The Fishability Score
Every river gets a score from 0 to 100. It is a relative measure — it answers “which of these is the best use of my evening?”, not “is this river easy?” A 92 beats a 70 badly enough to justify an extra half hour in the truck; two rivers within a few points of each other are a coin flip, so pick the closer one.
90–100 · Fishing well
Fish are active and the conditions line up. Go.
80–89 · Fair / picky
Very catchable, but match the hatch tighter and fish with precision.
70–79 · Workable
Fishable, often skinny or off-temp. Worth it only if it's close.
Below 70 · Tough
Blown out, too warm, or barely flowing. Spend the evening elsewhere.
What goes into it
- Flow against that river's own ideal range — 300 cfs is perfect on one river and unfishable on another, so every river is judged against its own window, never a blanket number.
- Water temperature, which drives whether trout are feeding at all.
- Season and hatch stage — what should be coming off right now.
- Fly-shop reports from people who were standing in the water.
The score is recalculated from live readings, not typed in by hand. When the river changes, the ranking changes.
What every visitor gets
No account, no card. The dashboard is the product, not a teaser.
52 rivers, ranked live
Every river scored and sorted best-first, with flow, water temp, distance and drive time. 49 pull live readings straight from USGS gauges; the rest are ungauged park water with curated notes.
31 fly shops, cited
Real shop reports with the shop named and linked. Fly names are passed through exactly as the shop wrote them — no renaming, no “did you mean”. If a shop says Barr's Emerger #20, that's what you read.
Live 5-day forecasts
NOAA/NWS forecasts for seven fishing pockets around the Front Range and high country — highs, lows, and chance of precipitation, with a link to the full point forecast.
Morning, afternoon, evening flies
Each river carries what to throw in each window, plus the rig and a seasonal strategy read — not a generic fly of the month.
Add any river you like
Search any USGS gauge in the state and pin it to your dashboard with live flow and temperature. The seeded list is a starting point, not a limit.
My Rivers
Star the water you actually fish and it floats to the top of your list.
Cody, your AI guide
Cody reads the same live dashboard you do and answers in plain language. Ask him where to fish inside an hour's drive, what to throw at Deckers right now, or how to rig for a cold tailwater — and he answers from today's numbers.
Cheesman Canyon — hands down your best bet right now.
Why: It's 78 miles (1h 50m), just over your window, but worth the drive. Fishability is 92, flows are solid at 295 cfs, and water temp is a cool 47°F.
If you want to stay under 1 hour: Clear Creek (35m, 92 fishability) or St. Vrain Creek (45m, 89).
Note what he did there: he recommended a river, then caught that it broke the one-hour limit, said so, and offered closer options. Cody is instructed never to invent a flow, a temperature or a shop report — if the data isn't there, he says so.
Catch log & trip planner
Catch log
One tap marks the spot. Hatchwise records the GPS pin and captures a snapshot of the conditions — flow, water temp, weather, score — so you can find out what your fish actually have in common.
AI Trip Planner
Your logged spots, the forecast and live flows combined into a plan for where to go next. It works from day one on live conditions and gets sharper as your log fills.
Ready to stop guessing?
The dashboard, every river and the Fishability Score stay free. Pro adds Cody, the catch log and the trip planner — $14.99/month or $129/year.
Cancel any time. If it doesn't make your next trip better, email us within 30 days for a full refund.