For a fun hackathon project awhile back I outfitted one of my drones with a wireless weapon payload designed for drone war skyjack missions. Flying is fun, but flying off with someone else's drone is even more fun...

Most of my time is split on a couple of different lakes. One day after watching a couple of flat billed, jersey clad fishermen fight to fish the same spot on a relatively empty lake, I realized that some just might find it entertaining if they could use my drone hack to interact with fish finders and autonomous trolling motors…

For the drone hack a Raspberry Pi Zero W with a small wireless network adapter is ideal for keeping the aerial package lightweight. The primary drone feature sends a deauth attack signal that disconnects the target drone from Wi-Fi and reconnects it to the attacker’s flight controller. It’s simple and effective.

The fish finder and autonomous trolling motor attack payloads can be configured in an aerial package for long range stealth flight fun or in various handheld wardrive packages that can be concealed in your boat or outfitted to work from your dock or lakeside porch. This will allow dock owners to finally have a fun way to interact with someone thoughtlessly banging lures or their boat off your dock.

The features are currently limited so I'm reaching out to the tribe for suggestions. Currently the fish finder hack will disable wireless networked devices and GPS, download, erase or update waypoints, and in some cases allow you to send a special message to the device’s display.

I’m working on a few standard messages to send to display screens but wanted to ask the OT for suggestions for a few more. So far it will send the following messages:

• MOVE ON - NO FISH HERE
• NO WAKE A$$HOLE
• YES - YOU’RE TOO CLOSE
• CAUGHT YOU CHEATING
• YOUR’RE DOING IT WRONG
• YOUR WIFE SAYS GO HOME
• I’M BROKEN - CALL TECH SUPPORT
• SHUT UP AND FISH SOMEWHERE ELSE
• GIVE UP AND GO HOME
• NO FISHING ZONE
• ELECTRONIC FREE ZONE
• CUSTOM SUBSCRIBE BUTTON
• DISQUALIFIED - RETURN TO RAMP
• YOUR WRAPPED TUNDRA IS OUT OF GAS
• YOUR FLAT BILL LOOKS STUPID
• I'M GOING TO HACK YOUR CYBERTRUCK
• PRIVATE DOCK - MOVE ON

The autonomous trolling motor package works similar to the drone skyjack package as it allows the attacker the ability to take control of the autopilot feature, plus it allows you to download, erase or update waypoints. It's fun to move someone's boat for them while they are on your dock retrieving a lure. Any thoughts on other features it needs?

BTW, I’m working on something similar that will allow messages to be sent to display screens in nearby vehicles. Since the spring spawn is just around the corner please send your suggestions ASAP so I can wrap up the fish finder/trolling motor project.

Tight lines ~

Blue Moon

Awesome! Added a suggestion from John175, plus I'll add video capabilities to the flight package to monitor and maybe livestream reactions.

Bought your body armor yet? Might need to.

the guys over at flight test are always doing stuff with drones like that . Maybe take a peek

My thoughts as well!

My suggestion would be to make sure you have good health/dental/vision insurance.

"Your worm isn't big enough"

Have the laws changed? What is the range, elevation, etc. that a private drone operator can do?

I've wanted to buy one. However, I thought you had to stay over your own property--boring.

You need to check your plug.

Just because you can, does that mean you should? With your talent, assuming there's any truth to this, is this is all you can think of? Happy FCC meeting to ya.

I know you cannot harass a hunter that is a violation of the law wonder if they have a similar law on fishing?

So is this person saying he is going to harass people just because he can? He is going to insert his time and efforts just to make strangers annoyed and such? Am I reading this correct?

Someone on their own boat, on public water, chunking lures at your dock is legal. Harassing them is not legal, much less hacking into their electronics. Sounds like your in line for a bunch of fines and lawsuits.

Yeah, sounds awesome!

I may be wrong, but I assumed it was tongue-in-cheek.

who's pudding who's tongue in who's cheek ?

Well I will assume with you. Surely no one would come on here and admit to being such a degenerate.

Sneaky is ProStaff material!


Awesome! Added to the display list


Good one! Added to the display list


Sir that might be a tad aggressive but we’re all about the customer experience so if you want that for a message we’ll add it to the list.


Flying a drone is only a hassle in big cities, near airports and restricted space. Recreational pilots can fly in non-controlled airspace up to 400 feet above the ground without too many restrictions. You can get a commercial license or UAS (unmanned aircraft system) license if you get serious about commercial drone operations.

Most drones have miles of range but recreational pilots should keep drones in sight at all times.

February 15 Update:

Good news - After a wild night of Valentine’s fun we somehow managed to launch and recover one of our UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), along with a manned fixed wing aircraft this morning that I’m sure many of you noticed flying low and slow over your favorite honeyholes. We accomplished the mission’s goal by collecting sonar, mobile and GoPro data from well over 1,000 targets fishing on Athens and Fork.

We’re in the process of analysing the data. One of the next steps will be to cobble it together with readily available aggregated mobile and social data. This process will allow us to associate known users with the newly acquired boat sonar, mobile and video data. Once we have the match, all future data gathered for each specific target and associated devices will be combined to build a more comprehensive user profile.

Flight missions will resume tomorrow. The initial results are very encouraging so we’ve decided to expand the scope of the project.

In the near future we’ll be offering fast internet with global coverage, for a low cost so you can connect, sync, store, and share all your personal and device data.

The following subscription based platform services will include:

• Monitor specific lakes for hotspots based on real time data
• Download your favorite pro’s honeyhole waypoint data
• Monitor ramp parking real time to find the best place to launch
• Interact and monitor any connected boat on the water from any location in the world
• Monitor your lake house and interact with anyone fishing near or accessing your dock
• Watch streaming video of anyone on the water with an active GoPro or wireless camera
• Download your favorite pro’s internet browsing history and contact info - Find out who Big O really is!!!
• Download boat lanes for your favorite lake
• More to come!

PROSTAFF UPDATE- We’ll soon add to our prostaff. We need wardrive volunteers to help capture device and digital information at major tournaments and area boat ramps. No experience is needed. Just a willingness to carry one of our fully automated wardrive devices along for the ride when you go fishing.

Lake home owners and lake front businesses can join our prostaff network by deploying small dock sensors and beacons that will automatically interrogate and upload data to our platform from nearby wireless devices.

Looking at our roadmap, we expect to offer the additional following services:

• Digital Tournament Experience - since we’re building the platform that will eventually connect and collect all boat device traffic, we’ll be able to create a much better digital experience for fishermen and fans.
• Catching Analytics - Find out what lure and technique is actually catching fish. Our real time data will show what is actually working and what’s not.
• Ramp Monitoring - Since we’ll be monitoring the lakes we’ll also have smart device metadata on everyone that enters a parking lot. We’ll be able to provide GPS coordinates to help you hunt down anyone that messed with your stuff!
• CyberSecurity - We’ll provide services to protect your honeyhole waypoint information, autopilot, video streams and browser history from being scraped and exploited by bad actors. This is a real 2020 thing you just read about on your favorite forum, but no need to worry, for a small monthly fee you can fish with peace of mind…

Again thanks for all the feedback. Please keep the suggestions coming!

Blue Moon

You would have a heck of time trying to hack my electronics. Im probably the only one on the lake that doesn't even run with GPS yet, much less all the auto pilot stuff, down imaging, side imaging, live scope, etc. My graphs are still black and white too.

Sounds like a pot lickers dream.