Where the data comes from

How it works

State agencies raise fish in hatcheries and release them into public waters, and most publish a report of what went where. Those reports live on 47 different websites in dozens of formats — tables, PDFs, spreadsheets, press pages. We check each one three times a day, read the new records, and match each one to the exact water on the federal hydrography map, so a stocking report becomes a pin you can drive to.

The waterbody map itself comes from the USGS — the National Hydrography Dataset and the Geographic Names Information System, the federal record of every named lake, river, and pond in the country. Stream size and typical flow come from USGS hydrography models; live flow readings come from USGS stream gauges; bite windows are computed from sun and moon positions for each water's exact coordinates.

What we refuse to do

• We never invent records. A few states publish narrative announcements instead of dated stocking data. Their pages say so plainly — we don't fabricate dates or quantities to fill a table.
• We never burn spots. Public stocking data is public. Anything anglers share here beyond that stays as private as they choose to keep it.
• We never restate regulations. Seasons, limits, and rules change; getting them wrong gets people fined. Every page links to the state's official regulations and license portal instead.

The sources, agency by agency

Every active feed we check, with the date of our last successful check.