Your fishing assistant for the Southwest
Trout Bot
A local angler that never sleeps. It reads 17 live gauges, the weather forecast, our local reports, our field notes on each water and season, and the fly box, then tells you where to go, what to tie on, and what to expect. Plain spoken, no hype, and it admits when it does not know.
Example
Animas or San Juan this Saturday? Mornings only.
San Juan. The Animas in town is 161 cfs and 66°F, and the forecast has storms both afternoons, so mornings are your window there too, but the water is warm for a fight. The San Juan is 875 cfs and 48°F, steady, and last week’s report had a size 10 red annelid working. Be on the water at first light and off by noon.
What it can do
Plan the weekend
Ask where to fish and it weighs the live flows, the water temperature, the forecast, and what the latest report said. It gives a pick and says what it depends on.
Pick the fly
Tell it the water and the day and it names patterns and sizes, then links the closest flies from our own fly box so you know exactly what it means.
Identify a fly or a bug
Snap a photo of a fly you cannot place or a bug on the rock. It names the pattern family or the insect, the likely size, and how sure it is.
Read your trip log
Log the date, the water, the flies, and how it went. On a slow day, ask what went wrong and it compares that day’s gauge readings and the reports from that week against what you did.
Watch your waters
Star the waters you fish and the dashboard shows their gauges first, on a satellite map. Rivers, high country creeks, reservoirs, and the alpine lakes that have no gauge anywhere.
Ask the wider web
When our reports do not cover something current, regulations, stocking, closures, it searches, summarizes, and lists its sources. It never invents a number.
What it reads before it answers
- 17
- live gauges from USGS and Colorado DWR: the Animas, the San Juan below Navajo Dam, the other rivers and creeks around Durango, and reservoir levels
- 2
- weather forecasts, Durango and Navajo Dam, from the National Weather Service
- All
- of our local reports, with each day's flow, water temperature, weather, and feeding column. Full text for subscribers, opening lines for everyone else
- Our
- field notes: what each water and each time of year is like, in our own words, so it can help even when there is no fresh report
- Every
- pattern in our fly box, so its picks are flies we actually fish. Tied boxes go on sale this winter
- The web
- when it has to, for current things like regulations, stocking, and closures. It lists its sources
House rules
- Spots stay spots. It never names a run, a pool, or a pullout more specifically than our reports do. That is on purpose.
- Numbers are real. Every flow, temperature, and forecast comes from an agency feed. If a gauge is down, it says unavailable.
- Safety first. If you ask about high water, cold water, lightning, or taking a child along, it tells you what is unsafe before anything else.
- Photos are not kept. A fly or bug photo is looked at once to answer and never stored.
Comes with the reports
Subscribe and Trout Bot comes along.
- Free account
- 3 questions a day, opening lines of paid reports
- Subscriber
- 25 questions a day, every report in full
- Price
- $10.00 a month or $60.00 a year
Questions people ask
- What does Trout Bot actually know?
- The site's own data first: live gauge readings on seventeen rivers, creeks, and reservoirs around Durango, the National Weather Service forecast, the local reports, and the fly catalog. Plus your own favorites and trip log once you add them. Beyond that it has general fly fishing knowledge, and it says so when it is using it. For current local things the reports do not cover, like regulations or stocking, it can search the web and it lists its sources.
- Will it tell me exactly where to fish?
- No. It never names a spot more specifically than the owner's reports do. If a report says the Animas in town, that is as specific as the bot gets, on purpose.
- Can it read the paid reports?
- Only for subscribers and the owner. Everyone else gets the opening lines, the same as on the reports page.
- How many questions do I get?
- Three a day if you are not a subscriber, twenty five a day for subscribers. A question with a photo counts as one.
- What happens to a photo I attach?
- Your browser shrinks it before sending, the bot looks at it once to answer, and it is not kept anywhere. Your message history records that a photo was attached, not the photo itself.
- What is the trip log for?
- Your own record: date, water, time of day, flies, caught or skunked, and a note. Trout Bot reads it when you ask things. For a skunked trip, the What went wrong link asks the bot to compare that day's gauge readings and the reports from that week against what you did.