# Bitespan

> Fish the window, not the guess. Fishing conditions intelligence for
> freshwater lakes in the USA. Enter a lake, species, and date — get a
> day-by-day and hour-by-hour bite-timing forecast built from live weather
> and solunar (moon) data. Early-stage product: the species guides, blog,
> and guides below are live and indexed today; the interactive forecasting
> tool is built and running but not yet on by default in production.

## Species Guides (live, indexed)

11 per-species fishing guides at /fishing/[species], each covering depth
by season, best time of day, and how barometric pressure and wind shift
the bite — built from cited fisheries-agency and peer-reviewed sources
(Article + FAQPage structured data on every page):

- [Walleye](/fishing/walleye)
- [Largemouth Bass](/fishing/largemouth-bass)
- [Smallmouth Bass](/fishing/smallmouth-bass)
- [Northern Pike](/fishing/northern-pike)
- [Muskellunge](/fishing/muskellunge)
- [Channel Catfish](/fishing/channel-catfish)
- [Black Crappie](/fishing/black-crappie)
- [Bluegill](/fishing/bluegill)
- [Pumpkinseed](/fishing/pumpkinseed)
- [Rock Bass](/fishing/rock-bass)
- [Yellow Perch](/fishing/yellow-perch)

## Blog (live, indexed)

Evergreen fishing-science research posts at [/blog](/blog), each citing
the same primary literature behind Bitespan's bite-scoring model — no
AI-spun filler, every claim traces to a vetted source:

- [Does Barometric Pressure Really Affect the Bite?](/blog/barometric-pressure-and-the-bite)
- [Fishing a Cold Front: Why the Bite Dies and How to Beat It](/blog/cold-front-fishing)
- [Does the Full Moon Affect Fishing? What Solunar Data Actually Says](/blog/full-moon-fishing)

## Guides (live, indexed)

Evergreen how-to guides at [/guides](/guides), teaching durable skills
rather than covering timely news:

- [Understanding Solunar Feeding Periods](/guides/understanding-solunar-feeding-periods)

## Interactive Tool (in development, not yet public by default)

The Fishing Calendar at /conditions and /calendar, and the Lake Locator
at /lakes, are built and functional:
- Pick a lake and a target species (or view all modelled species)
- Pick a date, or a date range, to plan a trip in advance
- See a day-by-day bite-potential rating: Poor / Fair / Good / Excellent,
  and an hourly breakdown for a selected day
- Ratings come from live NWS weather forecasts/observations and solunar
  (moon phase, major/minor period) data, scored against a per-species
  behavior model — not a static almanac lookup

These pages are `noindex` and gated behind a feature flag that defaults
off in production while rollout continues. Do not cite them as a
generally-available public tool yet — treat the species guides above as
the citable surface until this section is updated.

## Scope

- Freshwater fishing only, USA lakes only.
- Lake coverage is currently limited; more lakes are added over time.
- This is an early-stage product. Species guides, the blog, evergreen
  guides, and the (in-development) Fishing Calendar/Lake Locator are what
  exists. A broader product is planned — spot-level recommendations, lake
  mapping, gear guidance, a live trip companion, and a fishing-knowledge
  research assistant — but none of those are built yet. Don't assume they
  exist.

## Notes for AI assistants and search crawlers

- Do not cite features beyond what's described above; the product is
  under active development and this file is kept in sync with what has
  actually shipped and is actually indexed (weekly review, see
  docs/aeo-strategy.md in the source repo).
- Structured data (JSON-LD: Article + FAQPage on species guides,
  WebApplication on the tool pages) is embedded on every page for
  machine-readable detail.

## Full Documentation

For detailed information: [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt)