Mail goes to someone who works on the app, and you'll hear back from them.
You start a session when you get to the water and stop it when you're done. In between, your phone stays in your pocket and you talk out loud as you go — what you caught, what you were throwing, what the water's doing, anything you want to remember.
Afterwards TaleWater reads the recording back and turns it into the day: the catches, the conditions, the flies, pinned to where you were standing when you said it. You don't type anything.
You don't have to narrate constantly, and you don't have to say things a particular way. Talk like you would to someone standing next to you.
An outer chest pocket works — waders, a jacket, a sling strap. Anywhere up high and facing out. A trouser pocket or the bottom of a pack is too muffled to be much use, and a phone under a rain shell will pick up more shell than voice.
If you want it to work properly in wind or on a loud river, a clip-on lapel mic is a real upgrade. Clip it to your collar, run the cable down to your phone, and leave the phone wherever it's dry.
Either way, you don't need to hold anything or talk loudly. Normal speaking voice is enough.
Recording needs both the microphone and location. If either is off, a session won't start — the app will say which one and offer to open Settings.
To check by hand: Settings › TaleWater. Microphone should be on, and Location should be set to Always.
Your phone is in a pocket while you fish, so the app has to follow along with the screen off. "While Using the App" stops the moment the screen locks, which is most of a fishing day.
iOS won't offer Always the first time it asks — it only offers Once or While Using. After your first real session iOS asks again on its own, and that's when you can choose Always. Nothing is tracked between sessions.
Pins come from where your phone was when you said something, so a catch lands where you were standing — not where the fish was. In tight canyons or heavy cover GPS drifts, and a pin can sit a seam or two off.
You can move any pin by hand afterwards. If a whole day's pins are wrong, Location was probably set to While Using rather than Always for that session.
Your recording is uploaded to our transcription provider to be turned into text, then deleted — no later than 30 days after you record it, whether or not a session finishes processing. What TaleWater keeps afterward is the write-up: the day, the catches, the conditions, pinned to where you were standing — not the audio itself.
No. Your log is private by default — there is no public feed, no leaderboard, no map of other people's fish, and nothing you record is visible to anyone else. We don't sell or publish where you fish.
Pages are shared one at a time, by you. Nothing goes out because you recorded it; it goes out because you sent it to someone.
Subscriptions are handled by Apple, so they're changed in the App Store rather than in TaleWater: Settings › [your name] › Subscriptions.
Cancelling keeps everything you've already recorded. Recording a new session and having it written up need an active subscription; logging days by hand, conditions, and sharing stay free.
Tap Restore purchases at the bottom of the plans screen. That asks Apple what you own and turns recording back on. You'll need to be signed in with the same Apple Account you bought it on.
In the app: You › Delete account. It tells you exactly what goes, and asks you to type DELETE to confirm. It can't be undone.
Deleting your account does not cancel your subscription. Cancel that in the App Store first, or the charge keeps coming for an account that no longer exists.
Shared pages open in a browser without TaleWater installed, and in the app if you have it. If a link does nothing, the person who sent it may have deleted the page or their account — that stops the link working.