Kept by Pablo Ruiz Quintero. Last entry . Entries are added when a figure changes because it was wrong, whether the error was ours or the source's.
Every fishing site says its data is accurate. This is the page where that claim is testable. It lists each figure that failed verification, what it was checked against, what the error would have cost the reader, and when it was fixed. It includes the mistakes that were ours, because a log that only contains other people’s errors is marketing.
Why this page exists
Most of what is published about fishing conditions cannot be checked by the person reading it. You are told a river is running at a certain level and fishing well, and you have no way to know whether anyone looked. So the useful thing a site can offer is not a promise of accuracy: it is a record of what happened when accuracy was tested.
Two rules govern everything below. A reading is never assumed from an identifier — a gauge number is queried and the name it returns is read before it is attached to a water. And a figure with no readable source is not published at all, which is why 3 states have no licence page.
The count
45our own errors
Found in review and fixed, with what each would have cost the reader.
12wrong at the source
Figures that are incorrect in the compiled data most sites copy.
8gaps declared, not filled
Where a figure could not be verified, nothing was published.
518gauges verified live
Each matched by reading the site name the USGS API returns.
106tide stations confirmed
Checked against the NOAA CO-OPS metadata API before attaching.
46states read at source
Licence fees taken from the agency that sells the licence.
The log
Newest first. Each entry names the document or endpoint that was read.
The solunar and moon-phase guides only cited studies that found an effect
- Checked against
- Our guides on solunar theory and moon phases against the published studies, including a 2023 study of a North American trout fishery (SN Applied Sciences)
- What was found
- Both guides cited the two catch studies that found a small lunar effect and none that found nothing. The 2023 study found no significant relationship between catch rates and the values of several popular solunar services, the moon phase or its illumination; air temperature predicted catches better. An older, unpublished draft of the solunar guide also dated the theory to 1926 and tied it to Florida guides' logs, which no source we read supports: Knight published his tables in 1936.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Readers could have taken the lunar effect as more settled than the evidence shows.
- What was done
- Both guides now report the 2023 null result next to the positive studies, the solunar FAQ answers "not reliably", and the draft text was corrected.
New and full moon dates could be a day early
- Checked against
- Our moon-phase calculation, used by every fishing calendar, solunar table and daily report on the site, against the published 2026 new and full moon times
- What was found
- The phase was worked out from the average length of a lunar month, which drifts up to about 14 hours from the real one. In November 2026 it put the new moon on the 8th instead of the 9th, and the full moon on the 23rd instead of the 24th.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Day ratings near new and full moon, and the phase shown for a day, could be shifted by a day.
- What was done
- The phase now comes from the real angle between the Moon and the Sun (the main terms of the lunar orbit), which matches every published new and full moon of 2026 to within about 25 minutes.
Forty-five lake pages read a gauge on another stream, and Weiss Lake pointed at a different pond
- Checked against
- Every US lake page whose gauge was a stand-in on a different creek or river, against the USGS gauges on each lake, at its dam and on its own inflow
- What was found
- Forty-five lake pages showed a gauge on another stream, and the daily report described that stream as if it were the lake; where the stand-in gave only a stage, the report compared it with the lake’s full-pool elevation (Lake Norman would have read about 115 feet below pool). The Weiss Lake page sat on a small pond of the same name in Macon County, about 200 km from the reservoir in Cherokee County.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Readers saw flows and levels that did not belong to the lake, and the Weiss Lake page showed weather for the wrong place.
- What was done
- Five lakes now read a gauge on the lake itself, 27 the release below their dam or their main inflow on the lake’s own river, labelled as such, and 13 show no gauge where none exists; only a gauge on the lake is compared with full pool, and the report names an inflow or release as what it is. Weiss Lake now sits on the reservoir.
Yearly closures on 14 waters now computed from the rule, and one regulation summary out of date
- Checked against
- Closures that repeat every year on the waters we cover, against the regulation text of Rhode Island, New York, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado and Grand Teton National Park
- What was found
- Fourteen waters close every year on dates set by rule (the second Saturday in April, the second Saturday of July, fixed winter windows), and our pages only mentioned them in the guide text, if at all. For Dillon Reservoir’s inlets the eRegulations edition of Colorado’s rules still shows September 1, while CPW Chapter W-1 as amended in November 2025 moved the start to September 15.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A reader could have fished a closed water or stretch without seeing the closure at the top of the page.
- What was done
- Each of these pages now works out from the regulation, every day, whether the closure is in force and when it ends or next starts, and shows it at the top with its source; where the whole water is closed the daily report is withheld. Dillon uses the September 15 date from Chapter W-1.
Fool Hollow Lake was named "Fools Hollow"
- Checked against
- The page name against Arizona State Parks and the Arizona Game and Fish Department
- What was found
- Both agencies name the lake Fool Hollow Lake; our page called it Fools Hollow Lake.
- What it would have cost the reader
- The page title and heading did not match the official name.
- What was done
- The page now uses Fool Hollow Lake and notes the common spelling; its address is unchanged.
Five Texas lakes moved off a USGS service that closes in February 2027
- Checked against
- Where the lake levels for Lake Buchanan, Lake LBJ, Lake Marble Falls, Lake Travis and Lake Austin come from, and the reuse terms of each possible source
- What was found
- These five lakes are measured by the Lower Colorado River Authority. The new USGS Water Data API does not publish them, and the old USGS service the pages read retires on 22 February 2027. The LCRA’s own Hydromet site allows personal, non-commercial use only, so we cannot republish it. The Texas Water Development Board publishes a daily level and percent full for all five and freely grants permission to copy and distribute its material.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Without a change these five pages would have lost their lake level in February 2027.
- What was done
- The five pages now show the Texas Water Development Board’s daily level and percent full, credited to the TWDB with a link to each lake, and say it is a daily figure rather than a live reading.
Last batches of the source audit: wrong records, dead gauges and a closed lake
- Checked against
- The last 25 US water guides with search impressions against the agencies and operators that manage them, their gauges against USGS and their points against OpenStreetMap
- What was found
- Grapevine Lake’s record was given as over 14 lb (TPWD lists 12.09 lb) and its bass rule as a 14-inch minimum (no minimum, only two under 18 inches); Lake Austin is 1,599 acres, not 1,830; Somerset Reservoir has no horsepower cap but a 10 mph limit; the San Juan’s special reach is now entirely catch-and-release; the Gray Reef reach starts below Gray Reef Dam, not Alcova. Canyon Lake (Arizona) has been closed since 8 September 2026 for dam work, and Lake McConaughy has no public ramp in use. The North Platte, Lake Taneycomo and Arkansas River gauges had been dead since 1998, 2008 and 2007; Lake Wanahoo’s point sat 18 km from the lake and Cedar Creek’s (Alabama) 11.5 km.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have kept fish the rules protect or driven to a closed lake, and some pages showed dead gauges and weather for the wrong place.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 8 October 2026; Grapevine, Bardwell, Lake Austin, Taneycomo and Lucky Peak read their own lake gauges, and the Cowlitz, Weber, Musconetcong and Arkansas gauges on the reaches described; Canyon Lake is marked closed until it reopens, McConaughy and Silver Creek carry dated access notices; points and counties corrected.
Wrong limits, dead gauges and a lake level compared on the wrong scale in source-audit batches 32 and 33
- Checked against
- Forty US water guides against the agencies that manage them, their gauges and tide stations against USGS and NOAA, their points against OpenStreetMap, and every lake gauge’s reading against the full-pool level the page compares it with
- What was found
- Dale Hollow’s smallmouth rule is 2 a day with a 16–21 inch protected slot, not an 18-inch minimum; Shawano’s walleye minimum is 18 inches, not 15; Lake Bastrop’s bass slot is 14–21 inches, not 14–18; on the Blue River (Colorado) all trout must be released from Dillon Dam to north Silverthorne; Sardis and Enid crappie have a 12-inch minimum and a 10-fish limit; South Padre and Port Mansfield carried trout limits that no longer exist. Enid’s gauge had been dead since 2024, Okeechobee’s was on the St. Lucie Canal, Choctawhatchee Bay’s tides came from a station 50 km away on the Gulf, Garrisons Lake’s point sat on a house 4.4 km away, and Lake Havasu’s page compared a gauge height of about 49 feet with a 448-foot pool.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have kept fish the rules protect, and some pages showed dead or distant readings; Havasu would have looked about 400 feet below full.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 8 October 2026; Owasco, Garrisons and Henrys Lake read their own USGS lake gauges, Enid the Yocona River and the Blue River (Indiana) its White Cloud gauge; Choctawhatchee Bay and Gulf Shores use tide stations on their own water; Havasu no longer compares its gauge height with the pool elevation; Boyd Lake and Camanche carry dated boating notices; points moved onto the water.
Wrong limits, a lake 34 km away and closed ramps in source-audit batches 30 and 31
- Checked against
- Forty US water guides against the agencies that manage them, their gauges against USGS and NOAA and their points against OpenStreetMap
- What was found
- Lake Athens has a 14–21 inch largemouth slot, not a 16-inch minimum; Lake Fayette’s slot is 16–24 inches, not 14–24; Lake Granby allows 12 lake trout with one over 24 inches; Lake Wateree’s crappie limit is 20, not 30; Fool Hollow’s trout limit is 4, not 6; Jackson Lake has no October closure; Lake Powell needs no reciprocity stamp; Arizona has no trout stamp. The Lake Oconee page sat on a different small lake of the same name 34 km away, and the Big Black, Verde and Pere Marquette points were off their rivers. Four pages read stand-in gauges that were not on the water.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have kept fish the rules protect or driven to a closed ramp, and some pages showed weather and flows for the wrong place.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 8 October 2026; Jackson Lake, Lake Powell, Benbrook and Lahontan read their own USGS lake gauges, and Clear Creek, the South Fork Boise, the Big Black and the Klickitat gauges on the water; stand-ins removed at Wheeler, Shasta, Big Bear and Clear Lake; dated notices of closed ramps or parks at Lake Powell, Jackson Lake, Fool Hollow, Kerr Lake, Benbrook and Panama City Beach; points moved onto the water.
Wrong limits, invented stocking and a sanctuary landing in source-audit batches 28 and 29
- Checked against
- Forty US water guides, four of them in Hawaii, against the agencies and operators that manage them, their gauges against USGS and NOAA and their points against OpenStreetMap
- What was found
- Lake Allatoona’s bass minimum is 12 inches, not 14, and its striped, white and hybrid bass limit is 15 combined, not 10; Lake Hudson’s crappie limit was given as 37 (Oklahoma sets 15 at 10 inches); Sooner Lake’s striper limit as 15 (5 at 20 inches); Grand Lake Stream was called catch-and-release for salmon. China Lake has not been stocked with salmon since 1978; Silver Lake (Dover) is not stocked with trout; Lake Piru’s operator lists no trout. The Kailua Bay guide invited anglers onto the Mokulua islets, which are restricted seabird sanctuaries. Sooner Lake’s point sat about 11 km from the lake and Lake Ilo’s 7.7 km.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have kept more fish than the rules allow or landed on a closed sanctuary, and some pages showed weather for the wrong spot.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 8 October 2026; Lake Piru, Pomona and Hudson read their own USGS lake gauges and Lake Toho the Shingle Creek inflow; the Whitewater River’s gauge, dead since 1993, is gone; Maalaea, Hanalei and Waianae use the nearest NOAA tide stations; Lake Ilo and Lake Piru carry dated access notices; points moved onto the water.
Hawaii: the site said salt water needs no licence; visitors have needed one since May 2024
- Checked against
- The Hawaii licence page, the Hawaii state page and every Hawaii water guide against the Division of Aquatic Resources’ Nonresident Recreational Marine Fishing License FAQ (14 July 2025)
- What was found
- Since 2 May 2024 (HRS 188-72, HAR 13-74-11) non-residents aged 15 and over need the Nonresident Recreational Marine Fishing License to fish the sea: $20 a day, $40 for seven days, $70 a year, plus an online processing fee. Only residents fish the sea with no licence. Our licence page, the state page and eight water guides said Hawaii does not license saltwater fishing at all.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Visitors could have fished the sea without the licence the state requires of them.
- What was done
- The licence page now lists the non-resident marine licence with its fees and exemptions and links DAR’s FAQ; the state page, the ulua guide and the Hawaii water guides say who needs it.
Wrong limits, a dead gauge and points off the water in source-audit batches 26 and 27
- Checked against
- Forty US water guides against the agencies that manage them, their gauges against USGS and NOAA and their points against OpenStreetMap outlines
- What was found
- Lake Livingston’s catfish limit was given as 25 (TPWD sets 50, only 5 of 30 inches or more); Lake Jocassee’s trout limit as 5 (3, with seasonal size rules); Lake Alan Henry was said to have an 18-inch bass minimum (no minimum, only two under 18 inches); Lake Bemidji a walleye slot it does not have; First Connecticut Lake said salmon are taken through the ice, which New Hampshire never allows. Pickwick Lake’s stand-in gauge had sent no data since June; the Rio Grande page read a gauge 30 km below the gorge; Lake Tyler’s total size was overstated and Lake Marble Falls was described as constant-level.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have kept fish over the limit at Livingston and Jocassee, and some pages showed a dead gauge or flows from another reach.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 8 October 2026; Lake Tyler, Marble Falls, Nasworthy and Alan Henry read their own USGS lake gauges; the Rio Grande reads the Taos Junction Bridge gauge; Pickwick’s dead gauge is gone; Arkabutla and Venice carry dated notices of their closures and the Cottonwood River its private-bed status; points moved onto the water.
Wrong rules, unstocked trout and points off the water in source-audit batches 24 and 25
- Checked against
- Forty US water guides against the agencies that manage them, their gauges against USGS and NOAA and their points against OpenStreetMap lake outlines
- What was found
- Lake Wissota’s walleye and muskie rules were wrong (Wisconsin sets a 13-inch walleye minimum with 16–24 inches protected and a 50-inch muskie minimum); Joe Pool Lake has a 14–21 inch bass slot, not a 14-inch minimum; Cedar Lake (Illinois) has no muskies and a 10-hp limit; Hilo Bay said visitors need no licence, but Hawaii requires one of nonresidents; the Brandywine Creek main stem is not on Delaware’s stocked trout list; Carters Lake’s black bass are Alabama bass. The Spring River page read a gauge far below the trout water, and fourteen lake points sat off the water, Lake Tschida’s by about 8.5 km.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have kept fish that the lake rules protect, and some pages showed weather and flows for the wrong spot.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 8 October 2026; the Spring River page reads the Mammoth Spring gauge the Arkansas agency uses; Brandywine Creek reads the Wilmington gauge; points moved inside the lake outlines; Lake Vermilion keeps its earlier text until a second official page can be read.
Wrong limits and a river mapped 180 km away in source-audit batch 23
- Checked against
- Twenty US water guides against the agencies that manage them, their gauges against USGS and their points against OpenStreetMap
- What was found
- Lake Russell’s striped bass limit was given as 10 (Georgia and South Carolina set 2, only 1 over 34 inches); Reelfoot Lake’s crappie limit as 25 (TWRA lists 20) and its size as 15,000 acres (10,427); St. Clair River sturgeon as catch and release only, though Michigan has a possession season. The Wolf River (Wisconsin) page sat about 180 km west of the river its guide describes, in the wrong county; Center Hill Lake’s point was 7 km off the lake and Clearwater Lake’s about 45 km from the Ocala National Forest area its guide describes.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have kept over the limit at Lake Russell and Reelfoot, and the Wolf River page showed weather for the wrong place.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 8 October 2026; the Wolf River sits at New London with its USGS gauge; the Rogue, Detroit, St. Clair and Bennett Spring pages read live USGS gauges; the Sakonnet River uses NOAA’s Sakonnet station; points moved onto the water.
Wrong licence statements and limits in source-audit batches 21 and 22
- Checked against
- Forty US water guides against the agencies that manage them, their gauges against USGS, their tide stations against NOAA and their points against OpenStreetMap
- What was found
- Kewalo Basin and Kahului Harbor (Hawaii) said no licence is needed; non-residents 15 and over need Hawaii’s non-resident marine licence, and Kewalo’s harbour rule bans fishing from its piers, wharves and bulkheads. Toledo Bend said there is no bass minimum on the Louisiana side; TPWD sets 14 inches and 8 a day on both sides. Keystone Lake’s striped bass limit, Kennebago Lake’s season, the White River’s 2026 limits and Lake Waconia’s walleye rule were wrong; Grayson Lake and Calaveras Lake promised fisheries the agencies do not record. Crane Prairie used a gauge silent since 1991, Indian River Inlet and Greenwich Bay read tides from stations outside their water, and seventeen points sat off their water, Keystone’s about 10 km away.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Visitors could have fished Hawaii without a licence or from a closed pier, kept undersized bass on Toledo Bend, or planned trips for fish that are not there.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 7 October 2026; Cayuga, John Martin, Grayson and Toledo Bend read their own lake gauges and the American River the Fair Oaks gauge; Crane Prairie shows no gauge; Indian River Inlet and Greenwich Bay use their own NOAA stations; points moved onto the water.
Invented stocking, a wrong legal length and an unmentioned fire closure in source-audit batch 20
- Checked against
- Twenty US water guides against the agencies that manage them, their gauges against USGS and their points against OpenStreetMap
- What was found
- The Eagle Mountain Lake guide described hybrid striped bass stockings that TPWD’s stocking records do not show; the Otisco Lake guide gave a 40-inch tiger muskie length where New York sets 36; Fresno Reservoir was given a state park that does not exist; the Castaic Lake guide did not say the main ramp and campground are closed after the Hughes Fire. The California Delta used a gauge silent since 1 October 2025, the Clinch River a gauge above Norris Lake, and eleven points sat off their water, the Clinch’s in Oak Ridge.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have expected hybrids that are not stocked, kept an illegal tiger muskie, or driven to a closed ramp.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 7 October 2026; the Delta, Blue River (Oklahoma), Atchafalaya, Jackson and Lehigh now read gauges on their own water; the Clinch shows no gauge; Anderson Ranch reads its reservoir gauge; the points sit on the water.
The best-of rankings were unsourced, and 16 entries had no agency support
- Checked against
- All 90 entries of the nine /best rankings against state agency records, designations, survey reports and descriptions
- What was found
- Rankings rested on editorial superlatives. Sixteen waters had no agency statement singling them out for that fishery; Lake Texoma’s 121.5 lb blue catfish was called a former world record (it is the Texas record); Chickamauga was credited with Tennessee’s largemouth record, beaten at Nickajack in 2026; the Big Hole was called "the last river" of the grayling (one of the last). One entry pointed at a water that does not exist, so the smallmouth list showed nine waters. The Green River (Utah) and the White River (Arkansas) were mapped on their lower reaches although their guides describe the tailwaters below Flaming Gorge and Bull Shoals.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Readers got rankings no agency backs and record claims that were out of date.
- What was done
- Each ranking now keeps only waters an agency singles out, ordered by the strength of that evidence and attributed, with its Pages checked; the 16 unsupported entries are gone. The two rivers now sit on their tailwaters and read the USGS gauges there.
Twenty-two waters listed striped bass where the agency names only hybrids
- Checked against
- The species derived from each audited guide against the guide’s own wording
- What was found
- The rule that reads species from the audited text counted "hybrid striped bass" as striped bass too, so 22 waters (Greers Ferry, Lake Chatuge, Oologah, Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees, Saylorville and others) showed a striped bass card the agencies do not support.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have planned a striped bass trip to water managed for hybrids.
- What was done
- The rule no longer counts hybrids as striped bass, and the 22 species lists were rebuilt.
Eleven wrong rules in source-audit batch 19
- Checked against
- Nineteen US water guides against the agencies that manage them, and their gauges and points against USGS and OpenStreetMap
- What was found
- Lake Nockamixon was called electric-only (PFBC allows motors up to 20 hp); Shabbona Lake’s walleye minimum was given as 14 inches (Illinois sets 18); Lake Pontchartrain’s speckled trout limits were wrong; Big Lake (Arizona) had a "6 trout" rule that does not exist; Chautauqua’s muskie season opened "late May" (it is 1 June); Rough River’s crappie and muskie rules were out of date; Badin Lake’s "spotted bass" are invasive Alabama bass according to NCWRC. Big Lake and Badin used gauges on other water, and nine points sat on land.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have kept undersized walleye or crappie, or broken motor and season rules.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 6 October 2026; stand-in gauges removed; Bluestone, Sammamish, the Escanaba and the Oconto now read their own USGS gauges; points moved onto the water.
Wrong figures and stations in source-audit batch 17
- Checked against
- Twenty US water guides against the agencies that manage them, and their tide stations, gauges and points against NOAA, USGS and OpenStreetMap
- What was found
- The Norfork Lake guide credited it with the Arkansas walleye record, which came from Greers Ferry; Chicago’s yellow perch closure was given as July instead of 1 May–15 June; Round Valley was called New Jersey’s deepest lake (it is the second deepest). Wickford Harbor read tides from Newport, Rehoboth Bay from Lewes on Delaware Bay, Norfork Lake used a gauge that reports only temperature and oxygen, and five points sat off their water.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers got a closure in the wrong month and tide times from another station.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 6 October 2026; Wickford and Rehoboth now use the nearest NOAA stations (Wickford; Indian River Inlet); Lake Merwin reads its own lake gauge; Norfork has no stand-in; points moved inside the outlines.
Wrong rules in source-audit batch 18, and ten points off their water
- Checked against
- Twenty US water guides against the agencies that manage them, their points against OpenStreetMap lake outlines, and their gauges against USGS
- What was found
- Pineview Reservoir: the guide allowed one tiger muskie over 40 inches, but Utah closes possession. North Umpqua: fly-only water placed "above Rock Creek"; ODFW sets it from Deadline Falls to Soda Springs Dam, with the reach between them closed. Connecticut has no "marine registration" for the Thames, and PFBC sells a Lake Erie Permit, not an "Erie tributary permit". Mark Twain Lake’s crappie rule was wrong, and the Thames guide gave the striped bass slot without the Connecticut law, in force since 1 October 2026, that makes the fish catch and release only from 1 December to 31 March. Ten points sat off their water, the Trinity River’s 5 km away in the wrong county; the Umpqua used a gauge far up the South Umpqua and Mark Twain a creek gauge reading 0 cfs.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have kept a fish whose possession is closed, fished a closed reach, or bought the wrong permit; maps and gauges pointed at other water.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 6 October 2026; points moved inside the outlines; the Umpqua now reads the mainstem gauge near Elkton, Clear Lake (Iowa) its own lake gauge, and Mark Twain has no stand-in gauge.
Wrong limits and a closed striper harvest in source-audit batch 16
- Checked against
- Twenty US water guides against the agencies that manage them, and their gauges against USGS
- What was found
- The Pewaukee Lake guide gave a 40-inch muskie minimum; WDNR sets 50 inches. The Roanoke River guide promoted the spring striped bass run, but NCWRC has closed striped bass harvest there until 1 March 2027. Lake Mohave used a gauge with no data since 3 October 2022, and Bankhead Lake a gauge on Shades Creek, in another basin.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could have kept an undersized muskie or planned a harvest trip during a closure; two pages showed no reading or another river’s.
- What was done
- Guides rewritten from the agency pages they now list, dated 6 October 2026; Lake Mohave now reads the Davis Dam gauge and Bankhead the Bankhead Lock and Dam gauge; three points moved inside the lake outlines.
Ice-safety thicknesses were less cautious than the Minnesota DNR
- Checked against
- The 13 US guides against Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin DNR, the National Weather Service, NOAA, USGS, the National Park Service and the Arkansas and Tennessee wildlife agencies, and the claims about our own reports against the site’s code
- What was found
- The ice guide gave 5–7 in of ice for an ATV, 8–12 in for a car and 12–15 in for a truck; the Minnesota DNR says 7–8, 9–12 and 13–17 in for new clear ice, and 20 in or more for a heavy truck with a wheelhouse. Guides also described features our reports do not have (a 7-day archive, a 6-hour pressure trend, moon effects on the score) and presented pressure, moon and solunar folklore as fact.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A reader could have driven onto ice thinner than the agency advises. Others were told the score does things it does not.
- What was done
- Ice and dam safety now follow the agencies, attributed and never less cautious; every guide lists its Pages checked; claims about the score were rewritten from the code; pressure, moon and solunar claims now say what catch studies measured.
Solunar windows were the same everywhere though the page said they were calculated for the water
- Checked against
- The solunar code against the wording on every water page, and the new calculation against the US Naval Observatory
- What was found
- The windows were estimated from the moon’s age only, so every water showed the same clock times on a given day, while each page said "solunar calculated for these coordinates".
- What it would have cost the reader
- Windows could be off by up to an hour or more depending on longitude within a time zone.
- What was done
- The windows are now the moon’s upper and lower transit, rise and set for each water’s coordinates in local time. Checked against the US Naval Observatory for three places on 6 October 2026: within five minutes.
Species guides were unsourced, and some of their facts were wrong
- Checked against
- The 26 US species guides against state agencies, NOAA Fisheries, USGS, the interstate commissions and Sea Grant
- What was found
- The giant trevally guide said visitors to Hawaii need no saltwater licence; since 2 May 2024 non-residents aged 15 and over need Hawaii’s non-resident marine licence. Other errors: landlocked salmon described as native to New Hampshire, Vermont and New York lakes (Maine lists four Maine basins); lake trout in Flathead, Pend Oreille and Tahoe presented as native (USGS lists them as introductions); southern Atlantic red drum described as recovered (the 2024 ASMFC assessment finds that stock overfished); spawning temperatures for crappie and largemouth that match no agency; the San Francisco Bay surfperch closure given the wrong months.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Visitors could have fished Hawaii without the licence they need, and anglers got biology and spawning dates no agency publishes.
- What was done
- Every species guide rewritten from the agency pages it now lists under Pages checked, dated; figures that could not be verified were removed, including the temperature bands no agency publishes. State bag, size and season rules are no longer printed on species pages.
Dead or misplaced gauges, mislabelled tide stations and points on land
- Checked against
- Gauges, tide stations and coordinates of the waters in source-audit batches 11 to 13, against USGS, NOAA and OpenStreetMap lake outlines
- What was found
- Pathfinder Reservoir (WY) used a USGS gauge with no discharge since 1998 and Cascade Reservoir (ID) one with no data since 2001; Fremont Lake (WY) used a Green River gauge that is not on its water; Lake D Arbonne (LA) used a bayou gauge with no flow while a live lake gauge exists. The Assateague and Block Island tide stations carried the names of other stations. Twelve points sat off their water: on land up to 4 km from the lake, 7 km from the Huron River (Ohio) and 6 km out in the Gulf off Homosassa. Saranac and Otsego lakes were typed as salmon lakes, which they no longer are, and the Huron River as a steelhead river, though Ohio does not stock it.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Pages showed no reading, or a reading from another water, and maps put anglers off the lake.
- What was done
- Dead gauges removed; Fremont now uses the Pine Creek inflow gauge and D Arbonne the lake-level gauge at the dam; tide stations named as NOAA lists them; points moved inside the lake outlines or onto the agency-named site; Saranac and Otsego retyped as coldwater lakes and the Huron as a smallmouth river.
Lake Wylie guide claimed North and South Carolina licences are interchangeable
- Checked against
- The Lake Wylie guide against the NCWRC 2026-27 regulations digest
- What was found
- The guide said either state licence was valid on the whole lake. The NCWRC digest says there is no reciprocal agreement on Lake Wylie: you need the licence of the state whose water you fish. The Chatuge guide also overstated its NC-GA agreement, which covers boat fishing only.
- What it would have cost the reader
- An angler with one state licence could have been fishing the other state without one.
- What was done
- Both guides rewritten from the agency texts and dated; they now say exactly what each agreement covers.
Wahiawa Reservoir (Lake Wilson) closed to fishing
- Checked against
- Water status against Hawaii DLNR during the source audit
- What was found
- DLNR closed lake access on 3 May 2026 for the Wahiawā Dam rehabilitation, expected to take about 18 months.
- What it would have cost the reader
- The page published a fishing report for a lake nobody can reach.
- What was done
- The page now says so at the top, publishes no report and is out of the index and the sitemaps until access reopens.
Species cards listed fish the agencies do not record
- Checked against
- The species shown for each water against the guide audited against the agency pages (184 waters)
- What was found
- Species came from a profile shared by every water of the same type, so pages listed fish the agency does not record: striped bass at Kinkaid Lake, chinook at Lake Sharpe, hybrid stripers at Pomme de Terre, white bass and catfish at Ruby Lake, brown trout at Eagle Nest.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anglers could plan a trip for a species that is not in the water.
- What was done
- Each audited water now shows only the species its audited guide names in affirmative sentences; the rest keep the profile until they are audited.
Daily reports for a drained lake and a creek with no public access
- Checked against
- Water status against the managing agency during the source audit
- What was found
- Lake Conway (Arkansas) has been drained since 1 September 2023 for a renovation by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission; Buffalo Creek (New York) has no public access, according to NYSDEC.
- What it would have cost the reader
- The pages published a fishing report for water that could not be fished.
- What was done
- Both pages now say so at the top, publish no report and are out of the index and the sitemaps. Tribal waters (San Carlos Lake, the Black River reaches on the Apache reservations, Lake Sharpe ramps) and the private bed of the Neosho carry a notice.
Three waters had two pages each, and thirteen points sat off their water
- Checked against
- Water names and positions in each state, and the coordinates the source audit flagged
- What was found
- Grand Lake and Grand Lake o the Cherokees, Manistee River and Big Manistee River, and Salt River and Lower Salt River were the same water under two addresses. Thirteen points (among them Nelson Lake, 25 km off, Lake Puckaway, South Fork Reservoir, Owyhee River and Collins Lake) were off the water the page describes, and several tide stations were not the nearest one.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Duplicate pages competed with each other; weather and tides were computed for the wrong spot.
- What was done
- The duplicates now redirect to the page with search traffic; the points were moved onto the water; Destin, Tangier Sound, Virginia Beach, Toms River and the Broadkill read the nearest NOAA station; Cahaba and Payette read their own gauges.
Review of the 184 gauges whose name does not mention their water
- Checked against
- Each gauge against the active USGS stations near the water, by name and distance, with a live reading checked before any change
- What was found
- Of 186 gauge assignments reviewed, 58 had a station on the water itself within 30 km, including a lake-level gauge for reservoirs that were reading a creek; 7 read another lake or another river (Bull Shoals read Lake Taneycomo, DeGray read Lake Hamilton, Lake Toho read Lake Marion, Mark Twain read Monroe City Lake, Green River read the Colorado, Weber River read the Great Salt Lake outflow, Leech Lake read the Snake River near Pine City); 47 were stand-ins that the page did not label; 6 were the same water under another name. High Rock Lake (NC) read two South Carolina stations.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Readings and part of the daily score on those pages came from somewhere else, without saying so.
- What was done
- 57 pages now read their own station (one candidate had no live data and was left as it was); the 7 wrong gauges and both High Rock Lake gauges were removed, so those pages say there is no live gauge; the 47 stand-ins are labelled on the page as outflow or nearby stand-in, not on this water. Of the 39 waters rechecked later the same day, 13 more were fixed (8 lakes stopped reading a tributary next to their own lake gauge, 4 now read their lake level, Magic Reservoir reads its outflow), 14 stand-ins were labelled, and 6 could not be checked because the USGS service kept failing.
Four river pages read a gauge on a different river
- Checked against
- Every US water whose USGS gauge name shares no word with the water, against the USGS site service, during the source audit of 5 October 2026
- What was found
- The Gunnison River page read USGS 09106485, the Colorado River above the Gunnison at Grand Junction. The Maumee River page read 041766258, Whitewood Creek in Michigan. The Big Manistee page read 04124000 near Sherman, far upstream of Tippy Dam, where the fishing the page describes happens. The audit found 184 waters whose gauge name does not mention the water; most are labelled inflow or below-dam stand-ins, and the rest are being reviewed one by one.
- What it would have cost the reader
- The flow, level and part of the daily score on those pages described another water.
- What was done
- Gunnison now reads 09152500 (Gunnison River near Grand Junction), Maumee 04193500 (Maumee River at Waterville) and Big Manistee 04125550 (Manistee River near Wellston). The new comparison of today's flow with the history of the date is shown only when the gauge is on the water itself.
Two waters were placed away from the water the page describes
- Checked against
- Coordinates in data/waters.json against the agency pages read in the source audit
- What was found
- The Little Susitna River point sat near Wasilla, off the river; the Maumee River point sat at the mouth in Toledo, about 20 km from the Perrysburg–Maumee reach the guide describes.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Weather, sunrise and the map were computed for the wrong spot.
- What was done
- Little Susitna moved to the ADF&G Little Susitna Public Use Facility; Maumee to the Perrysburg–Maumee reach.
Our Delaware trout stamp implied a visitor paid the resident price
- Checked against
- The Delaware DNREC trout stamp page against our own stamp record, while building the trout stamp comparison
- What was found
- We held the Delaware stamp as $4.20 with the visitor price buried in a note that only mentioned young anglers. Our data model treated an unstated visitor price as equal to the resident one, so Delaware came out as charging visitors $4.20. DNREC states it plainly: $4.20 for residents 16 to 64, $2.10 for residents 12 to 15, and $6.20 for non-residents aged 12 and older.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A visiting angler reading our comparison would have budgeted $2 short on the stamp, and Delaware would have led the table as the cheapest year of trout fishing in the country on a figure that was wrong.
- What was done
- Corrected to $6.20 for visitors and the note rewritten. The stamp record gained an explicit visitor price field, so a difference can no longer live only inside prose where a table cannot see it; six other states had the same figure stated in a note and were moved into the field at the same time. Two further modelling faults surfaced with it and were fixed before publishing: Tennessee’s $3 Gatlinburg permit is a one-day municipal permit rather than a state annual stamp and was ranking Tennessee as the cheap state, and Tennessee sells its resident supplement to residents only, so it now sits outside the league with its reason given instead of carrying a visitor total nobody pays.
The advertised price of a one-day licence is not the price in five states, and two of those figures came from a regulations reseller
- Checked against
- The 2026 West Virginia fishing regulations summary published by WVDNR, read as PDF; the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks licence types and costs page and its habitat stamp rule; and the Virginia DWR licence fee page
- What was found
- Our short-term licence figures for West Virginia and South Dakota came from the eRegulations edition rather than the agency, and eRegulations had already served us stale prices once, in Maine and Nebraska. Both held up on re-reading. West Virginia lists One Day Fishing as Class LL at $3.00, and names Class LL explicitly among the licences requiring the $13.00 Conservation/Law Enforcement Stamp, so a visitor pays $16. South Dakota confirms the nonresident one-day at $26 and requires a $25 habitat stamp of everyone 18 or over buying any licence, so a visitor pays $51. Virginia, read on the agency, is already publishing the post-October figures: the nonresident one-day goes from $8 to $20 on October 1, 2026.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Publishing a league table of one-day prices on figures from a reseller would have risked repeating the Maine error at the exact place a reader would quote us. And the cheapest day in the country, Virginia at $8, stops being the cheapest ten days after we published the page.
- What was done
- All three confirmed against the agency and the new page states the totals, not the advertised base, with the compulsory stamp named in every row. Virginia and Iowa carry a dated rise flag in the table and a section of their own. One basis difference is documented rather than reconciled: our licence figures are counter prices including any writing fee, while the fee-changes page quotes the figure written in the rule, which is why Iowa differs by about two dollars between the two pages.
Our methodology page claimed a publication date from before the site existed
- Checked against
- The datePublished emitted by /about/data against the git history of the repository
- What was found
- The page declared datePublished 2026-06-01. The first commit of this project is 2026-08-20, and that page entered the repository on 2026-08-21, so the date was not merely imprecise: it described a page that did not exist yet. It appears to have been a placeholder that was never replaced.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A structured-data date is a claim like any other, and this one aged the site by eleven weeks in its favour. On the page whose entire subject is how we verify things, that is the worst place to have it.
- What was done
- Set to 2026-08-21, the commit that created the page. The same audit added real dates to the 26 species and 13 guide pages, which had none: those come from git too, and are generated by a script rather than typed, so nobody can drift them by hand.
The “Share your catch” button in the header did nothing on every page that was not a water page
- Checked against
- The header link against the pages that actually contain the report form, and the submissions table behind it
- What was found
- The button pointed at the anchor #report-form, and that anchor exists only on the 996 water pages. On the home page, the state hubs, the licence and season pages and everything else — about 260 URLs — it was visible on desktop and led nowhere. The one submission the form has ever received, in September, was spam, so nothing in the queue revealed the problem.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Anyone who tried to send us a report from anywhere except a water page silently failed to.
- What was done
- The button now resolves at render time: the in-page anchor where the form exists, and the water catalogue everywhere else, since a report has to be attached to a water. The spam submission was rejected the same day.
We published Kansas and South Dakota as “not yet announced” and missed New Mexico’s June weekend, on the day the page went up
- Checked against
- KDWP newsroom release of February 11, 2026; South Dakota state news release and the GFP Custer State Park Open House notice for May 15–17, 2026; the 2026–27 New Mexico fishing rules booklet and the department’s June 2025 release
- What was found
- Kansas set June 6–7, 2026 by Secretary’s order in February. South Dakota’s Open House and Free Fishing Weekend ran May 15–17, 2026. New Mexico holds two free weekends, the first in June and the fourth in September; we had listed September only. Our page, published the same morning, said Kansas and South Dakota had not announced and gave New Mexico one weekend instead of two. We had read a 2025 KDWP release, a GFP event page that still displays 2024, and a September release for New Mexico, and stopped there.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Two states shown as pending and one missing a weekend, on the day of publication, in a page whose whole point is that the dates were read at the agency.
- What was done
- All three entries corrected within hours, sourced to the 2026 releases and the rules booklet, and the pending count removed from the page. The lesson: “not on the page we found” is not “not announced”; the newsroom and the state press office have to be checked before a state is marked pending.
Our Maine and Nebraska licence pages were still showing 2025 prices
- Checked against
- MDIFW licence page and 12 MRS §12501; Nebraska Game and Parks permit pricing and its August 2025 Commission decision
- What was found
- Maine raised its resident season licence from $25 to $30 and the nonresident from $64 to $83 for 2026 under Public Law 2025, c. 388, and Nebraska raised its resident annual from $38 to $41 and nonresident from $84 to $95.50 for 2026 permit sales. Both of our pages, verified on 2026-09-11 against the digital edition of each state’s official guide, carried the previous year’s figures: the guide editions we read had not been updated.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A visitor budgeting a Maine week from our page would have been $19 short on the licence alone.
- What was done
- Both pages re-read against the agency’s own price list and corrected, with the source changed to the agency page. The lesson is recorded on the fee-changes page: a “2026” digital guide can still hold 2025 prices, and the agency’s own list is the only thing that settles it.
Kentucky’s January 2026 CPI adjustment cannot be read on the agency site or in the regulation
- Checked against
- fw.ky.gov (blocks every reader we have, including a real browser), 301 KAR 5:022 on the Legislative Research Commission site (same), the agency’s release as reprinted in full by a local paper
- What was found
- The agency confirms it “increased slightly across the board in January 2026” under a new every-other-year CPI system and that 2026–27 prices are the adjusted ones. Compiled sites print $24.31 and $58.14, which is exactly 5.7% on the previous $23 and $55, but none of them can have read those figures where the agency publishes them, because nothing we have can.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Our Kentucky licence page is likely a few percent low until the agency page can be read.
- What was done
- The fee-changes page describes the mechanism and says the figures could not be read; the Kentucky licence page carries a note to the same effect. The compiled figures are not published as fact.
Compiled licence sites misdate Washington’s 38% rise and misprice Missouri’s new trout permit
- Checked against
- Substitute Senate Bill 5583 (2025) and WDFW’s June 2025 bulletin; the MDC newsroom table of current and proposed 2026 prices
- What was found
- Several sites give Washington’s 38% licence fee increase as effective January 1, 2026; the bill and the agency both give July 1, 2025, and what is new for 2026 is an $8.75 Columbia River salmon and steelhead endorsement. One site gives Missouri’s new nonresident trout permit as $24; the agency’s proposed and adopted figure is $40.
- What it would have cost the reader
- An angler reading the wrong date would have expected a 2026 rise that had already happened; a visitor to Missouri’s trout parks would have budgeted $16 short.
- What was done
- Both entries on the fee-changes page quote the primary document, and the Washington entry names the error so that readers who have seen the other date know which one to trust.
The compiled lists of free fishing days had Minnesota’s January weekend a day off
- Checked against
- Minnesota DNR “Take a Kid Fishing” page, read in a browser because the agency site refuses automated requests
- What was found
- The lists we used as a map of where to look gave January 16–18, 2026. The DNR page gives January 17–19. The same lists omitted the condition that makes the weekend what it is: the licence is waived for a resident adult only while fishing with a child aged 15 or under.
- What it would have cost the reader
- An adult turning up alone on January 16 with no licence would have been wrong twice over.
- What was done
- Dates and the condition taken from the DNR page. Minnesota is the only state on the page whose free day is classed as “residents fishing with a child”, and the entry says so in the first line.
Four states’ free fishing days were being circulated with a previous year’s dates
- Checked against
- FWC, NMDGF, ODFW and SD GFP pages against the summaries offered for Florida, New Mexico, Oregon and South Dakota
- What was found
- Florida was summarised with 2025 weekends; the agency defines every one of its days as a rule (“first consecutive Saturday and Sunday in June”), which resolves differently in 2026. New Mexico was given as September 27–28, the 2025 weekend, when the rule ties it to National Hunting and Fishing Day and 2026 falls on the 26th–27th. Oregon carried a mix of 2024 and 2025 dates. South Dakota was quoted with a date for a year the agency has not yet announced.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A copied date is right for exactly one year and looks identical to a right one the year after.
- What was done
- Every state whose agency writes the day as a rule is computed from that rule for the current year, the same engine the season pages use. Fixed dates carry their year, and when the year turns without an announcement the entry says so instead of repeating the old date. South Dakota and Kansas are shown as pending, with the last published dates labelled as such.
Two states have not announced this year’s free fishing days, and the page does not guess for them
- Checked against
- Kansas KDWP and South Dakota GFP news and event pages
- What was found
- Both agencies announce the dates each spring in a press release rather than defining them in regulation. Neither has a 2026 announcement on its site. Kansas has used the first full weekend in June in every year we could read, and South Dakota the weekend before Memorial Day, but a pattern is not a published date.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Filling in the pattern would be right most years and unverifiable in all of them.
- What was done
- Both entries show the last published dates, labelled with their year, and the observed pattern in words. The table lists them as not yet announced. They will be updated the day the agency publishes.
Twelve states publish limits without a season, and this site says so rather than inferring one
- Checked against
- The statewide tables of TWRA, KDFWR, MDWFP, AGFC, ODWC, KDWP, SD GFP, ODNR, WVDNR and others
- What was found
- A large group of states regulate fishing entirely through creel and length limits, with no season column at all for the species people search for. The absence of a date in a table is not the same as a published statement that a fishery is open all year.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Painting those months green would claim something the agency has not said. Painting them red would be worse.
- What was done
- Those states are published with their real limits and the calendar band left empty, labelled "not published" rather than open or closed. Where an agency does state a year-round season in words — Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, North Dakota, Colorado — the band is filled and the sentence is quoted.
Massachusetts was withheld for lack of a readable table, then published once it was read properly
- Checked against
- MassWildlife freshwater fishing regulations page and the Division of Marine Fisheries table, first by automated request and then in a real browser
- What was found
- Both agency pages refuse automated requests and the published digest edition returned only navigation, so on the first pass there was nothing to publish. Read the way a person reads them, both tables came out in full — the freshwater season table and the DMF marine table, the latter carrying an explicit rule that any date not listed is closed.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Publishing from the fragments available on the first pass would have produced a table that looked as authoritative as the states read properly. Leaving it withheld permanently would have been wrong in the other direction: the block was on the fetch, not on the data.
- What was done
- Massachusetts stayed unpublished and named in the hub until the source could actually be read, and was then published in full from both agency pages. The lesson recorded: an agency blocking a request is not the same as an agency not publishing, and the two need separating before anything is declared unavailable.
Minnesota’s agency site cannot be read, so the dates came from the statute instead
- Checked against
- Minnesota Statutes 97C.395 against the DNR pages, which return 403 to any automated request
- What was found
- The DNR site is unreadable to us, but the statute itself sets the season: walleye, sauger, northern pike and muskellunge run from "the Saturday two weeks prior to the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend through the last Sunday in February", and for bass "the open season is continuous".
- What it would have cost the reader
- Taking the date from a third-hand summary would have repeated the mistake that put South Carolina’s opener a week late.
- What was done
- Minnesota is sourced to the statute, which is the law that sets the date rather than a page describing it. The computed opener reproduces May 10 in 2025 and May 9 in 2026.
A compiled summary put South Carolina’s shrimp baiting opener on the wrong day
- Checked against
- SCDNR Sea Science shrimp page, which quotes the statute: the season “is set by law to last 60 days and opens at noon on the last Friday on or before September 15”
- What was found
- The summary we were offered gave Friday, September 18, 2026 as the 2026 opening. That cannot be right on its own terms: September 18 is after September 15, so it is not a Friday on or before the 15th. Applying the statute gives Friday, September 11, 2026.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A week late to a 60-day season, and the error was self-evidently wrong to anyone who read the rule it claimed to be quoting.
- What was done
- The opening date is now computed from the statute for whatever year the page is viewed in, instead of being copied. Verified against 2025 as well, which the rule puts on September 12.
A published Michigan season table was showing last year’s dates
- Checked against
- Michigan DNR newsroom release of April 23, 2026 against the season table in the official guide edition
- What was found
- The table gave April 26, May 24, June 7 and June 21 as the openers. Those are the 2025 dates. Michigan writes its openers as weekdays — the last Saturday in April, the Saturday before Memorial Day, the first and third Saturdays in June — so in 2026 they fall on April 25, May 23, June 6 and June 20, which is what the DNR’s own release says.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A day out on the opener, every year, for anyone reading the stale edition. On an opening day that is the whole trip.
- What was done
- Michigan dates are computed from the rule rather than stored. The calculation was checked against both 2025 and 2026 and reproduces each year’s published dates exactly.
Three fisheries have no season date to publish, so none is shown
- Checked against
- WDFW crab seasons page, LDWF shrimp and oyster season pages, SCDNR blue crab rules
- What was found
- Washington sets Puget Sound crab dates each year by marine area and announces them around June and September. Louisiana sets shrimp and public oyster seasons by commission vote. South Carolina regulates recreational crabbing with sizes, pot numbers and bushel limits, and publishes no closed season we could find.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Any fixed window we invented for these would read as authoritative and be wrong, which on a closed fishery means fishing illegally.
- What was done
- The calendar band is left empty for all three and the page says explicitly that the agency has not published dates. Empty is not the same as closed, and the legend distinguishes them.
Hawaii’s page implied a licence is needed for saltwater fishing
- Checked against
- Hawaii DAR licence scope
- What was found
- The page header read “all waters”. Hawaii licences freshwater fishing only and does not licence recreational saltwater fishing at all, which is what almost every visitor is asking about.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Readers would have believed they needed a licence that does not exist.
- What was done
- Header corrected to freshwater and the page now opens by saying salt water needs no licence.
Three states have no page because their fees could not be read
- Checked against
- New Jersey DEP, Mississippi DWFP, Massachusetts
- What was found
- New Jersey blocks automated access and no published source carries its freshwater schedule. Mississippi’s resident table does not load from either source. For Massachusetts only the $10.00 marine permit could be confirmed.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Together these are about 50,000 searches a month we are choosing not to answer.
- What was done
- No page is published for any of the three. The comparison table names them and says why.
Six candidate USGS gauges returned a different river
- Checked against
- USGS Water Services instantaneous-values API, site name field
- What was found
- Gauge 03187500, chosen for the Williams River, reports the Cranberry. 03289000, chosen for Elkhorn Creek, is South Elkhorn, a tributary. 01031500, chosen for Chesuncook Lake, is the Piscataquis. 15302000 is the Nuyakuk, not the Naknek. 01021470 is Libby Brook, not East Grand Lake. 01054200 is the Wild River, not Umbagog.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Each would have shown a live flow from the wrong drainage on a page about a named river, which is worse than showing nothing.
- What was done
- Replaced with the correct gauge where one exists, left with no gauge where it does not.
The same fishery was published twice under two names
- Checked against
- Manual review of the Wyoming water list
- What was found
- Grey Reef and North Platte River (Grey Reef) are the same tailwater, 23 km apart in the data. Different names and a distance over the threshold, so neither the name guard nor the proximity guard saw it.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Two pages competing for the same searches, splitting their own authority.
- What was done
- Merged into the older, indexed slug with a 301 from the other. Sixteen further duplicates found in two earlier audits and redirected the same way.
Three states are listed wrongly in the compiled sources most sites copy
- Checked against
- Each state’s own fee schedule
- What was found
- Oklahoma’s resident annual is listed at $25.00 in compiled sources and search summaries; the ODWC schedule says $31.00. Montana’s non-resident season is listed at $86.00; the FWP 2026 schedule says $100.00 plus two compulsory items, $117.50 in total. Indiana’s resident annual is listed at $17.00; the DNR table says $23.00.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A visitor budgeting for Montana would have been out by more than thirty dollars.
- What was done
- All three taken from the agency schedule. Search summaries are no longer used as a source for any figure.
The licence calculator was showing everybody the over-70 rate
- Checked against
- Washington fee table against what the calculator returned
- What was found
- The calculator picked the cheapest licence matching the filters, so Washington opened at $9.59: the senior resident rate for anglers 70 and over. An adult visitor saw a price they could not buy.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A headline price four times lower than what the user would actually pay.
- What was done
- Concessionary rates are now listed explicitly per state and shown separately as “cheaper if you qualify”. All 46 states re-checked against their standard adult rate.
White text on a white panel in dark mode
- Checked against
- Computed colour of every CSS custom property in both themes
- What was found
- The --paper token was defined only in the light palette, so in dark mode it rendered near-white behind near-white text. It affected thirteen rules already live, including the mobile menu, the AI assistant and the methodology page.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Content invisible to anyone using dark mode.
- What was done
- Token defined for dark; contrast went from unreadable to 12.6:1. Both palettes are now diffed for missing tokens before any CSS ships.
Kaunakakai was carrying a tide station from another island
- Checked against
- NOAA CO-OPS metadata API, station 1615680
- What was found
- Station 1615680 is Kahului, on Maui. It had been attached to Kaunakakai, on Molokai, and labelled as if it were the Molokai station. The real Kaunakakai Harbour station is 1613198.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Tide times off by enough to matter to anyone planning a flats session on the Molokai reef.
- What was done
- Corrected to 1613198 and verified against the metadata API. Every other Hawaii station re-checked the same way.
Four waters were written up about the wrong place
- Checked against
- Water record state and county against the text of each entry
- What was found
- Nelson Lake was written as the Wisconsin flowage when the record is the North Dakota cooling reservoir. Verdigris River was framed as Oklahoma when the record is Kansas. Ouachita River as Arkansas when the record is Louisiana. Broad River as Columbia when the record is Union County.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Four pages describing a different body of water than the one named.
- What was done
- All four rewritten. A state-and-county check against the text is now part of every batch.
Alaska rivers were listing species that do not occur in Alaska
- Checked against
- Species profile assignment against state fisheries distribution
- What was found
- Six Alaska rivers carried profiles that surfaced brown trout, smallmouth bass, rockfish and surfperch. None of those occur in Alaskan rivers. The Kenai and the Russian River had carried it since an early batch.
- What it would have cost the reader
- An angler planning an Alaska trip would have read that the Kenai holds brown trout.
- What was done
- New alaska_river profile built (chinook, rainbow, steelhead) and applied to all six.
The Madison River was serving the Gallatin’s gauge
- Checked against
- USGS gauge 06052500 against 06041000
- What was found
- The Madison page was reading 06052500, which is on the Gallatin. The correct gauge for the Ennis reach is 06041000.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Flow shown for one of the best-known trout rivers in the country was a different river’s flow.
- What was done
- Corrected, and the water’s coordinate moved from Three Forks to the Ennis reach it describes.
Squaw Creek Reservoir had a gauge 60 km away in another drainage
- Checked against
- USGS site metadata
- What was found
- The attached gauge was on Aquilla Creek, a separate drainage about 60 km away.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A plausible-looking live reading with no relationship to the water.
- What was done
- Gauge removed. The page runs without one rather than showing a wrong one.
Twelve western lakes were showing northern pike
- Checked against
- Profile assignment against state fisheries records
- What was found
- Twelve California and Idaho lakes carried a profile listing northern pike, a species absent from those waters.
- What it would have cost the reader
- A target species that is not there.
- What was done
- Moved to a western_two_story profile that matches what those lakes actually hold.
Walker Lake, Nevada, dropped rather than described wrongly
- Checked against
- Nevada Department of Wildlife species records
- What was found
- Its only sport fish is Lahontan cutthroat, which the species system does not model.
- What it would have cost the reader
- Publishing it would have meant assigning a profile that named the wrong fish.
- What was done
- The water was dropped from the site.
How each instrument is checked
| Instrument | Endpoint queried | How identity is confirmed |
|---|---|---|
| USGS Water Data APIs River flow, stage, lake level and water temperature, and the day-of-year flow percentiles | api.waterdata.usgs.gov (OGC API v1: latest-continuous, daily; Statistics API v0: observationNormals) | Every gauge is matched to its water by reading the site name the API returns, never by assuming the number is right. |
| NOAA CO-OPS Tide predictions for coastal waters | api.tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/api/prod/datagetter | Station identity is confirmed against the CO-OPS metadata API before a station is attached to a water. |
| Open-Meteo Weather, pressure trend, sunrise and sunset | api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast | Pressure over the previous hours is what drives the frontal read in the report, not the instantaneous value. |
| Solunar calculation Moon phase, transit and the four daily feeding windows | lib/solunar.js | Solunar influence is real but modest, and the report ranks it last of the four inputs rather than leading with it. |
Full detail of the readings and how they become a report is on the methodology page.
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