Read the water,
not the airport.
Water temperature and swell from the station nearest the water you fish, marked measured or estimated, and saved onto every catch you log.
Updated
Min 78°
Min 2.6 ft
Solid is what the buoy measured. Dashed is the estimate for the hours it hasn't. Move across a chart to read any hour.
Water conditions in Cobia, the free fishing app, come from the station nearest the water you fish, not a regional average. You get the water temperature and the swell, its height, period and direction, hour by hour, with every number marked as measured or as an estimate. The conditions at the moment you catch a fish are saved onto the catch.
Key facts
- Water temperature
- From the nearest station that measures it, marked Measured or Modeled.
- Swell
- Height, period and direction, from the nearest station that reports waves.
- Estimates
- Hours no sensor covered come from a marine model and are drawn dashed.
- On your catches
- Water temperature at the time and place of the catch, with wind, tide, pressure and moon.
- Where it works
- Salt and fresh water across the US, from coastal stations, buoys and river and lake gauges.
- Price and platforms
- Free on iPhone and Android.
Every number says where it came from
A water temperature is only useful if you know it's real. Cobia reads the nearest station that measures it, and when the number is an estimate, the card says so.
- Temperature and waves are read separately. The nearest buoy with a thermometer isn't always the nearest one measuring waves, so each comes from its own station.
- Gaps are filled, and drawn dashed. Hours a sensor missed come from a marine model set to that buoy's own level, so the line doesn't jump where they meet.
- A quiet buoy is called out. When a station stops reporting, the card tells you when its last reading was.
Examples of the labels the app uses.
The water is saved with the fish
Log a catch and Cobia looks up the conditions for that place at that time: the water temperature from the nearest station, the wind, the tide, the pressure and the moon. They stay on the catch for good.
- The reading from the time of the catch, not tonight's number, even when you log it later.
- Adding a spot to an older photo adds the water body and that day's conditions too.
- Your Fishdex keeps them, so each species remembers the water you found it in. The Fishdex
@tailing_tide · Saturday · 7:12 AMSample water page. A lake has no tide, so the cell stays empty.
Each lake and inlet has its own read
Open any water's page in Cobia and it shows the live conditions there: water and air temperature, wind, pressure, the tide where there is one, and the moon.
- The water's season, not the calendar's. What to throw places today's reading in that station's own yearly range and checks whether the water is warming or cooling. A lake is read from a lake or river gauge, never an ocean station down the coast. What to throw
- The briefing starts from it. Water temperature is one of the reads behind the day's call. The daily briefing
The rest of the read
Questions about water conditions
Where does Cobia get the water temperature?
From the nearest station that measures it: coastal stations and buoys on salt water, river and lake gauges inland. When the number comes from a model instead of a sensor, the card says Modeled.
What does the dashed line on the water cards mean?
Solid is what the station measured. Dashed is an estimate for hours the sensor didn't cover, including the hours still to come. The estimate is set to the station's own readings so the two meet cleanly.
Why does Cobia show wave period?
Height alone doesn't tell you what the water feels like. Three feet a few seconds apart is a steep chop, and three feet ten seconds apart is a long, easy swell. The swell card shows the period and the direction it's coming from.
Are the conditions saved on my catches?
Yes. Each catch keeps the water temperature from the nearest station at the time it was caught, along with the wind, the tide, the pressure and the moon.
Is it free?
Yes. Water conditions, the briefing and the catch log are free in Cobia on iPhone and Android.
Know the water
before you wet a line.
Download Cobia, set your water, and read it every morning.
