Release notes

2026-10-08 — GPS waypoints and a clearer map

Added public release notes with a historical backfill of CatchWindow updates from March onward.

Fishing coordinates display in degrees and decimal minutes, with North/South and East/West labels. Spot submissions accept GPS waypoints directly, as well as decimal degrees.

The map starts near your device location when permission is granted. Links to a particular place retain their requested view. Device location requests ask for a fresh, high-accuracy reading and report accuracy where available; computer location can still be approximate.

Add fishing spot links on the map and fishing directory open a submission form with a map picker, device-location support and a review step before publication.

Phone map controls collapse behind Map tools. Forecast panels start collapsed on phones, and wind/current arrows have clear backgrounds when speed labels are off.

A compact scale ruler replaces the Measure button and follows your metric or imperial preference.

First Nations map data stays enabled with its button removed. Coverage and source information remain in the legend and boundary popups. Current coverage is incomplete and covers Yukon and transboundary areas from GeoYukon; classifications distinguish treaties/agreements from claims/assertions.

Fishing spots gained links to relevant DFO areas and subareas, with alternate official links during a Pacific DFO website outage.

Documented fishing spots and access points gained source-backed details and licensed exports. Fishing markers use fish icons, and mapped fishing spots reuse available forecasts.

Spot galleries show at most two relevant, visually reviewed photos. The homepage can show nearby spots when location permission is already allowed.

Added About, Contact and Terms pages, and adjusted the homepage advertising layout for small and landscape screens.

2026-10-07 — More fishing grounds and logging roads

Added 141 named fishing grounds and refreshed worldwide fishing and catch-and-release listings.

Added a worldwide logging-road overlay with coverage notes. Updated the site logo for readability.

2026-10-06 — Worldwide conditions and location photos

Mapped places gained weather and available ocean forecasts, with recovered place names and geographic labels.

Location photo galleries replaced the camera directory. Added Deep Bay marina and government wharf details, and three missing Hornby Island campgrounds.

2026-10-05 — Surf beaches and practical launch details

Added 30 source-backed surf beaches worldwide and practical, sourced details for boat ramps.

Expanded the coastal camera directory at the time; location photo galleries replaced it on October 6.

Made the privacy policy publicly accessible and updated branding and mobile advertising layouts.

2026-10-04 — Local-time scoring and reliable tide sources

Corrected activity scoring to use the location's local time, improved tide-source handling, and strengthened account and submission security.

2026-10-03 — Surf ratings for documented surf breaks

Restricted surf ratings to catalogued surf breaks instead of treating general coastal locations as surf spots.

2026-10-02 — Detailed forecasts and worldwide places

Expanded worldwide marine and recreation map coverage and made mapped places available in the fishing directory.

Added ocean-current and detailed wind forecasts, hourly detail, and more reliable markers and popups during map reloads.

Consolidated map layers into a compact menu and added English names and details for worldwide places.

Removed coastal tide results from lakes and reservoirs. Removed the AIS vessel layer from the map.

2026-10-01 — Currents, wind and broader coastal coverage

Added location current charts, next slack-water timing and a daily outlook, plus interactive wind forecasts on the map.

Expanded Pacific coverage from Central America to Alaska and North American coverage across US states, including Hawaii.

Added lighthouse coverage, NOAA buoy observations, and more ports, marinas, beaches, fishing places and paddle access points.

Added Locations near me and a week view that begins on the date in its address. Missing forecasts remain marked as missing.

Added map distance measurement, subsequently replaced by the scale ruler on October 8.

2026-09-25 — Boat ramps and BC campsites on the map

Added BC campsites and boat ramps to maps and nearby location listings, with labelled ramp markers.

Corrected Bill Mee Park coordinates, preserved open map popups, and made phone layer and activity panels more compact.

2026-09-24 — Tide times in the right time zone

Corrected tide timestamps and location time-zone displays.

2026-09-22 — Vancouver Island cameras

Added a public Vancouver Island camera directory. This historical feature was replaced by location photo galleries in October.

2026-09-21 — Location discovery improvements

Improved canonical location addresses, search-engine metadata, structured data and discovery files.

2026-09-16 — BC coastal planning and nearby fuel

Expanded Vancouver Island and BC coastal listings, added BC current and narrows-crossing planning information, and added nearby fuel stations to location pages.

Corrected Denman Island and Buckley Bay fuel names and improved nearby-station coverage.

2026-09-07 — More Vancouver Island places

Added eight Vancouver Island coastal locations and fixed a map black-screen problem when loading activity ratings.

2026-08-28 — Location time zones and publishing quality

Stored geographic time zones for locations rather than defaulting imported places to UTC.

Separated mapped coverage from search indexing and bounded recurring report generation.

2026-08-27 — More efficient forecast fetching

Nearby locations began sharing cached forecast-grid responses to reduce duplicate upstream requests.

2026-08-23 — Condition report maintenance

Corrected condition-report type checks.

2026-08-22 — Daily reports, accessibility and location links

Added permanent dated water reports with completeness checks, location-local daily briefs and clearer explanations of activity scores.

Improved location-page initial content, canonical links and breadcrumbs, and consolidated duplicate location records.

Improved form submission, account dialogs, theme consistency, accessibility and stale-client cache handling.

Updated sitewide advertising layout.

2026-08-21 — Reliable page loading

Fixed a blank location dashboard during loading and improved deployment health checks.

2026-08-16 — Location metadata and broader imports

Expanded imported locations and improved location-specific metadata and descriptions.

2026-08-15 — Hosting update

Updated hosting and restored location data on the new database infrastructure.

2026-03-27 — Historical vessel-tracking update

Added live vessel tracking to the map. The vessel layer was subsequently removed on October 2.

2026-03-21 — Installable app

Made CatchWindow installable as a progressive web app.

2026-03-19 — Map coverage and visibility

Expanded imported geographical features, including canals and reefs, and improved location-marker visibility across zoom levels.

2026-03-18 — Nautical map layers

Added and refined nautical charts, seamarks, satellite and bathymetry map layers, and improved mobile map navigation and loading.

2026-03-17 — Map explorer, tides and distance units

Added the interactive water-activity map explorer and viewport-based loading.

Added Canadian tide-station data and corrected high/low tide classification. Improved wind and current inputs to activity ratings.

Added metric and imperial unit preferences.

2026-03-09 — Themes and location search

Added light/dark themes, expanded waterfront listings and improved search for specific islands.

Added Big Coast Marine Adventures information for Canadian visitors.

2026-03-08 — Location maps and island searches

Added maps to location and search pages, improved nearby-place relevance, and expanded island listings.

2026-03-07 — Search with nearby context

Improved location search with nearby areas, clearer area names and more results.

2026-03-06 — Resumable location imports

Improved location importing so progress survives restarts.

2026-03-05 — Early CatchWindow features

Introduced location dashboards with weather, wind, waves, ocean and freshwater conditions, tides, solunar timing and activity ratings.

Added fishing-location browsing, species and seasonal guides, fishing reports with moderation, and location submissions.

Added accounts, saved locations, email digests, configurable condition alerts and global search.