The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is making life easier for anglers when it comes to purchasing a license and checking your local fishing regulations. CDFW has made the online license sales site more user-friendly for individuals accessing it from a mobile device and launched an online GPS-based freshwater sport fishing regulations tool to help anglers identify those regulations that relate to the area they plan to fish.

With trends now showing mobile devices accounting for more than 50 percent of the primary sources of online traffic to the department’s website, CDFW’s online licensing system has been completely redesigned with phones and tablets in mind. Content is now mobile responsive and optimized for improved display on a multitude of devices and web browsers.

“These systems were designed to provide anglers the best possible online access to licenses and regulations, whether they’re at home or on the water,” said CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham.

The new regulations tool provides an easy way for anglers to find the sections of the regulations that are relevant to them. When accessed from a smartphone or a tablet with GPS, the map-based tool will automatically center the map on the user’s location. From there, the user can click on the map to discover the sport fishing regulations for that area. When accessed from a tablet without GPS or from a desktop computer, the user must first navigate the map to their area of interest and then click on the map to discover the regulations for that area.

The new fishing regulations tool can be found at map.dfg.ca.gov/sportfishingregs/. It is designed to work on a smart phone, tablet or desktop computer.

Hunting and fishing licenses can be purchased online at wildlife.ca.gov/Licensing/Online-Sales.

Fishing regulations are also now available in the existing Fishing Guide, available at wildlife.ca.gov/fishing/guide.