Authentic and Imported
Every fishing leaderboard ever built has the same problem. Somebody posts a photo from three years ago in another state and wins. Cobia solves it by being honest about what it can and cannot verify.
One badge you earn, one label you accept
Shoot inside the app and the catch is marked Authentic. Bring a photo in from your camera roll and it is marked Imported. Neither is hidden, neither is shamed, and the difference is stated on the card rather than buried in settings.
- Authentic means captured live in the Cobia Camera with position, timestamp, and conditions bound at capture
- Imported means brought in from elsewhere, where EXIF can be edited and nothing can be guaranteed
- Both count for your own log, your Fishdex™, and your feed
- Only Authentic ranks on Slams, crowns, leagues, and every leaderboard
Why we drew the line here
Leaderboards need a floor
A crown at your home pier is only worth holding if everybody had to earn it the same way. Without a verification floor, the top of every board is the person most willing to cheat.
EXIF is not proof
Camera roll metadata can be rewritten in seconds with free tools. Treating it as evidence would be dishonest, so we do not. We just say so on the card.
Imported is not shameful
Most imported photos are completely real. Old catches, a buddy photo, a screenshot from a group chat. They belong in your history and your Fishdex™, and they stay.
It makes the data better
An Authentic catch is a trustworthy data point with a real place, a real time, and real conditions. Those are the points that make everybody briefing sharper.
Verification is one tap
The Authentic path is not harder than the imported one. Open the camera instead of the library. That is the whole difference.
It shows everywhere
The badge rides with the catch through the feed, your profile, the water body pages, and the leaderboards. There is no surface where you cannot tell.
About authentic and imported
No, and that is the point. Authenticity is established at capture. If it could be applied afterward it would not mean anything.
Yes. Your Fishdex™ is your personal collection, so imported catches fill it in. They also count toward your catch totals and appear in the community feed. They just do not rank against verified catches on competitive surfaces.
Nothing is perfect, and we will not pretend otherwise. What the Authentic path establishes is that the capture happened inside the app at a specific place and time with the conditions recorded. That raises the cost of faking a catch enormously compared with uploading a file, which is the practical goal.
Tomorrow morning starts tonight
Set your home water, pick a drive radius, and wake up to a plan.
Android coming soon
iPhone, iOS 17 or later. Setup takes about a minute.