2026-09-29 · Fishing licences · Could not verify · Closed
The BC tidal licence fees, missing since launch, are now published from the DFO page itself.
Checked against: Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Pacific Region licence page, which still does not resolve from our servers, read from the Internet Archive capture of 27 September 2026; the page is dated 10 April 2026
Found: The 2026/2027 fees: C$25.86 a year for Canadian residents aged 16 to 64, C$13.54 at 65 and over, C$124.41 for non-residents, free under 16, day licences from C$6.46, and C$7.39 for the salmon stamp, all before GST. Every fee rose by 2.6 to 2.8 per cent on 2025/2026. The same page adds the halibut purchase rule for non-Canadians in Areas 121, 23 and 123 and the iREC reporting duty for adults.
Done: A new page for the BC tidal licence carries the fees, the rules and DFO’s 119 licence providers on a map, and says the fees were read from the archived copy. The BC freshwater page was rebuilt around the 2026-27 fees, the WILD system and the province’s vendor list.
2026-09-29 · Fishing licences · Source was wrong or late · Published with both dates
Manitoba gives two different dates for the February 2027 Family Fishing Weekend.
Checked against: Manitoba’s e-licensing Key Dates 2026/2027 page and the Manitoba Anglers’ Guide 2026, both read on 29 September 2026
Found: The key dates page lists the winter Family Fishing Weekend as 13–15 February 2027, Saturday to Monday, the Louis Riel Day long weekend; the anglers’ guide lists 20–22 February 2027. Our Manitoba licence page had carried the guide’s date alone since 25 September.
Done: The Manitoba licence page now shows both dates, names the source of each and asks anglers to check the province’s page. It will be updated when Manitoba corrects one of them.
2026-09-27 · Closed seasons · Our error · Corrected
Seasons were written into the text; they are now computed from 68 rules, and a closed species no longer gets a fishing plan.
Checked against: The Ontario Fishing Regulations Summary by zone (2025 and 2026), the 2025 and 2026 Alberta guides, the Saskatchewan and Manitoba 2026 anglers’ guides, the Nova Scotia 2026 salmon regulations and anglers’ handbook, the BC 2025-2027 synopsis and DFO fishery notices, 27 September 2026
Found: Canadian openers are written as rules, such as the fourth Saturday in June or the Friday before the second Saturday in May, so a date copied into a page is right for one year. The species cards also offered winter plans for fish that are closed in winter, for example walleye through the ice on Rice Lake, and today’s report gave a plan for any species on the card, open or not.
Done: Each rule is stored as the agency writes it and checked against the dates it produces for two years. Pages show whether a species is open, closed, catch and release only or closed all year, and list sanctuaries and closed parts of a water separately. A closed species shows the closure instead of a plan. Rules that rest on a notice carry a date by which they are re-read; DFO salmon notices in tidal water are not turned into rules, because they change during the season. Not verified yet: the Miramichi rules, because New Brunswick’s guide and DFO Gulf Region’s site could not be read.
2026-09-27 · Written guides · Our error · Corrected
Every written guide on the 54 waters, the seven province hubs and the ten species pages was re-checked against the bodies that manage the water; 393 changes.
Checked against: The DFO Fishery Notice System and area rules, the BC Freshwater Fishing Regulations Synopsis 2025-2027 and its in-season changes, the Ontario fishing regulations summary by zone and Ontario’s stocking data, the Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba anglers’ guides, the Nova Scotia salmon regulations, DFO Gulf Region salmon measures, the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC stocking records, Parks Canada, BC Parks, Ontario Parks and the municipalities, 27 September 2026; each page lists the pages that were opened
Found: Every guide needed changes. The serious ones: winter walleye fishing suggested on Rice Lake, closed from 16 November in Zone 17, and spring walleye on the lower Grand River during its closure; Lake Simcoe placed in the wrong zone, with muskie that are closed all year; Miramichi salmon written as if they could be kept, when every salmon must be released in 2026; ice fishing on Sylvan Lake into April, when the lake is closed from 1 April; the Lockport pelican conservation area on the Red River, closed to all fishing from 1 April to 15 November, left out; salmon at Mission on the Fraser, closed since 1 January 2026, and rockfish and lingcod off Vancouver, closed all year in Area 28; the closed Broken Group Islands and Nootka Sound inside channels, and Race Rocks, an ecological reserve, near fishing spots; the Kootenay Lake surcharge described as needed to fish rather than to keep a large rainbow; and a Nova Scotia salmon licence said to sit on top of the general licence. Superlatives such as “salmon capital of the world”, drive times, ramps and figures no official page publishes were taken out.
Done: The guides were rewritten from the pages opened, every page lists them with the date under “Pages checked”, and rules that change in-season now name the DFO notice or the provincial in-season page to check rather than a fixed date.
2026-09-27 · Coordinates · Our error · Corrected
Four waters were scored for the wrong place.
Checked against: Each water’s coordinates against the Canadian Geographical Names Database, the Water Survey of Canada station metadata and the text of its page, 27 September 2026
Found: The St. Lawrence River page, about the Ontario river from the Thousand Islands to Lake St. Francis, was scored at Rivière-Beaudette in Quebec; Long Point sat on land inside the Long Point National Wildlife Area; the Stave River page, about the reach below Ruskin Dam, was scored at a gauge above Stave Lake some 40 km upriver; and Vancouver sat on land south of False Creek. Port Alberni’s point is right, but the tide model has no sea at the head of the inlet, so the page had no tide at all.
Done: The four waters now use a point on the water their page describes (Brockville, the inner bay, the lower Stave, English Bay), and Port Alberni reads the modelled tide at the nearest sea cell of the model, which the page states. Every water is checked to lie inside its province.
2026-09-27 · Species · Our error · Corrected
Fifteen species cards listed fish the agency does not record there, or fish that are closed there all year.
Checked against: The provincial regulations and stocking records for each water and the DFO area rules, 27 September 2026
Found: Lake trout on Kootenay Lake, which the Region 4 synopsis calls non-native, and kokanee, which may not be kept on the main lake; kokanee on Tunkwa, stocked only with rainbow trout; cutthroat and bull trout on the Bow, and brown trout on the Elk; lingcod off Vancouver, closed all year in Area 28; coho on the three Great Lakes pages, stocked in Ontario only in the Credit River; lake trout on Lake of the Woods, catch and release on most of the lake; striped bass on the Margaree; sockeye missing from Port Alberni and Barkley Sound; and no channel catfish on the Red River, the fish its page is about.
Done: Each water now takes the species the agency records; channel catfish was added. The text says where a species on the card is catch and release only.
2026-09-27 · Licences · Source was wrong or late · Corrected
Licence fees re-read; two open figures resolved, two still open.
Checked against: The licence pages of British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia, 27 September 2026
Found: No fee had changed. Alberta’s walleye special harvest licences are no longer drawn by lottery: for 2026 they are sold first come, first served. Alberta’s WiN card costs C$12 plus GST, C$2 less online. Nova Scotia’s salmon licence covers salmon on its own, and its fee includes HST and the C$5.91 habitat surcharge. New Brunswick’s pages sat behind a human-verification check and DFO Pacific’s site did not resolve, so the New Brunswick totals and the BC tidal fees could not be read.
Done: The licence pages carry the new read date and the corrections; the New Brunswick page keeps the 25 September reading and the BC tidal fees stay unpublished until DFO’s page can be read.
2026-09-25 · Tides and Great Lakes levels · Could not verify · Not used
The Canadian Hydrographic Service’s tides and water levels are not used on these pages.
Checked against: The licence agreement for the Tides, currents and water levels website and its web services (tides.gc.ca, modified 2023-08-14), and a request to the IWLS web service, 25 September 2026
Found: The licence says the data shall not be used to produce derivative products for commercial purposes, for sale or profit under any form. The web service also did not answer from our servers that day.
Done: Coastal pages show a modelled tide curve from Open-Meteo Marine, labelled as a model, and point to tides.gc.ca for the official times. The Great Lakes pages carry no water level, because those levels are the Hydrographic Service’s.
2026-09-25 · Water levels · Source was wrong or late · Corrected before publishing
The Harrison River gauge at Harrison Mills had stopped reporting; the page reads the gauge below Morris Creek.
Checked against: The latest reading of each Water Survey of Canada station chosen for the first Canadian pages, 25 September 2026
Found: Station 08MG014, Harrison River at Harrison Mills, had not reported since 7 September 2026; every other chosen station had a reading from that morning.
Done: The Harrison River page reads station 08MG022, Harrison River below Morris Creek, which reported that morning.
2026-09-25 · Water levels · Our error · Corrected before publishing
The only live Stave River gauge is above Stave Lake, not on the reach below Ruskin Dam where people fish.
Checked against: The Water Survey of Canada station list while matching gauges to the first Canadian waters
Found: Our first match gave the Stave River page station 08MH147, which measures the river above Stave Lake, far from the salmon water below Ruskin Dam.
Done: The Stave River page carries no gauge and says so; the same check moved the Campbell River, Port Alberni and Kamloops pages off river gauges that did not describe the water people fish there.
2026-09-25 · Licences · Could not verify · Published with the gap
Four licence figures are not published: the BC tidal licence, Alberta’s WiN fee, New Brunswick’s totals and Nova Scotia’s Habitat Fund.
Checked against: The licence pages of British Columbia, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (Pacific), Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 25 September 2026
Found: The DFO Pacific page with the tidal licence fees did not load that day. Alberta’s 2026 guide and its licensing web page give different one-time WiN fees. New Brunswick lists each fee as a base fee plus fixed fees without a total. Nova Scotia’s handbook mentions a Habitat Fund fee without saying whether the licence prices include it.
Done: Each licence page shows the figures that were read and says which one is missing and why, instead of estimating or adding them up.
2026-09-25 · Fish stocking · Could not verify · Not published
British Columbia and Saskatchewan stocking records need written permission to reuse.
Checked against: The terms of the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC website and the BC government’s Provincial Fish Stocking Reports dataset, and Saskatchewan’s copyright page, 25 September 2026
Found: The BC dataset is “Access Only”, the Society’s site requires written consent to copy any portion of it, and Saskatchewan requires advance written permission for commercial reproduction. Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia publish their stocking records under open licences that allow commercial use.
Done: No stocking data from BC or Saskatchewan appears on this site; a stocking page for the open-licence provinces is planned once it is built and checked.