Ask around and you will hear that every lake has everything in it. Our species lists are shorter on purpose, because each name has to be backed by something.
What counts as evidence
A creel survey — an agency counting what anglers actually caught. A management report on the water. A stocking record. Any of those puts a species on the page.
What does not count: "it is in the state, so it is probably here". Range maps describe where a species can live, not where it was found. A page built from range maps would list the same fifty fish on every lake and help nobody.
The list is never complete
If a species is missing from our page, we have no record of it — not that it is absent. Small waters get surveyed rarely, and plenty of fish live where nobody has formally documented them.
Treat the list as a floor, not a ceiling. What is on it is there. What is not on it is unknown.
Native, introduced, and the surprises
Florida carries species that surprise visitors: peacock bass, Mayan cichlid, oscar, blue tilapia. They are on our pages where records support them. Someone planning a bass trip should know that some of the best fights in the state are not bass at all.
How the calendar uses this
The bite calendar only shows species we have a record for on that water. It answers "when do the fish that are actually here feed", not "when do fish feed in general".
