Nobody pays a stranger to read their logbook. Here's how to stop being one.

Free entries need no bank setup, no paperwork — make your profile and you can publish a claimable entry today, from the app or the web. Every angler who claims it now knows your name. They can send you a public "thanks". Give enough away and you earn the generosity badges — Sharer, Local Guide, Community Pillar — and those never come off. A logbook with claimed entries and thanks behind it reads like a local who knows their water. That's who people pay.

"IMG_4021" sells nothing — and your entry's name is literally what shows up in a Google search for its page. Name it like you'd say it at the ramp: "Harbour-mouth kingi drop — incoming tide". Lead with the fish photo, not empty water. Then say the bit that's actually worth money: what it produces, when it fires, what to throw. An entry needs real GPS and at least one photo to go up — but the WHEN and HOW is what a buyer is paying for, so put it in the notes.

Only people who genuinely bought from you can leave a review — no mates propping you up, no strangers tearing you down. Reviews build your tier badge: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond. Tiers and reviews are exactly what a cautious buyer checks before parting with money. Deliver on the free stuff first; the paid reviews follow on their own.

Connect Stripe once on the web dashboard (that's the payments company — they handle the bank side, you never touch card numbers) and you can earn three ways: a single entry outright (the buyer's forever), a live logbook subscription you keep logging into — everyone subscribed gets each new entry automatically — or the whole logbook, forever. Money goes straight from the buyer to your account. Fishing Codex takes a 15% platform fee; payment-processing (Stripe) fees also apply — anglers typically net around 80%.

The public never sees your pin — just a rough ~10 km blob of heat. The true position is released only to whoever claims or unlocks. And publishing locks your ~500 m patch against competing listings for ~90 days, so another angler can't drop an entry on top of your water while yours is live.

Normally a published entry must be caught and captured in the app — that's the proof it's real. But right now, during the early-adopter window, long-time anglers can publish a capped number of imported marks from the old archive too. Decades of dawn starts are worth something; the window to cash them in won't stay open forever.