What happened when I took a Coros smartwatch on an fly fisherman’s trip

Follow ZDNet: Add us like a preferred source On Google.

---

I had the opportunity to test many smartwatches, but it is still difficult to find a watch that covers all bases. I notice that I always look at the next look to fill the holes.

With each new model photographing brands for unique functions to help them stand out of the peloton. Well, it looks like a robust brand Grain has followed my adventures in fly fishing in the past seven years with the NomadA stylish device with some unique functions for people who love fishing.

Also: I tested the best sports watches in 2025: here are the newest and best watches, regardless of your budget

As the Garmin Instinct Line of watches, the Coros Nomad takes some design instructions from Casios G-Shock with a thick plastic body and large external buttons. It mainly looks like the Garmin Instinct 3 Solar That is $ 100 more and supports the charging of solar energy, but the monochrome display fades compared to the color screen with higher resolution on the Coros Nomad.

The Coros Nomad is a sustainable watch that can handle the elements and weighs only 49 grams. It has a watertight assessment of up to 50 meters, hardened mineral glass display, operating temperature from -4 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit and double microphones for voice notes that convert into text in the Coros app.

The Nomad offers an improved experience that is conducive to documenting your adventures with speech notes, photos, videos and route data. The new Function Adventure Journal is especially attractive for my fly fishing outings because I like to document the fish country in the rivers, in which time of the year I was successful and that experiences with family and friends can share.

My most important motivation for fly fishing is to escape from the office and to spend time in cold river water while I swing my dry fly to and forth. I often capture photos of the fish that I land before I leave them back in the water and love the challenge to read the river and discover hotspots for fish. With the Adventure Journal function I now see the photos that are synchronized with my outing with the possibility to easily share the data.

As an example of the optimization that Coros provides for some of these unique activities, we have the flight visiting activity in more detail. Coros has added a new hardware button to the Nomad called the action button, placed at the bottom left of the watch. This is programmable within activities and is currently not functional at any other time during the use of the watch. You can select to add a new pin or switch from the map page to another page with the activity data.

Some of the adjustable data fields for the coastal vissing include casts and catches, so that you can keep track of how often you wave your air rod and leave the line into the river. With a simple pressure on the top right button you can log a catch after landing your fish.

Also: The best training watch I have ever tried is the first Coros with a modern display

Personally I would like to see a hands -free way to log a catch, because I am often quite busy handling my rod, the net, the fish and my camera. However, after the release, it is nice to have a catch to log a catch and helps to turn off the outing for sharing and future planning. All other typical statistics for activities are supported, including heart rate, remotely covered, weather conditions and more.

Although fishing is a focus for the Coros Nomad, it is also a complete sports watch with full support for accurate GPS tracking of your running, walking, climbing, swimming and more. It offers offline maps for telephone -free navigation and even contains street names, interesting points and warns you if you wander from the route. The MIP color display helps navigating through color differentiation of roads, paths and highways.

Also: Can a tablet survive a real walk? This Samsung Galaxy model did it – and I would bring it again

Just like Garmin watches, Coros offers you the option to select from a wide range of widgets that are accessible by wiping from the head watch face. Details within each widget are available when you scroll down and then select the widget with the digital dial button or your finger on the touchscreen.

The Toolbox menu can also be extremely useful, because it is accessible at any time by pressing the back/round button on the right side of the nomade for a long time. The possibility to start the check of an Insta360 or GoPro camera can be very useful when you fish or perform another activity and want quick access to your camera.

A criticism that I have is the lack of an LED light on the watch. An open -air adventure watch like this is a perfect platform for such a function, and I hope to see it on a future Nomad or Vertix watch from Coros.

For now I will continue to use the Nomad for fly fishing and hope to land some big murderous trout on the Yakima this fall, so that I can share 3D viaducts, voice notes, photos, videos and my route with friends. I hope that these form of stories can inspire others to try this kind of outside adventures.

ZDnet’s buying advice

I have used the fish activity on Garmin watches in the past, and it has been useful for logging in catches and location that tagging the catch, but that is where the experience ends. Now, with the Nomad And Adventure Journal function I can make a complete story of my outdoor activities to easily share with friends in an exciting way.

The Coros Nomad is a comfortable, affordable and reliable sports watch that I highly recommend to anyone who loves fishing, but it is also a solid smartwatch for athletes and everyone who wants access to fitness statistics.