Texas Parks and Wildlife Department overhaul app to streamline hunting, fishing licenses

BEAUMONT, Texas — The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is overhauling its Texas Harvest Mobile App to make it easier for hunters and anglers to get their licenses. With these changes comes a new name, Texas Hunt & Fish.

On August 15, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will launch an updated version of the official mobile app used by hunters and anglers across the state for harvest reporting, electronic onsite registration, digital license display, and more.

In a press release, Texas Parks and Wildlife say that the newly christened Texas Hunt & Fish will have an updated look and a new name, but it will have all the same features users are familiar with from the previous version of the app.

Texas Parks and Wildlife say that with the Texas Hunt & Fish mobile app, hunters and anglers can satisfy mandatory reporting requirements for wild turkey, white-tailed deer and alligator gar harvest, as well as complete electronic on-site registration for most public hunting sites accessed when using the Annual Public Hunt (APH) Permit.

However, fully digital license holders must use the Texas Hunt & Fish app to execute digital tags for deer, turkey, oversized red drum and spotted seatrout.

Texas Parks and Wildlife say that they have also found a way to identify a disease that has been ravaging whitetail populations across the country.

“One of the newest features, launched during the 2023-24 hunting season, is the app’s ability to show Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) zones relative to the hunter’s location if they have the location services turned on,” Texas Parks and Wildlife said in a press release.

A full list of the apps new features from Texas Parks and Wildlife is listed below.

• Online and offline functionality – use the app regardless of data service once it has been installed and your account is connected.
  
• Connect and display your hunting and fishing license (note that paper license holders must still carry physical tags when pursuing tagged species)
• Perform mandatory hunt harvest reporting for wild turkey, white-tailed deer, and alligator gar
• Digitally tag harvested game and fish (requires purchase of an appropriate digital hunting and/or fishing license)
• Track and view your harvest history
• Perform electronic onsite registration (eOSR) for many public hunt areas
• Download maps of many public hunt areas for use with or without data service
• View CWD Zone boundaries and, with location service enabled, determine your position in relation to the nearest zone
• Reportar su cosecha en español o en inglés – report your harvest in English or Spanish
• Users not wishing to use the app can complete mandatory harvest reporting online.

Users that already have the old version of the app downloaded on their devices will need to update to the new version starting on August 15 to get all the latest features and to ensure proper app functionality.