The old way of planning a French trip
If you've planned a French fishing trip before, you'll know the process. A mix of tabs, screenshots, WhatsApp threads and hastily typed notes. One mate has the lake names in a spreadsheet, another has bookmarked them in Google Maps, and by the time you're driving through Normandie someone's asking which lake came first.
It doesn't need to be that way. The PiscaMaps Trip Planner brings everything into one place — the venues, the route, the group, and the catches — and keeps it there for every trip you plan.
Creating a trip
To get started, log in to PiscaMaps and open your profile. Click the Trips tab, then New Trip. Give the trip a name, set your dates, and add any notes — targets, tactics, who's driving, whatever you want to keep on record.
Start planning early. You can create a trip months before you travel. Add venues as you research them, invite your mates when plans are confirmed, and the trip record builds up naturally over time. No need to do it all at once.
Adding venues and building your route
Once your trip is created, add your venues one by one. Start typing a lake or river name and the venue search autocompletes from the full PiscaMaps database — the same 4,000+ venues you can find on the map. Select the venue, add a planned date and any swim or access notes, and it's added to your trip.
Venues appear as numbered cards in the order you added them. Drag them to reorder and the route updates automatically.
The route map
Every trip has its own dedicated Leaflet map. Enter a start location — your home address, your local port, wherever you're departing from — and PiscaMaps geocodes it and plots it as the starting point. From there, the map draws a driving route through each venue in order, with the distance and estimated driving time shown for each leg of the journey.
Optimise your route. Drag the venue cards to find the most efficient order before you commit to the plan. Particularly useful on longer trips where the difference between a good route and a poor one can add hours of driving.
Fishing with friends
Most French fishing trips aren't solo affairs. The Trip Planner is built for groups — invite your fishing partners and they get full visibility of the trip from their own PiscaMaps profile.
Invite by username
Search for any PiscaMaps member by their username and send them an invite. They'll receive an email notification straight away letting them know they've been added to the trip.
Shared trip view
Once added, trip members can see the full trip — all venues, the route map, dates, notes and the catch log. Everyone's working from the same information, not a fragmented chain of messages.
Leave or remove members
Plans change. Any member can leave a trip at any time, and the trip owner can remove members if needed. No friction.
The catch log
Every venue in a trip has a built-in catch log. During or after the trip, record your catches against the specific venue where they were caught. Log the species, weight in lbs and oz, the angler who caught it, and any notes on the rig, bait or conditions.
On a group trip, the catch log becomes a shared record for the whole session. Every member can see what was caught, by whom, and where across the trip. It builds up a genuine record of your French fishing history that lives in your profile rather than disappearing into a WhatsApp scroll.
Catches appear on your profile. Logged catches are visible on the Reviews tab of your angler profile, building up a record of venues you've fished and species you've caught over time.
Why it matters
French fishing trips take real planning. You're often covering hundreds of miles, visiting multiple venues across several departments, juggling different fishing licences, night fishing permissions and season dates — and doing it all with a group of people who each have their own idea of the ideal itinerary.
The Trip Planner doesn't replace the conversation, but it gives it somewhere to live. When everything is in one place — the venues, the route, the group, the catches — the planning becomes easier and the trip itself runs more smoothly.
No other French fishing resource offers this. Not the dedicated French fishing websites, not the apps, not the Facebook groups. It's a PiscaMaps membership exclusive, and it's included in the standard subscription from £5.95/month.
Ready to plan your next French trip?
Join PiscaMaps and start building trips straight away. Full access to 4,000+ venues, the Trip Planner, and all member features from £5.95/month.
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