How to find the best fishing spot near you

Want to go out fishing, but not sure where to go? There’s a lot to consider when choosing a spot to fish: species, location, how to access it, depth of the waters and so on. It's so much to pay attention to, that it's easy to miss something important. Luckily, Fishbrain can help you out with three simple steps. Check it out:

1. Finding a nearby body of water

Sure you can go to any map provider and look around, but that won’t provide insight into anything other than the fact that a body of water exists in that location. What you really want to know is if it does have fish? What kind of fish are near you?

The best (foolproof) method is firing up your Fishbrain App. When you access your map, there are different ways to find that perfect place to cast your line.

Catch Filters on Fishbrain can help you see what’s being caught and what they’re being caught on, in your area, recently. To filter your catch results, simply tap the filter icon at the top center of your map screen. You can select catches all the way down to 30 days ago.

Through it, you can access exact waypoints of where other users made public catches on any body of water. The waypoints give insight into what sort of structure fish are being caught in, or which banks are more productive than others.

Want to try and catch something different? Fishbrain’s Spot Prediction analyzes map structures for the areas where people catch fish through artificial intelligence, suggesting similar water areas that have not been discovered yet. These areas are marked by different shades of yellow, the brighter the spot is, the more likely you are to set your hook at that spot.

2. Check your fishing forecast

Make sure you check the forecast so you know the best time to go fishing. Weather patterns are super important when planning a safe and successful fishing trip. Different species will often react to different weather and times of day differently, and this will have large effects on peak bite times.

In the map tab, click on Forecast to see what to expect. Fishbrain not only gives you a complete and comprehensive weather forecast for your specific area, but times of peak activity for specific species as well with BiteTime™.

Still needing more information? With our River Gauges feature, users can find river gauges on the map (iOS only) easily. The gauges pull real time information from 10,000+ USGS gauges located across the country. With one quick tap you can determine river flow rates or the water temperature.

3. Scoping the area

Now that you have your spot picked out, and know the best time to go, it's a good idea to determine where you will set up and cast your line.

If you have a boat, you can look for the ramp icon near a water to see if boating is allowed. On your map tab, you can click on the sandwich icon at the top right and enable different points of interest, like boat ramps, marinas, charters and others.

It's also important to check if the area you're interested in is considered a public access one. With the Parks & Government Lands feature enabled (iOS only), government-owned land parcels will be highlighted throughout the Fishbrain map. Tap on any parcel to get more information about the land, including the name of the area, its designation, and its owner.

You can also select the type of map you want to see for any additional data. For this example, we turned off depth contour temporarily to get a better visual of the shoreline. You can see a full view of our depth maps for fishing or get a better understanding of how to read depth contour maps.

Now that you know how to discover where and when to fish, it's time to grab your rod and reel and hit the waters. Don’t forget to upload pictures of your amazing catches to the Fishbrain App and socialize with other anglers.