For partners and investors

41.6 million Americans fish lakes and rivers. Most still guess where to go.

Before a trip, an angler wants to know three things: how deep is it, where can I put the boat in, and will the fish bite on Saturday. The data exists — the federal government and every state publish it for free. It is just scattered across a dozen websites in a form no normal person can read. We collect it, clean it, and turn it into one clear page per lake.

11,968: lakes and rivers in our database
1.74M: water tests we have collected
3,345: boat ramps with details
263: fish species with our own guides

The market

A big market that does not depend on fashion

One American in six went fishing last year. Every figure below comes from the same report, published in July 2026 and covering 2025, so the numbers can be compared with each other.

What	How many	What it means for us
Americans who fished in 2025	57 million	About 18% of the country. Down from 57.9 million in 2024 — the first drop since 2021.
Freshwater anglers	41.6 million	Lakes and rivers: exactly what we cover, and the only number on this table that is our actual market. It has held steady four years running.
Fishing outings in 2025	918 million	About sixteen trips per angler per year, and every one of them starts with the same question: where do I go this weekend.
What anglers spend a year	about $100 billion	Equipment, licenses, outings and related expenses. We do not need a share of it. We need to be the page people read before they spend it.
Anglers who stopped fishing in 2025	19 million	The highest churn on record, and the industry's own biggest worry. People do not quit because fishing got worse — they quit after enough wasted trips. That is the thing we prevent.

Source: the 2026 Special Report on Fishing, published by the American Sportfishing Association on 29 July 2026 for the 2025 season. The spending figure is ASA's separate Sportfishing in America report (March 2025), which also puts the industry's total contribution to the US economy at $230.5 billion and 1.1 million jobs — a different number with a different meaning, which is why it is not in the table. These are the only figures on this page we did not measure ourselves. Everything else comes from our own database and updates automatically.

Why now

This was not possible five years ago

Nothing in our data is new. What changed is the cost of turning it into something a person can read.

The data went digital

Agencies that mailed PDFs now publish machine-readable feeds and open APIs. The material we depend on became fetchable rather than scannable.

Processing got cheap

Depth soundings, shoreline geometry and vector tiles used to need a GIS department. The same work now runs on one rented server we already pay for.

Language models made the last mile affordable

Turning a thousand rows of water chemistry into two readable paragraphs — in two languages — used to be a person's afternoon. It is now a step in the pipeline, checked by an editor rather than written by one.

Anglers plan on a phone

The question 'where do I go this weekend' is now asked into a screen, not at a tackle counter. The market moved to where the answer can be delivered.

The data existed before. Doing this nationally became affordable only recently — which is why the window is open and will not stay open long.

What we have built

The valuable part is the data, not the app

An app can be copied in a month. The database cannot. Every number below comes from somewhere public and free: the USGS maps the shorelines, NOAA measures the depths, state agencies list the boat ramps and what fish they released, the EPA collects the water tests. We have not found anyone who has put it together. That is the work — and once a lake is done, it stays done.

The pipeline, stage by stage

11,968lakes and rivers in the database

Each one has a name, a location and a real shoreline shape. 13,276 shorelines drawn.

779have a depth chart

Real sonar and survey readings turned into the coloured depth bands you see on our maps. This is the hardest layer to get and almost nobody has it for freshwater.

94have stocking records

Which fish the state released into that lake, how many, and in what year.

17are fully published

Our standard for a finished lake: written description, depth chart, ramps, water tests, fish list and a live bite forecast.

The distance between the first line and the last is not a hole in the product — it is the conveyor belt, photographed mid-run. Every lake in the first line is already collected; finishing one is a known amount of work done the same way every time, and we know how long it takes because we have done it. Every finished lake so far is in Florida, on purpose: one state completed end to end is worth more than a thin layer over fifty.

What one finished lake looks like

Lake Okeechobee, as an example of everything a single page contains.

339,988: acres of water, measured from the real shoreline
13.1 ft: deepest point, from an official survey we name on the page
322 mi: of shoreline, measured rather than guessed
23: fish species recorded in this lake
42: boat ramps, with lanes, surface and whether the gate is locked
13,210: water tests from 90 monitoring stations
96,231: fish released here by the state, listed by species and year
0–100: bite score, recalculated every few hours from live weather

Every lake gets a written description

This is the part nobody else does. Other sites give you a name on a map and a photo. Our content editors write a real description of each lake from the actual data — how the depth is distributed, where the fish hold, what the water tests say, which ramp to use with a big boat. It is written by a person who has read the numbers, not generated from a template. That is why our pages read like advice and theirs read like a directory listing.

Somebody could copy our website design in two weeks. To copy this they would have to redo years of collecting and cleaning — for every lake in the country, one at a time.

Why this gets harder to copy, not easier

01
Collecting
Thousands of separate public datasets, one federal agency and fifty state agencies, each with its own format and its own idea of what a lake is.
02
Normalising
Different schemas, units, spellings and coordinate systems become one model. This is the part that cannot be bought.
03
Joining
Lake to shoreline to depth to ramp to campground to fish to water test to weather. The value is in the joins, and the joins are ours.
04
Accumulating
Water tests, stocking records and survey history pile up year after year. A competitor starting today starts with this year only.
05
Using
Every angler who opens a lake page tells us which lakes matter. That is the layer that gets better with people, and it is the last one to build.

The app

Seven screens, one question

There is nothing to post and nobody to follow. The app answers where to go, when to go, and what will be biting when you get there — then gives you the drive. These are the real screens, running on live data, not mock-ups: scroll any of them.

9:41▮▮▮

Lake OkeechobeeFlorida

339,988acres13.1 ftmax depth42ramps29species

Know the water before you drive out.

We read the public records for every lake and river in the US — surveys, ramps, water tests, stocking — and turn them into one page you can act on.

Depth charts779 waters surveyed

Boat ramps3,345 with lanes and surface

Will they biteA score out of 100, updated with the weather

Where are you fishing from?

So we can sort lakes by how far you have to drive, and use the right bite calendar for your latitude.

Use my location

Or type a town or zip code

Your location stays on this phone. We never store it.

Skip — show me everything

WelcomeIt opens with a real lake and its real depths, says what the app is for, and asks where you are. Skipping that is allowed — the state list still works.

**Near you**Three waters the weather picks for today, with the reason spelled out, then everything else within range.

**Ask**Ask in plain English. It only answers with lakes that are actually in our database — it cannot make one up.

**The lake**The depth chart from real survey readings, the bite forecast for today, and tabs for fish, water tests and ramps.

**The map**Each ring says how much is under it and what it is made of: blue waters, green ramps, amber campgrounds.

**The fish**Every species drawn by us, with the months it feeds — shifted for how far north or south you are.

**The trip**Saved lakes become a route that ends at the boat ramp, not in the middle of the lake. Small thing, and the whole point.

Walk through every screen

How the money works

Why would an angler pay for this?

Fair question, and it is the one investors ask first. Here is the honest answer: because a wasted Saturday costs more than a year of the subscription.

What a fishing trip already costs

$17–47 / year

State fishing license

Everyone already pays this. Paying once a year to go fishing is a habit, not a new idea.

$60–100

Fuel and bait for one trip

Spent whether the fish bite or not.

$400–600

Guided trip for a day

What people pay to not waste the day. We are the cheap version of the same thing.

everything above, wasted

A wasted Saturday

Four hours of driving to a lake that is muddy, closed, or dead. This is the problem we solve.

Free and paid

Free, forever

The full page for every lake we have finished
Depth chart, boat ramps, water tests, fish list
Today's bite score for the lake you are looking at
Ask the assistant anything about our lakes

Paid — around $39 a year

The week ahead, not just today, for every lake you follow
An alert when a lake you follow turns good — Thursday morning, before you have made weekend plans
Depth charts saved to your phone, because there is no signal on the water
Saved trips: pick three lakes, get one drive that ends at the right ramp
Your own catch notes tied to the depth chart, private and not a feed

The pitch to the angler is one sentence: for the price of one tank of fuel, you stop driving to the wrong lake. That is an easy sentence to say in a tackle shop, and it is the reason we think this converts.

What that adds up to

This is arithmetic, not a forecast. It runs on the 41.6 million freshwater anglers — the market we actually cover — at $39 a year.

Share of freshwater anglers	Paying users	Yearly revenue
1 in 1,000	41,600	$1.6M
1 in 200	208,000	$8.1M
1 in 100	416,000	$16.2M

A 1% share of freshwater anglers would be about 416,000 paying users. We treat that as a long-term scenario, not a near-term forecast. The number we actually manage is the one before it: at a 3% visitor-to-paid rate, the first line means roughly 1.4 million angler visits a year. That is the figure we will report against, and it is the honest measure of whether this works. Subscription is also only one of four ways this earns — the others are below, and none of them need a large audience.

How it makes money

Four ways, and only one of them needs a big audience

We do not sell the data itself. We help someone decide where to go, and we are standing right next to the money they were going to spend anyway.

1. From anglers

Subscription

Around $39 a year for the forecast, alerts, offline maps and saved trips. Explained above.

2. From bookings

Guides, charters and campgrounds

By the time someone reaches a lake page, they have already chosen the place and roughly the date. That is the best possible moment to show them a guide or a campsite. We hold thousands of ramps and campgrounds already linked to the right lake, which is exactly the connection a booking site cannot buy anywhere.

3. From gear

Tackle, at the right moment

We know the lake, the month, the water temperature and which fish is feeding. Nobody else can work that out from a search box. A rod recommendation next to “bass are feeding here this week” is worth many times a banner ad.

4. From businesses

Licensing and sponsorship

State tourism boards want their lakes to look good and be findable. Marinas and resorts want to be the pin next to the ramp. Boating apps want our depth charts and would rather license them than send out survey boats. This one pays before we have a large audience, because it is priced on the data, not on traffic.

One more thing that matters for growth: we do not have to buy the audience. People already type “lake okeechobee depth map” and “boat ramps near me” into Google every day. Right now they land on a government PDF or a forum post from 2011. Every lake we finish is a page that answers one of those searches properly. Traffic follows the number of lakes we publish, and that we control.

Who else is out there

The competition, honestly

What each one covers, checked on their own sites

	Catch community	Depth charts	Species bite forecast	Sampled water chemistry	Stocking records	Boat ramps	Free, no subscription
Fishbrain
Omnia Fishing
onX Fish
Navionics / Garmin
Windy
State agencies
TripsQuick

Compiled in August 2026 from what each product documents publicly on its own site: fishbrain.com/features, omniafishing.com/map, onxmaps.com/fish, navionics.com, windy.com. A full mark means the product presents it as a named feature. A half mark means a weaker form: Navionics has community map edits but no catch log; Omnia has satellite surface temperature and clarity but not sampled chemistry; Windy forecasts weather but not fish activity. Sampled water chemistry means oxygen, clarity, pH and temperature from monitoring stations with years of history — not a surface reading from a satellite or a weather model. FishingBooker is not in this table because it publishes no lake data at all; it is a booking marketplace, and it is in the list above for the revenue stream, not the data.

Who	What they do well	What they leave open
Fishbrain	The big one: over 20 million logged catches, and more product than people assume. Navionics depth maps, a seven-day forecast with BiteTime species-activity windows, BiteGuide lure advice, waypoints, plus boat ramps and marinas on the map.	No measured water: no oxygen, no clarity, no pH, no history, no stocking records. Their forecast is built from catch logs and weather; ours is built from what has been measured in that specific water. The depth maps sit behind Pro.
Omnia Fishing	The closest thing to us, and the one to watch. Lake-first product with Navionics HD depth charts, C-MAP contours, vegetation and bottom hardness, boat landings, fish attractors, water-level stations, satellite water temperature and clarity, and angler-filed fishing reports — all wired to a tackle shop that ships the same day. Subscription starts at the same $39 a year we plan to charge.	The water layers are satellite surface readings, not sampling-station chemistry: no oxygen, no pH, no multi-year history, no stocking records. And the business is tackle — the map exists to sell baits, which is a different company with a different centre of gravity.
onX Fish	Premium lake maps, 3D lake bottoms, filtering by species, trophy potential and abundance, and in-dash navigation that ends at the boat ramp. A clean product with a clear $34.99 a year.	Midwest only — twelve states as of August 2026, with no Florida and no Southeast at all. No water chemistry, no stocking, and no daily reason to open it: it answers where, not whether today is worth the drive.
Navionics / Garmin	The best bathymetry in the business: SonarChart HD contours built from millions of boater sonar logs, plus weather, tides, dock-to-dock routing, community map edits and ActiveCaptain points — which do include boat ramps, docks and marinas.	Built to navigate a boat, not to choose a lake. Weather but no fish-activity forecast, no water tests, no stocking. Mostly sold with chartplotters, to people who already own one.
Windy	Free, excellent and genuinely used by anglers: wind, rain and temperature forecasts on an hour-by-hour slider, from several weather models at once.	It is a weather map, not a fishing product. It knows nothing about the lake underneath — no depths, no ramps, no fish, no water tests — and it will never tell you which of two lakes to drive to. We read weather too; the difference is that we read it against the water's own record.
FishingBooker	A real marketplace for guided trips, with real supply and real bookings.	It publishes no water data at all. It appears after the person has already decided where to go — we are there while they are deciding.
State agencies	The original source of most of our data, and genuinely authoritative: soundings, stocking records, ramp inventories, water sampling.	Unreadable. A PDF per lake, a different website per state, no way to compare two waters, and nothing that answers whether to go on Saturday.

We have not found a product that does what we do: put the measured facts about a lake — depths, sampled water chemistry, stocking, ramps — on one page, keep it current, and say whether the fish are likely to feed today. Fishbrain has the community we do not. Omnia is closest on the map layers and sells tackle on top. The empty shelf is the measured half, published free.

Where we are now

It is built and running. It is just small on purpose.

Live today

The site is public in English and Spanish, with an assistant that answers from our data, maps we host ourselves, a bite forecast that updates with the weather, and an editing back office our content team uses every day.

The pipeline is the company

Thirty-nine automated steps take a lake from a government dataset to a finished page: shoreline, depth chart, ramps, campgrounds, water tests, stocking, photos, translation. There is no per-lake cost to buy: no data licenses, no survey boats, no field staff. The marginal cost of one more lake is machine time on a server we already rent, plus an editor's read-through. Adding a state is running it more, not inventing anything.

It is cheap to run

The AI part that would normally cost the most runs on our own hardware. Map tiles are plain files on a server rather than a paid mapping service. We can swap the language model for a cheaper one in one line, because our data does the work, not the model.

The next twelve months

Step	Lakes finished	What it makes possible
Finish Florida	about 250	Proof that one state can be completed end to end. Subscription goes live.
Gulf coast states	about 900	Enough coverage that guide and campground bookings become a real business, not a test.
The Southeast	about 2,400	Big enough to sell licensing deals on coverage we already have rather than on promises.
National	about 12,000	The point where catching up would take a competitor years.

We are going state by state in order of how many anglers live there and how good the public data is. Florida is first because its wildlife agency publishes unusually well, which makes it the cheapest place to prove the whole thing works.

What we are asking for

The hard part is done. The slow part needs funding.

There is no technology risk left to take. The pipeline runs, the site is live, the forecast is honest, and the assistant cannot invent a lake that does not exist. What is left is volume: more surveys processed, more lakes finished, more states added. That is people and computing time, and it turns directly into published pages, search traffic and all four revenue streams above.

If you make fishing gear, run a marina, sell boats, promote a destination, or invest in outdoor businesses, the conversation is short: we can tell you which lakes your customers will be standing on this weekend, and why.

Get in touch[email protected]

Who is building it

One engineer, ten years of shipping, and two products in this exact field

Vitalii Kindrakevych

Founder · Senior full-stack engineer · Cartagena, Spain

Ten years of shipping production systems and more than forty of them live — media, e-commerce, tourism, government, automotive, SaaS. Ran his own agency in Ukraine from 2014 to 2022, has been a senior engineering partner in Spain since. TripsQuick is built end to end by the same hands: the data pipeline, the map tiles, the search, the assistant, the site and the app.

kindrakevich.com

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