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Hatching the match was developed by a guy from the old country where only 60 odd trout insects are relevant to the fly fisherman; whereas, the US has some 360+ flies that trout take the opportunity to feed upon. With variations of insect based on location that's more than 1000 plus potential artificial flies. To at least have some kind of grasp of what those insects are, particularly having lived in 4 geographic areas within the States, this App was hatched.

This is not a repository of every conceivable artificial fly such as ants to deceivers but is for water born insects primarily of interest to the trout fisher, with a secondary provision to the 'student' of said insects.

So what does it do!

Figuring that someone might want to use the App whilst (I said I'm from the old country) fishing wearing gloves, to either keep warm or protect from sunburn (speaking from experience here) it is structured for the most part to target left or right handed thumb use.

On start-up it checks the geographic area that the cell phone is in and uses that along with the date as a base to select the insects from the area and for the time of year. The fly fisherman may change both of these if planning a trip to a different geographic region in the country and or a future date. 

The main menu screen lets you choice the type of water being fished and whether you are just using it for fishing or more insect related work (Fisher or Gillie/Entomolgist).

Apart from being able to choose to change the location from the main menu, if you have used a seine net or seen an insect which you need to identify a button WSI takes you to the water-side-identifier, to help isolate the insect.

With Fly Fisher selected it then hatches a scrollable table of insects that match your area for the selected type of water.

Depending whether left or right handed use was chosen on startup the table will appear on the chosen side with the insect images appearing on the other.

Selecting an insect from the vertical scroll table (in the image Hendrickson is selected, highlighted in gold) results in only a picture of the insects nymph being displayed as, in this example, it is not hatching for the date selected. If the insect were hatching for the time of year and region, images of the Dun (caddis pupa) and Spinner (caddis fly) would appear

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The artificial flies associated with the insect have icons displayed in a horizontal scroll bar  The horizontal scroll bar allows for the selection of an artificial fly which will appear in a larger format at the top of the screen. In the example above the 7th fly from the left was chosen.

As can been seen in the horizontal scroll bar not all artificial flies in the database has an image associated with it; the first four have no image indicated by the text 'No photo yet'.

In the case of an insect hatching and no photo exists in the database a generic 2-dimensional facsimile drawing of the insect is shown, More about this later.

Tapping on the main artificial image will display an overlay of the tying instructions for that artificial fly.

Here you have a set of tying instructions for the artificial, even if no photographic image is available. So when replacing a 'no photo yet' with a true image it needs to match the instructions. More later.

Tapping on the image of one of the insect stages will bring up an overlay giving a description of that insect at the selected stage as well at the generalized hatching period, indicated in blue at the base of the screen, with the peak period indicated by a yellow bar.

That's the basics, now if you want to take it further

Obviously, a single individual cannot capture the details or an image of every artificial fly or insect, so the user, instead of tapping on an image, slides a finger over either an insect or an artificial image a different overlay appears allowing the opportunity of taking a photo and adding it to the underlying database. Or, if an image was taken when the App wasn't open it can be selected from the photo library

In the case of an artificial fly you can either just add a photo to replace the current image or add a new artificial fly with tying instructions from the selectable lists of materials which are hopefully adequate for the task.

NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT TAKE PHOTOS OF COPYRIGHT MATERIAL from books or grab images from websites such as TROUTNUT.

Here is the Kicker

When saved, not only is it saved to your cell phone, but the information and image is sent to the 'cloud'.

Now if you have chosen to commit to the one time subscription,  the next time you start up the App it checks the 'cloud' and any updates made by other users are downloaded and incorporated into the App.

Hence, the term - Fly Tyers Groupware

For the Gillie/Entomologist

Returning to the main menu screen there is the Gillie/Entomologist radio button that when used in connection with Hatch-Match button will show all insect images regardless whether they are hatching or not. More importantly when used with the Species button that is also on the main menu screen it brings up a complete different set of Insect selection criteria. This is for the specialist of insect life. After drilling down through the life tree (order, family genus and species) of the insect the user is presented with a screen where the current water types and areas are listed, for that species, which may be added to, as well as the ability to update the images.

This is where a knowledge of the insects is required. You will be stepped down through the chain of the selected family until the final species is selected.

At this point, the expert will be presented with the insects taxonomy, the waters and regions currently contained in the App and the insect images.

If the Gillie/Entomologist finds the insect in either their current region or a water type not listed both may be updated, including the images.