FishCast Support

Help and answers to common questions.

Contact

We typically respond within 2 business days. Please include your iPhone model and iOS version.

Frequently asked questions

Why does FishCast need my location?

FishCast uses your location to fetch local weather, find the nearest NOAA tide station, and compute solunar periods for your latitude and longitude. Your location is used only on your device and is never sent to us — we have no servers.

Where does the weather and tide data come from?

Weather comes from Open-Meteo, a free open-source weather API. Tide predictions come from the U.S. NOAA Tides & Currents service.

The Tides tab is empty. Why?

Tide data is only available for coastal locations near a NOAA station. Inland lake and river anglers will see weather, solunar, and lunar data, but no tide tab content. The fishing score will still work correctly — tide simply isn't weighted for your location.

How is the fishing score calculated?

Each hour gets a 0–100 score blending barometric pressure (and its trend), wind speed, cloud cover, water-temperature proxy, lunar phase, solunar major/minor periods, and tide stage. The weighting for each factor depends on your selected species — bass weights pressure heavily, walleye weights cloud cover, catfish rewards falling pressure, and so on.

What does "solunar" actually mean here?

Major solunar periods center on lunar transit (when the moon is overhead or underfoot — 2-hour window). Minor periods center on moonrise and moonset (1-hour window). FishCast computes these from real astronomical formulas using your exact latitude and longitude, not a generic ±6-hour estimate.

The forecast won't load.

Check your internet connection — FishCast needs to fetch weather and tide data. If location permission was denied, open Settings → FishCast → Location and enable "While Using the App", then pull down to refresh.

How often does the forecast update?

Weather is re-fetched every 10 minutes; tide predictions every 30 minutes. Pull down on the Forecast tab to force a fresh fetch.

Why does the score sometimes change between hours?

Scoring is computed per hour. Conditions like pressure trend, cloud cover, wind, and tide stage shift hour to hour. The "Now" badge always reflects the current hour.

Does FishCast work without an internet connection?

Solunar and lunar data are computed on-device and work offline once the app has loaded. Weather and tides require connectivity.

I'd like to suggest a species or feature.

Open an issue at github.com/coldstartdev/FishCast/issues or email us. We prioritize requests with clear use cases.