Fish Washington 4+

Could be a great app but....sync issues

I was excited to get this app, but every time I open it, it gives me a message that says it failed to sync and the last time it synced was April 18, 2018. I have tried to get it to sync, but it won’t. Even with the last bug fixes, I am still having issues. How do I fix so I can use the app?

Updated review and changed from 3 stars to 4 stars. I deleted the app and re-installed it per Jake’s instructions. Took a few try’s to get the information updated from the Dept. site but it finally did update and it’s working fine so far. I just hope that I don’t have to uninstall/reinstall every time there is an update available. You might work on that for the next updates. Thanks.

Developer Response ,

Hello,
We apologize for the inconvenience. We definitely want everyone to be able to use the app and for the experience to be awesome. Our best guess is that the local database got corrupted. Please uninstall the app by long-pressing on it's icon, then re-install from the store. Please let us know if this resolves the issue. If it doesn't, please shoot us an email mobileappdev@dfw.wa.gov and we'll schedule a call to investigate further.

Jake

Salmon/steelhead river fisherman

1st a question: does this app provide up to date salmon steelhead fishing regulations for rivers (Columbia river, Snake river, etc.)?

If I was able to get past the “Updating regs. This may take a minute..”, I would be able to answer this question myself.. However, the app downloads the regs fine, then stalls updating for 10+ minutes before I get frustrated and shut the app down. I’ve tried updating the app, re-installing the app, and waiting for much longer than the ‘minute’ of updating.. to no avail.

This is a great move forward with Washington fishing regs, especially for salmon/steelhead fisherman who have to dig through the abyss of emergency regs to find out if/when/where we can fish for these beasts.. I don’t understand why it has to be so difficult to determine if I can or cannot fish on a specific river. Idaho makes it infinitely easier to read regulations, maybe Washington can take a page from their book, or maybe the whole book...

Helpful at a glance

I like the app and it’s concept, it’s super easy to use and quickly check regulations on body’s of water. I do find it hard to know where you are looking sometimes because nothing is named. It would be much better if at least the bigger rivers are named so you know you aren’t looking at a small creek. I often find myself going back and forth between this app and google maps to make sure I am following the right river/creek. The other issue I have with the app is it takes FOREVER for the emergency rules to update and half the time I just get frustrated and close the app. When the emergency rules are trying to update you can’t use the app at all. If it’s going to take forever for them to load it would be nice if you could still at least use the map because sometimes the emergency rules don’t even matter to the bodies of water that I fish. I like the app and the concept but I think it needs further development.

Developer Response ,

Hi, Thank you for the feedback. It is very constructive and helpful. Regarding the regs taking forever to update, I have pushed a fix for an issue where downloads were failing silently, causing the updates to never complete. We are also looking into reducing the size of the downloads and a timeout that will move the regs updates to the background, so the app can be used while things are updating. We are also looking into adding labels to named streams and rivers in a future release. Respectfully, Jake Shapley, Application Developer, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, mobileappdev@dfw.wa.gov