Which river, and what hour to be standing in it.
RiseCast shows which stretches of a river you can legally fish, straight from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the USGS, with the regulations and closures that apply today. Then it reads live flows, water temperature, weather, and hatch data and tells you which water, and which window.
Be standing in it
6:10pto8:05p
Madison River · today
We never sell your spots. Not to anyone, not ever.
Free tier for live conditions. Pro is $39.99 a year or $7.99 a month, after a 14 day free trial.
Public water
Know where you can legally stand.
In Colorado the streambed under private land is private, and a wrong guess at a bridge can end in a trespass ticket. RiseCast highlights every stretch of stream that crosses open public land, names the forest or wildlife area it belongs to, and says plainly when it cannot confirm access.
- Covers about 4,900 Colorado trout streams and about 6,100 in Montana, with about 19,700 and about 24,200 miles of stream on open public land (USGS PAD-US)
- Green on open public land, amber where public land has limits such as state trust land. Everything else is shown as private or unverified, never guessed
- Access points (about 7,800 in Colorado, about 5,100 in Montana) from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the US Forest Service, BLM, and OpenStreetMap contributors, agency sites first
- The map, public access, access points, and live gauge readings are free. No account needed to look around
Montana's stream access law works the other way: once you reach the water legally, from public land, a Fishing Access Site or a public road bridge, you can fish to the high-water mark. The app says which rules apply where you stand.
Real screen: tap the Fryingpan and see how much of it is public, and how it is running today
Straight from the agencies
The rules and ratings anglers already trust.
Official designations, special regulations, and closures come from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in their own words, credited on every screen. Our own rating sits beside them and never borrows their names.
- Every CPW Gold Medal and Quality Water reach, with CPW's description of where it starts and ends
- Special regulations from CPW's current fishing brochure on the stretches they apply to, such as flies and lures only or catch and release
- Montana FWP Class I waters, Fishing Access Sites, and trout abundance in FWP's own words: Rare, Common, Abundant
- Current CPW and FWP fishing closures and hoot-owl restrictions, refreshed every few hours and removed when they lift
- Live flow from about 590 Colorado and about 220 Montana gauges run by the USGS and the Colorado Division of Water Resources, and trout species per CPW and FWP
- Tier 1 to Tier 5 only where the evidence supports it. Everything else says Not yet rated instead of guessing
Then, the when
Legal water is the start. The hard part is when.
Once you know where you can stand, three questions decide the day, in the order you face them. RiseCast answers all three.
Which water
Every stream gets a Fishability Score from 0 to 100 built from flow, water temperature, weather, season, and hatch activity. Narrow a whole region down to the two or three worth your morning.
Which hours
A timeline for today blends solunar periods, light, temperature swing, and hatch windows. Fish the two good hours instead of grinding through nine bad ones.
Which fly
What to fish on every water: the latest report from a local fly shop when there is a fresh one, otherwise a starting rig and the hatches due today. Pro tunes it to today's flow and water temperature.
Fishability Score
One number, and the reasons behind it.
Flow against the stream's own healthy range, water temperature against the species holding there, barometric trend, cloud cover, season, and hatch probability. The score never hides behind a black box: it tells you what is helping and what is hurting.
- Scored per stream, not per region, so a blown out tailwater does not drag down the creek next door
- Capped in water too warm to fish ethically, with a plain warning instead of a green light
- Recalculated as gauges report, so the number is current when you check it at 5am
Today, live
Flow against the stream's own healthy range, water temperature, barometric trend, cloud cover, season, and hatch probability. Public inputs, available to everyone.
Next
Every catch you log will grade the score that predicted it, so the model gets checked against real days on the water. Not built yet.
RoadmapGuideCast
Working guides fish the same water 180 days a season. Through GuideCast, their verified observations become a correction layer no public-data model can reach. Not built yet.
Anyone can build a model on public gauge data. Nobody can buy a season of guide observation.
Best hours
Stop fishing the whole day.
The timeline scores today one hour at a time, dawn to dark. Major and minor solunar periods, sun angle, the daily temperature swing, and the hatch window for that water, folded into a single curve you can read at a glance.
Best window today: 6:10p to 8:05p. Evening caddis, falling light, water holding 54F.
What to fish
The shop's word first, then the river's.
When a local fly shop has reported on your water in the last two weeks, you see it first, with their name on it and a link to the full report. Otherwise you get a starting rig and the hatches due today, ranked for the water temperature and the hour. Pro adds where to stand, fly sizes, tippet and timing, tuned to today's flow and how it is trending.
Tuned to today's water
ProLow and clear: smaller and quieter
Flow 62% of normal, steady; water 56F
Size the rig one size smaller: Elk Hair Caddis #16 with a Pheasant Tail #18 dropper
- WhereRiffles and the heads of pools. Stay back from the bank.
- FliesOne size smaller, with less flash.
- Tippet5X to 6X and a longer leader.
The promise
We never sell your spots.
Spots and catch locations are private by default and enforced in the database with row level security, not hidden behind a setting in the app. Our own client code cannot read another angler's coordinates. Share what you choose with private circles of people you trust, and nothing else moves.
We do not sell your data, we do not hand your water to advertisers, and we do not run a marketplace for spot access.
Private by default
New spots and logged catches are visible to you alone until you act.
Enforced in Postgres
Row level security policies, covered by an automated security test suite, are the enforcement point.
Fuzzed in aggregate
Any shared heat map uses coarse grid cells, never exact points.
Analytics opt in
Off until you turn it on, and coordinates are scrubbed before any event.
Circles
The only people who see your water are the ones you named.
A circle is a small, invite-only group: your regular crew, your brother in law, the two people you actually trade information with. Share a catch, a photo, notes on how the water fished, or the exact spot. You decide which of those goes out, every time you post.
- Invite only. No follower counts, no public profile, no discovery feed that puts your water in front of strangers
- Sharing is per post. A photo and a note is one decision, exact coordinates is a different one
- The same row level security that keeps spots private is what makes circle sharing work, so a circle is a real boundary and not a display setting
Ennis Crew
4 members · invite only
- DR
Dana
Yesterday, 7:40p
Rainbow, 18.4inVerified
Back eddy above the island. Elk Hair Caddis #16, dead drift. Water came up 40 cfs overnight.
Exact spot shared
- MT
Marcus
Tuesday
Brown, about 21inEstimate
Streamer on the sink tip, first hour of light. Bring the 6 weight.
Photo and notes only
Nothing here is visible outside this circle. Verified and Estimate badges arrive with the Fishtechy partnership, which has no release date yet. Illustration with sample data.
Offline
The canyon has no bars.
Signal ends about where the good water starts. Download a region before you leave pavement and the map tiles, the stream, its conditions, and the latest shop report ride along on the device. No spinner at the put in, no blank screen at the bottom of a canyon.
- Map tiles for about ten miles around the stream, stored on the phone rather than fetched
- A snapshot of the stream, its conditions, and the newest shop report saved alongside them, so the plan survives the drive
- Every snapshot is stamped with when it was taken and the app shows that age. Stale data that admits it beats fresh-looking data that does not
This is why RiseCast is a real app and not a web page. A browser tab cannot hold a map pack for a drainage with no service.
Downloaded region
Madison River
- Map tiles
Madison near Ennis
about 10 mi around the stream
- Stream
Madison River
rating, species, gauge
- Conditions
810 cfs, 54F
USGS 06041000
- Latest shop report
Evening caddis
cited and linked
Saved 6:42am, 5h ago. RiseCast stamps every offline snapshot and shows its age. Stale data that says so beats fresh-looking data that lies.
Illustration with sample data
Who makes this
I got tired of guessing in the parking lot.
Every trip started the same way at 5am. Pull up the gauge, squint at the forecast, try to remember what the water did last week, and guess. Some days I guessed right. Plenty of days I burned three hours learning I was wrong.
There are apps that show you where the rivers are. I wanted one that tells me which river to drive to, and what hour to be standing in it. So I built the thing I had been doing badly in my head.
The other half is simpler. Every angler I know has water they will not put on the internet. RiseCast keeps your spots private in the database itself. We do not sell them, to advertisers, to other anglers, or through a marketplace. That is not a feature I added. It is the reason I would use this instead of the alternatives.
Brandon
Pricing
Live conditions are free. Judgment is Pro.
The map, access points, live gauge readings, and your catch journal cost nothing. Pro unlocks the Fishability Score, best hours, flies and tactics tuned to today's water, the hatch calendar, the trip planner, offline regions, a 200 mile radius, and unlimited circles.
Pro is $39.99 a year or $7.99 a month, after a 14 day free trial.
Compare free and ProEarly access
Colorado and Montana first.
We are opening in two states so the stream coverage is real rather than a thin national map. Both states are mapped, and local anglers are checking the coverage before we open, Colorado first. Tell us where you fish and we will email you once, when RiseCast is on the App Store for your state.
Fish somewhere else? Sign up anyway. Where the requests pile up is where we go next.