Features
Everything points at one decision.
Where to fish, when to be there, and what to tie on. Every screen in RiseCast either answers one of those or gets out of the way.
The map
Quality you can read at a glance.
Trout water comes first, rated Tier 1 down to Tier 5 where the evidence supports it and marked Not yet rated where it does not, so a drainage you have never fished still shows you where to start. Stretches of stream on public land are highlighted from USGS PAD-US, green on open public land and amber on restricted. Access points are marked by type and source, and your saved spots sit on top, visible to you alone.
- In Colorado the streambed under private land stays private. The highlight shows where the stream crosses public land, and a bridge on private land is labeled as not being permission
- Colorado today: 6,100 named streams, about 4,900 of them flagged as likely trout water, with CPW Gold Medal and Quality Waters credited to Colorado Parks and Wildlife
- Montana today: 9,850 named streams, about 6,100 of them trout water, with FWP Class I waters and trout abundance credited to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
- One search box for rivers, access sites and towns, nearest first
- Filter chips over the map: water class, species (from CPW and FWP records), water type, closures, public land and access
- Water types computed from real data: tailwaters below major dams (National Inventory of Dams), big float rivers, medium rivers, small streams and high country
- Tap any river for a card with its class, public miles, today's flow against normal, water temperature and species, without leaving the map
- Satellite, topo or light map, one tap away, and a legend that explains every color and icon
- Nearby list from 5 to 200 miles (50 on the free tier), sorted by distance, class, or rating
- Free tier. The map, access points, and live gauge readings cost nothing
Fishability Score
A number you can argue with.
Every stream is scored 0 to 100 from its own flow history, water temperature against the species holding there, weather trend, light, season, and hatch probability. The score always shows its reasoning, so when you disagree you can see exactly which input you disagree with.
- Scored per stream, so one blown out river does not poison the whole region
- Plain-English factors: what is helping, what is hurting, in order of weight
- Hard capped during thermal stress, with a warm-water warning shown above it
- Refreshed as gauges report, not cached overnight
Madison River, below Ennis Lake. Flow in range, water at 54F, barometer falling ahead of a front.
Best hours
Two good hours beat nine average ones.
RiseCast scores today one hour at a time, dawn to dark, and hands you the windows. Solunar major and minor periods, sun angle and cloud cover, the daily water temperature swing, and the hatch window for that specific water all fold into one readable curve.
- Every hour from 5 am to 10 pm, scored against that hour's forecast
- Windows shift earlier as water warms, which is a conservation choice as much as a fishing one
- Ties directly to the hatch calendar for the water you are looking at
Today on the Madison
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.
Reports from about 50 Colorado and Montana fly shops, read twice a day and summarized per river with the shop's name and a link to their full report. When no shop has reported in the last two weeks, a starting rig and the hatches due today, ranked for the water temperature and the hour. Your own catches on that water, from your private journal, sit underneath.
- A fresh shop report leads; reports older than two weeks step back, and older than six weeks are gone
- Every summary names the shop and links to the original report
- Pro tunes it to today: where to stand, fly sizes, tippet and timing from the flow against normal, its trend and the water temperature
- Rules you can check, not a black box: the same water gives the same answer
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.
Live conditions
The raw numbers, when you want them.
Every score is built from readings you can inspect yourself. Open the conditions panel and you get the gauge, the forecast, and the trend, credited to the agency that published it.
- Flows from about 590 USGS and Colorado DWR gauges across Colorado and about 220 USGS gauges across Montana, with the station and its agency shown
- NWS forecast and alerts, plus Open-Meteo for supplemental weather
- Trends rather than snapshots, because a river at 810 cfs and rising is a different river than 810 and falling
Conditions
Sample data- Discharge
- 810 cfs
- USGS 06041000
- Gauge height
- 2.41 ft
- steady, 6h
- Water temp
- 54F
- prime for browns
- Air
- 61F
- NWS, overcast
- Barometer
- 29.84
- falling
- Clarity
- Clear
- modeled from flow
Circles
Invite only, and that is the whole design.
A circle is a small private group: your regular crew, the two or three people you actually trade information with. Share a catch, a photo, notes on how the water fished, or the exact spot, and choose which of those goes out every time you post. No public profile, no follower count, and no discovery feed putting your water in front of strangers.
- Per post sharing. A photo and a note is one decision, exact coordinates is a different one
- Enforced by the same row level security that keeps spots private, so a circle is a real boundary rather than a display setting
- Small on purpose. This is a group text that understands rivers, not a social network
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. This is the part a browser tab cannot do: a web page cannot hold a map pack for a drainage with no service.
- MapLibre tile packs 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 carries the time it was taken and the app shows that age. Stale data that admits it beats fresh-looking data that does not
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
Journal
Your water stays yours.
Log catches with photos, flies, and the conditions at that moment. Over a season the journal turns into a private heat map and a set of patterns about how you actually fish: which flows produce for you, which flies, which hours. None of it leaves your account unless you send it.
- Private by default, enforced with row level security in Postgres
- Conditions captured automatically with each entry, so the data set is honest
- Insights on your own history: your best flows, your best hours, your best patterns
- Export your journal at any time from the Journal tab
Season so far
68
Catches
720 cfs
Best flow
7p
Best hour
Heat map illustration. Shared views use coarse grid cells, never exact points.
Verified catches, not fish stories.
Every fishing story is a claim. Length gets rounded up, the good ones grow over a season, and nobody can prove anything. We are partnering with Fishtechy to change that. Drop their Proof Ball next to your catch, take one photo, and their AI returns verified length, girth, and weight in seconds. RiseCast carries those numbers into your journal untouched, where they lock.
The Proof Ball is the part that makes it hold up. A known-size object in the frame gives the AI something real to measure against, so the number is derived rather than guessed. It also means no tape measure and no hanging a fish from a scale, which is the same reason we cap scores in warm water: the less time a trout spends out of the river, the better.
A verified number means nothing alone. It means everything the moment someone might doubt you.
Once they ship, verified catches are what will make Circles comparisons mean something: measure against your crew on numbers that hold up, and run your own tournaments with outcomes nobody can argue with. Length based and catch and release native. No weigh-in, no livewell.
Drop the Proof Ball
Set it next to the fish and take a single photo. No tape measure, no scale, no second pair of hands.
Numbers in seconds
Fishtechy's AI returns verified length, girth, and weight, with a confidence score attached.
It lands and locks
RiseCast attaches it to the journal entry, immutable from then on, enforced in the database.
- Unverified catches are still yours to log. The badge is a bonus, never a requirement
- Verification carries a measurement, never a location. Your spot is not part of it
- Values are range checked on the way in, so a bad payload cannot mint a badge
Journal entry
Rainbow trout
Madison River · Oct 19, 7:52p
- Length
- 19.4in
- Girth
- 10.2in
- Weight
- 3.1lb
Confidence 94.2%
Measured against a Proof Ball and imported straight through. Nobody typed these numbers in.
Locked once attached. The measurement cannot be edited afterward, enforced server side.
Preview of an unreleased flow
About Fishtechy
Fishtechy builds the Proof Ball: put it in frame, take one photo from your phone, and get verified length, girth, and weight back in seconds, with minimal handling of the fish.
Visit fishtechy.comVerified catches are in development and have no release date yet. Fishtechy and Proof Ball are trademarks of Fishtechy, used with permission.
And the rest
The parts that make a day work.
Hatch calendar
Regional hatches keyed to season and water temperature, so the calendar for the Madison in June is not the calendar for the South Platte in June.
Stream ratings
Tier 1 down to Tier 5 where the evidence supports a rating, and Not yet rated where it does not. Official designations such as CPW Gold Medal and Quality Waters are shown separately, as published by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Trip planner
Pick a window and a radius. RiseCast ranks the streams inside it so a two day trip starts with a shortlist instead of a forum thread.
Fly shop reports
Structured summaries of shop reports with the shop's name and a link straight back to the original. We drive traffic to shops, we do not replace them.
Access points
About 7,800 in Colorado and about 5,100 in Montana from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the US Forest Service, BLM, and OpenStreetMap contributors, each labeled with its source. Public stretches of stream come from USGS PAD-US.