Tips, answers, and guidance for getting the most out of huntNotes.
Yes. The core hunting and fishing journal features are free forever. Premium is $4.99/month or $39.99/year and unlocks advanced analytics, 3D map styles, unlimited offline maps, extended forecasts, and more. A 14-day free trial of Premium is available - no credit card required.
huntNotes is available on iOS and Android.
No account is required. Your data is stored locally on your device. You can use every feature without creating a login.
Tap the + button on the home screen and choose a Hunting or Fishing journal. Fill in the species, weapon or gear, start time, sightings, and any notes. Tap Complete when your session is over to finalize it.
Yes. Add individual sightings with sex (male, female, or undetermined), count, and timestamp. Harvest counts are tracked separately so you can see exactly what you saw versus what you took.
Yes. Photos can be attached to sessions from the media page. Tap the photo icon inside a session to add images from your camera or library. Notes can be added to waypoints, but photos are only supported for sessions.
huntNotes mode is for hunting sessions with sighting and harvest tracking. fishNotes mode is for fishing sessions with per-catch logging. Toggle between modes from the More tab. Your sessions, waypoints, and analytics are organized by whichever mode was active when you logged them.
Inside a fishing session, tap Add Catch. Enter the species, length (inches), weight (lbs), and the bait or lure used. You can add multiple catches per session.
Yes. Start an active hunt or fishing session and huntNotes keeps it running in the background. From the session notification you can QuickLog quick notes in seconds without opening the app. Premium adds optional in-session reminders (nudges) to prompt you to log sightings, with an adjustable interval and count.
huntNotes includes 25+ waypoint types: tree stands, scrapes, rubs, bedding areas, food sources, water sources, blood trails, harvests, trail camera locations, parking spots, blinds, feeders, salt licks, fishing spots, boat ramps, campsites, and more. Each type has its own icon on the map.
Yes. Download a map region over Wi-Fi from the Offline Maps page before your trip. Once downloaded, the map works fully offline - no signal needed. Waypoints, tracks, and sightings all work offline too.
Free includes 2D Topo and 2D Satellite map styles. Premium adds 3D Topo and 3D Satellite. Online-only 3D styles are available anytime with a connection; downloaded offline regions use the 2D styles.
It depends on the area size and the quality setting you choose (Low, Medium, High, or Very High). huntNotes shows you an estimated tile count and file size before you start the download so there are no surprises.
Free includes 1 offline map region. Premium allows unlimited regions at any quality level.
Yes. Use the drawing tools to drop points and build a line or area right on the map. Distance and acreage update live as you go, and you can label and color each shape. Tap a finished line to see its elevation profile (gain, loss, min, and max elevation along the shape), powered by Mapbox terrain data. Drawing and measurement are free for everyone.
A single Map Layers sheet lets you switch basemaps and toggle every layer without menu-digging: property parcel boundaries and public-access overlays, contour lines, and a high-resolution LiDAR/hillshade relief layer (Premium). A persistent scale bar and live elevation readout stay on screen, and the map opens right to your last location.
The parcel layer shows property lines with landowner labels and acreage. Tap a parcel to open its sheet for the owner, address, and acreage, or switch the same sheet to Weather for current conditions and the Hunt Score at that spot. Parcel classification is informational only and is not legal permission to hunt, so always verify local hunting regulations.
Yes. huntNotes imports and exports tracks and boundaries in every common GPS format (GPX, KML, KMZ, and GeoJSON), so you can bring in shapes from other apps or share your own out. This is free for all users.
The Weather tab is split into three sections. Overview shows current conditions, the weekly forecast, hourly outlook, and moon phase. Insights builds a prevailing wind rose and historical trend charts for temperature, precipitation, and wind across rolling 2-week, 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month windows. Hunt Score has its own dedicated subpage that rates each hour from real weather data and time of year.
The Hunt Score rates conditions from Poor to High based on the weather factors that affect game movement. It considers time of day (best around sunrise/sunset), barometric pressure trends (rising pressure is better), temperature compared to recent averages, wind speed, and seasonal patterns. Higher scores indicate better conditions to be out. Hunt Score now lives on its own dedicated subpage inside the Weather tab.
Insights is the historical-data view inside the Weather tab. It shows a prevailing wind rose for your selected location plus trend charts for temperature, precipitation, and wind across rolling 2-week, 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month windows. Use it to see which conditions actually played out at a spot before you commit to hunting it. Premium feature.
A wind rose is a circular chart showing how often the wind blew from each direction over the time range you picked. It is the fastest way to read the prevailing winds at a location so you can plan stand setups and entry routes. Available on the Insights tab. Premium feature.
Yes. Search any location within the USA and save it as a favorite for quick access. Free allows 1 saved weather location. Premium allows unlimited saved locations - useful for scouting out-of-state hunts in advance.
Hourly and 7-day forecasts are Premium features. All users see current conditions, wind, pressure, and the Hunt Score for the selected time.
Weather data is powered by the National Weather Service (NWS) API. It is the same data source used by NOAA and most professional weather services.
huntNotes shows sunrise, sunset, moon phase name, and moon illumination percentage. These are calculated locally for your selected location.
Yes. On the Weather page, browse forward by date for the weekly forecast to plan hunts around lunar cycles. Many hunters use this to target the rut and peak feeding windows.
River Gauges let you monitor real-time flow, stage (water level), and water temperature from USGS and NOAA gauges near your fishing spots. When water conditions matter - rising rivers, post-rain runoff, dropping tailwaters - you can check before you drive out.
Yes. For each saved gauge, define your ideal low and high flow range. huntNotes color-codes the current reading so you can see at a glance whether conditions are ideal, too low, too high, or near flood stage.
Free users get basic gauge monitoring. Premium unlocks unlimited favorite gauges, an extended search radius for finding gauges, and NOAA river flow forecasts so you can see where conditions are headed.
Hunt analytics include sighting patterns by time of day, weather correlations, harvest success rates, season comparisons, and keyword analysis from your notes. Fish analytics include catch rates by species, weight and length trends, and bait effectiveness. All of it is computed locally from your own journal data.
No. All analysis is done entirely on your device. Your journal data never leaves your phone unless you choose to export it yourself.
Basic stats are visible on Free. Full analytics, pattern detection, season-over-season comparisons, weather correlations, and keyword analysis require Premium.
Ask My Data lets you ask plain-language questions of your own journal, such as which conditions produced the most sightings, and get answers built entirely from your real data, computed on your device. It is a Premium feature. Fishing analytics also include a species filter so you can narrow trends to a single species.
Go to More → Export. huntNotes generates a password-protected .hdb backup file and opens your device's share sheet so you can save it to Files, email it, or send it to cloud storage. Write down the password - it is not stored anywhere in the app and cannot be recovered.
Yes. Auto-backup creates automatic encrypted backups using one password you save once, and huntNotes reminds you so a season's journal is never lost. You can still export manually anytime, and restoring a backup works on any device.
Yes. Export from your old device, transfer the .hdb file to your new device (AirDrop, email, cloud, etc.), then go to More → Import on the new device. The app will decrypt and restore your data and restart automatically.
Yes. Importing a backup replaces all current data on the device with the contents of the backup file. The app shows a warning and asks you to confirm before proceeding.
No. huntNotes is local-first by design. All sessions, waypoints, photos, and settings live on your device. Export and import give you full control over your own backups.
Download the app and go to More → Upgrade. The 14-day Premium trial starts automatically. No credit card is required to begin the trial.
Subscriptions are managed through Apple App Store (iOS) or Google Play Store (Android) settings - not within huntNotes itself. Go to your platform's subscription management page to cancel anytime.
Nothing is deleted. All your journals, waypoints, photos, and notes stay on your device. Premium-only features - 3D maps, extended analytics, unlimited offline regions, unlimited gauge favorites, and extended forecasts - become unavailable until you re-subscribe.