the working rather than take anyone's word for it. Where the app and the rule disagree, the rule is right.

  • When it cannot tell

    It shuts rather than guesses

    Where a rule is written in a way the app cannot read cleanly, the area is marked closed and queued for me to read by hand. That way, when it gets something wrong, it costs you a wasted trip rather than a fine. It is also why you will sometimes see a closure that looks over-cautious.

Report something that looks wrong

How to use it

Built for one hand, cold fingers and no signal.

The whole thing is designed around the fact that the moment you most need to log something is the moment your hands are busiest.

  1. Sign in once, and it gets ready by itself

    With a free account the rules for what you fish, for all of New Zealand, and a chart of the coast download by themselves: the rules whenever there is signal, the chart (about 42 MB) on wifi. After that the map answers with no signal at all.

  2. Tick what you are doing

    Species and method. Pāua diving, commercial. Tick several if you are after several; the chart shows the combined closures. Save the combinations you use often and switch between them in a tap.

  3. Check the spot

    Locate yourself, or tap anywhere on the chart. One bar answers, and says how far the nearest closed edge is and which way. Too close for your GPS to call, it says so rather than guessing, because GPS drifts and the boundary does not.

  4. Log as you go

    Dropping a mark or a catch takes a tap or two and asks nothing else of you. The rating, the note and the photo can wait until you are back on shore.

  5. Fill in the detail later

    Tidy up takes the day's undescribed marks one to a screen: a name, poor, ok or great, a line about what the ground was like, a photo. Capture and annotation are separate steps on purpose.

  6. Back it up when you have signal

    Everything sits safe on the phone until it can send, then goes up on its own. Photos wait for wifi and never go over mobile data.

On the boat

Five screens, each answering one question.

The app is coming to the App Store and Google Play. Before it gets there I am looking for commercial divers to test it on real trips.

  • Map

    Can I fish here?

    Your position on the nautical chart, the closures that apply to what you ticked, and a straight answer wherever you tap.

    • Why an area is closed, and the rule it comes from
    • How far the nearest closed edge is, and which way
    • Statistical area and minimum harvest size for pāua
    • Warning before you cross into a closure, screen off

  • Marks

    What did I find here?

    Marks file your history by place. Drop a pin once and every visit to it collects underneath it: this trip, next season, the one after.

    • Rating, note and photos on every visit
    • Whether a spot has been consistent or gone quiet
    • Bring in the marks you already have from a plotter or another app, as GPX or GeoPackage

  • Areas

    What is this ground worth?

    Draw a shape around a patch and put your own read on it: good ground here, or worked out, don't bother.

    • Drawn by hand, from what you know of the ground
    • A note per area, readable in the list

  • Setup

    Does this phone still know?

    Answers two questions: how old the downloaded rules are, and whether what you logged has made it off the phone yet.

    • A Ready for no signal list: rules, chart, warnings, location and notifications, each one Ready or Needed
    • A date on the rules, never a silent green tick
    • Send yourself a file of everything you have logged, and see what is in it first

  • Account

    Do I need one?

    Not for the closures. The map, your position and the answer work with no account at all, because putting a sign-up wall in front of the one thing that keeps a diver out of a marine reserve would be the wrong trade.

    An account is what lets the phone keep anything. Without one it answers the spot you tapped and stores nothing.

    • Free account: the rules and chart for no signal, saved activity sets, and Ask
    • Skipper: everything you record, kept and backed up

Want to try it before it is on the stores?

It is built and it runs. Before it goes on the App Store and Google Play I want commercial divers using it on real trips and telling me what is wrong with it. iPhone or Android, either works.

If that is you, get in touch and I will set you up. No cost, and no obligation to stay on it once it is public.

Ask about trying the app

What costs money

Checking what is closed is free. Keeping a record of your fishing is what you pay for.

The closure map stays free whatever happens to the rest of it. Putting a paywall in front of the one feature that keeps a diver out of a marine reserve would be the wrong trade, and I am not going to make it.

Skipper is the rest of it. It keeps a record of your own fishing, which is the part I think is worth paying for and the part I am still building out. The closure map does not depend on it and never will.

  • Free

    Open now

    Open the map and use it. An account is free too, and is what lets the phone hold a download and remember what you fish for.

    • The closure map for the fisheries covered so far
    • Your position on the chart
    • A straight answer on any spot you tap, and the rule behind it
    • With a free account, the rules and chart for all of New Zealand, kept on the phone so it works with no signal

    It answers the spot you are on and keeps nothing. There is no diary on this tier, so nothing you do in it is saved.

  • Skipper

    Not open yet

    $XX a month when it opens. Free while it is being trialled.

    Everything above, plus a record of your fishing that persists. Drop a mark on a patch of ground and every visit to it collects underneath: a catch with its species and size, photos, a note on what the ground was like. Draw an area around a reef and put your own read on it. It is all still there next season.

    • Marks, catches and drawn areas
    • Backup and sync between phone and dashboard, so the record survives a lost phone
    • The web dashboard: a season on one chart, totals, and editing with a real keyboard
    • Send yourself a file of everything you have logged, yours to keep
    • Bring in the marks you already have from a plotter or another app

    Whether that is worth it depends on your own numbers. If it saves you a day a season working ground another boat has already been over, it has paid for itself.

    It is built and running, but not open for sign-ups yet. I would rather get it right with a few divers first than open the doors and find out afterwards, so I am looking for people to test it. No cost while it is being trialled, and no obligation to stay on it.

    Ask about trialling it

Your marks

A mark takes years to find. Nobody sees yours but you.

Not other fishers, not quota owners, not a council or an iwi, not MPI, and not me in any day-to-day way. There is no screen and no report anywhere in this system that shows one person's marks to another person.

Nothing gets pooled either. There is no heatmap, no read on where the fleet is working, no anonymised extract going to anybody. That is not a setting you have to find and switch off. It is that the feature does not exist, and it is not going to.

The short version

Your records sit on one server I rent in Sydney, encrypted on the way there. No analytics, no crash reporting, no third-party trackers anywhere in the app or on this site. Photos have their GPS metadata stripped before they are stored, because a photo of a reef is a position too.

The one thing that goes to another company is a question you type into Ask, which Google's Gemini answers. It never sees your position, marks or catches, and if you never use Ask, nothing goes to Google.

Checking a closure needs no account, and used that way the spot you tap is used to work out the answer and then it is gone. It is not attached to you and it is not written into any log.

As for somebody taking them anyway: the database is not on the internet, sign-in attempts are rate limited and locked out after repeated failures, passwords are never stored in a readable form, and even a completely valid login cannot ask this system for another diver's records. That last one is not a permission check that could be forgotten. Your account is part of the question, so asking for someone else's mark comes back the same as asking for one that never existed.

Delete a mark and it is recoverable for thirty days, then destroyed. Delete your account and everything attached to it goes the same way. Export hands you the lot as a GeoJSON file whenever you want it, and shows you every record and field before the file leaves your phone. The data is yours, and it should not depend on me still being here.

The full statement says all of this at length, and also says what I have not done yet, which is the part worth reading.

Read the privacy statement

Behind Catch Log

I built this so the rules are easy to find on the water.

Tom Norman, who built Catch Log
Tom Norman

I work with location data and fishing rules. At MPI I built the fishing closures, and I saw how much work goes into turning the wording of a rule into an accurate area on a map. The harder part comes after that: getting the rule in front of the person floating over that patch of water.

Since then I have been contracting with the Pāua Industries Council, making maps for screens and for the wall, and helping communities set up their own voluntary closures. Part of that is keeping the minimum harvest size up to date for the statistical areas around the country. It is one of the ways the industry gives pāua a chance to spawn before they are taken, and it only works if the number reaches the diver.

Working alongside divers made the gap plain. They want to get it right, and one spot can sit under a marine reserve, a taiāpure, a mātaitai or a temporary notice, each of them written up on its own.

I built Catch Log to do that last step. It pulls all of that official data together and gives one plain-English answer for any spot you tap. The closures rebuild from the public data every day, so the map does not hang on me being at a desk.

The app also keeps a record of what you find. Drop a mark on a patch of ground and every visit collects under it: a catch with its species and size, photos, a note on what the ground was like. Draw an area around a reef and attach your own read on it. A catch can carry the tide, wind, swell and water temperature you were working in, set once and stamped on everything you log after it, so a season of diving becomes something you can look back over instead of trying to remember.

Your catches, marks and drawn areas stay private to your account, as the section above sets out. What they give you is a read on your own ground over time: which spots keep producing, which have gone quiet, how a season really went, so the next call you make on the water is better informed.

If you hold closure or fishing rule data, it can go on this map

The map carries what MPI, DOC and LINZ publish. If you are an iwi, a rūnanga, a regional council, a management committee or an agency with closures or rules of your own, those can go on it too, and you decide who they are shown to: everyone, the fishers you work with, or a community you name.

Voluntary closures and agreed harvest sizes are the ones this matters most for. They carry no gazette notice and no published layer, so the people they apply to often never see them on a chart at all. I would rather that data reached those people than sat in a PDF.

If that sounds like something you hold, get in touch and I will talk you through what it takes to put it on here.

Talk about adding your data

Start here

Check a spot before you rely on it.

The closure map needs no account and no download. Pick what you are after, tap the water you are thinking about, and see what it says. Check it against a patch you know well first, and tell me if it gets that one wrong.

If it holds up on ground you know, have a look at Skipper. That is the part that keeps what you record.

Open the closure map Sign in to your dashboard

Three things I would genuinely like to hear about: a closure that looks wrong, anyone who wants to put the Skipper diary through a season before it opens properly, and any body holding closure or rule data that should be on this map. Either way, email me and it comes straight to me, not to a support queue.