Your ultimate guide to trout streams

CLASSIFIED TROUT STREAMS using StreamScore™

TroutRoutes provides a visual mapping experience to help you find the best streams. We have classified every designated trout stream into three classes:

Class 1 (Green): Top-rated trout streams with plenty of public access

Class 2 (Light Blue): Good trout streams with decent public access

Class 3 (Blue): Typically smaller creeks with mediocre or unknown quality ratings

Every stream is assigned a class based on an overall score called StreamScore™. This score comes from an algorithm that takes into consideration up to 10 different criteria, including habitat quality, number of access points, percent of the stream that is publicly accessible via public land or easement, among a few others. TroutRoutes has spent substantial time, including manually reviewing and editing all scores and classes where appropriate, making sure the StreamScore and classification are correct and accurate to help you quickly find the best waters.

Public land & publicly accessible strems

TroutRoutes has integrated a comprehensive layer of public land and stream easements to help you find public and legal waters. Consistent with DNR maps, TroutRoutes shows any stream section that is publicly accessible (either on public land or on a stream easement) with a thick grey highlight line on the stream, as shown to the right. The public land layer will be in green. Combined, TroutRoutes shows you both public land and all publicly available waters for trout streams.

Detailed Stream access

TroutRoutes has an advanced system of associating roads and trails with every stream. When you click a stream of interest (or search), you instantly see every road and trail within walking distance to the stream, highlighted to make your life easy.

Roads that are associated with the stream will be highlighted in yellow. Road access points (typically bridges) will be dots:

• Public Road access is a Green dot
• Private Road access is a Blue dot.

Trails that are associated with the stream will be purple dashed line. Trail access, typically a walk bridge, will be in purple dots.

Trails, trails, trails

Some of the best places to fly fish are those unknown and difficult to get to places on great streams. With TroutRoutes, this gets a lot easier. I’ve discovered tons of new trails and stream access points on the North Shore of MN that I had never heard of.

– Early Beta user, 2019

TroutRoutes has an extensive and proprietary database of trails for every supported state. We have aggregated many trail databases from many sources to provide the most comprehensive list possible. We use this database to associate every trail with a nearby stream. When you tap on a stream, you will see every trail that is within walking distance of that stream (see example to the right of Poplar River of Minnesota).

Some trails go for miles right alongside a stream, and some cross the stream once with a bridge (eg. Superior Hiking Trail). Some trails are designated hiking trails, and some are snowmobile trails, and some are biking trails, and some are train tracks you can walk on to get to your stream.

Satellite View

Want to know more about a stream or trail? Switch to Satellite View! The example to the right shows a trail (snowmobile) crossing in the map view of West Indian Creek in SE Minnesota. Switching to Satellite View, you can see and confirm a small bridge at that location (great fly fishing spot by the way).

Explore your stream today with TroutRoutes!

TroutRoutes would not be possible without the use both proprietary and publicly-available geospatial datasets. Below is a summary of some of the key sources of data that makes TroutRoutes possible. This list will be updated as more states become available.

TroutSpotr:

TroutSpotr is a website developed by Stu Anderson out of Minnesota. TroutSpotr’s mission is to provide anglers a tool to make safe and legal decisions when exploring trout streams in the United States. TroutSpotr has two parts, both of which are publicly available under specific open-source licenses; the website (front end) and the database (back end). The backend database of TroutSpotr is covered under a slightly modified version of the MIT license at the Github site below.

https://github.com/troutspotr/troutspotr-db

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources:

Minnesota DNR has a wide range of public datasets available for download, ranging from county forests to MN trout streams. These datasets are all available on the MN GIS repository at the link below.

https://gisdata.mn.gov/

OpenStreetMaps:

OpenStreetMaps is a collaborative open-source mapping project with the primary objective of creating a publicly available comprehensive global map database. You can download specific query datasets via many methods. The map homepage is at the link below.

www.openstreetmap.org

Terms of Use

Last Updated March 2, 2019

Thank you for using TroutRoutes!

Welcome to the Terms of Use for the Trout Routes mobile application and website. This is an agreement (“Agreement”) between Trout Insights, LLC (“developer”) and you (“you” or “your” or “user(s)”), a user of the Site, App and/or Service.

Throughout this document, the words “Trout Insights,” “TroutRoutes,” “we,” and “our,” refer to our company, Trout Insights LLC, Inc and our website, TroutInsights.com, the TroutRoutes application (“App”) or our Service, TroutRoutes, as is appropriate in the context of the use of the words. Your ability to submit or transmit any information through our Site or Service will be referred to as “Content” throughout this Agreement.

By agreeing to use our App or our Site you agree to these Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy. We may amend our Terms of Use or Privacy Policy as necessary and will generate a notification regarding same as applicable.

If you do not agree to the Terms of Use or the Privacy Policy please cease using our App, Site and Service immediately.

DESCRIPTION OF SERVICE

TroutRoutes is a software application intended to help anglers find great trout streams and find new ways to explore and access them. TroutRoutes provides detailed information on each stream, including a classification and overall score, road and trail access, and even public/private land! Additionally, in the future, we may offer a large database of points of interest (Fly Fishing shops, Stream Gages, etc.) for the purpose of assisting in planning fly fishing trips.

DISCLAIMER AND INFORMATION ACCURACY

Our Service and App are intended to be used for planning purposes and are not to be relied upon for specific location accuracy services. Although we strive to provide the most accurate maps including location and point of interest information, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of all locations and points of interest. In some instances we may use third party data providers with data believed to be generally accurate although such data has not been specifically confirmed or verified.

Our Service or App is not intended to replace safety measures and appropriate planning. By utilizing this Service or App you understand that it does not purport to present real time accurate data and information. Indeed, any alerts are merely presentations of data from our Service, and therefore may not reflect actual circumstances. Predicted distance, arrival times, routes, and points of interests are all estimates. We make no guarantees as to time of arrival, destinations, or locations found on our App or Service.

PUBLIC & PRIVATE LAND

With regards to public land, we strive to provide you with the most up to date and comprehensive list of public land in and around the trout streams in the TroutRoutes application. To accomplish this, we rely on several 3rd party data providers, including OpenStreetMaps, state and county agencies, TroutSpotr, and other sources. However, WE CANNOT GUARANTEE ACCURACY OF THE DATA PROVIDED WITHIN TROUTROUTES, AND THUS IT IS ULTIMATELY YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to obey private property laws and ensure that land is indeed public, regardless of what TroutRoutes indicates. By using this application, you agree that Trout Insights, LLC is not liable in any way for any legal issues or consequences related to trespassing and/or your usage of private land. This applies to both public land indications (green polygons) as well as access points, from trails and roads, which are indicated by color-coded points in the map.

MODIFICATION OF APP

We reserve the right to alter, update, or remove our App from your system at any time, or request that you remove our App for any violation of the within agreement. We reserve the right to conduct modifications to our App for security, intellectual property or other legal reasons, as well as various other reasons at our discretion without notification. For example, we may provide updates to fix security flaws, or respond to legal demands. This will confirm that this is a non-binding section that neither obligates nor requires us to update the App.

OUR LICENSE GRANT TO YOU

We make this App available for download on our Site as well as third party stores dedicated to the promotion and sale of apps. When you download our App, you are given the right to download one copy of the App at the price listed, if applicable.

We grant you a non-commercial personal, non-exclusive, revocable, limited license to use our Site and download our App. You acknowledge that we maintain all right, title, and interest in our App. This agreement prohibits you from selling our App, sharing your license to use our App, reverse engineer or otherwise attempt to copy our App without our express written permission. Even if we offer our App for free, you agree to abide by these provisions, and agree not to copy or otherwise use our App in a manner prohibited by this section. When you purchase and download our App, you obtain no ownership rights. By downloading, you are buying (or, in the case of a free download, being given) a license to install and use the App within the confines of this Agreement.

We reserve the right and retain sole discretion to terminate this license upon violation of any provisions listed in this Agreement, any policies listed within the third party application store where you downloaded our App, or our Privacy Policy. In order to terminate this license you may simply return, delete, or destroy any and all copies of the Trout Routes App and any associated materials.

USE OF TROUTROUTES

Once you obtain and use our Service, you are solely responsible for the use of Trout Routes made using your device. By using our Service, you agree to personal non-commercial use of Trout Routes. You also agree not to access, copy, or otherwise use Trout Routes, including our intellectual property and trademarks, except as authorized by these Terms of Use or as otherwise authorized in writing by Trout Routes.

By using our Site, App, or Service you are agreeing to the following terms and conditions:

• You will not copy, distribute or disclose any part of the Site or the Service in any medium, including without limitation by any automated or non-automated “scraping”;
• You will not use any automated system, including without limitation “robots,” “spiders,” “offline readers,” etc., to access the Site or the Service in a manner that sends more request messages to Trout Routes servers than a human can reasonably produce in the same period of time by using a conventional on-line web browser (except that Trout Routes grants the operators of public search engines revocable permission to use spiders to copy materials from the publicly available searchable indices of the materials, not caches or archives of such materials);
• You will not attempt to interfere with, compromise the system integrity or security, or decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running the Site, App, or Service;
• You will not take any action that imposes, or may impose at our sole discretion, an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;
• You will not upload invalid data, viruses, worms or other software agents through the Service or App;
• You will not collect or harvest any personally identifiable information, including account names, from the Service or App;
• You will not use the Site, App, or the Service for any commercial solicitation purposes;
• You will not access the Site or Service through any technology or means other than those provided or authorized by the Service or App;
• You agree to use our App only in a safe manner and in compliance with all traffic laws;
• You agree that you will not hold Trout Routes responsible for your use of our Site or App;
• You agree not to violate any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to Trout Routes;
• You agree not to interfere with or disrupt the Site, App, or Service;
• You agree not to hack, spam or phish us or other users;
• You agree not to cause, or aid in, the destruction, manipulation, removal, disabling, or impairment of any portion of our Site, including the de-indexing or de-caching of any portion of our Site from a thirty party’s website, such as by requesting its removal from a search engine;

If you are discovered to be undertaking any of the aforementioned actions your privileges to use our Service may at our discretion be terminated or suspended. Trout Routes reserves the right to suspend or terminate any account at any time without notice or explanation although in general we will provide notification regarding an account suspension or termination.

APPS AND SITE AVAILABILITY

We do not guarantee that the Apps or Site will always be available, work, or be accessible at any particular time via any app store or marketplace. Only users who are eligible to use our App may do so. We reserve the right to terminate access for anyone. We cannot guarantee that the App will work as advertised, or that it will give you the desired results.

COMPLIANCE WITH ALL LAWS AND REGULATIONS

Trout Routes is not responsible for your violation of any laws while using our Site and Service. Users must comply with all local, state, or federal laws regarding your use of our Site and Service. You agree to hold harmless Trout Routes and its affiliates from any and all liability, damage, cost or expense as a result of an unlawful use of our Service. Our App and Service is void where prohibited.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

The design of the Trout Routes Service along with Trout Routes created text, templates, scripts, graphics, interactive features and the trademarks, service marks and logos contained therein (“Marks”), are owned by or licensed to Trout Routes, subject to copyright and other intellectual property rights under United States and foreign laws and international conventions. Trout Routes reserves all rights not expressly granted in and to the Service and the Site. You agree to not engage in the use, copying, or distribution anything contained within the Site or Service unless we have given express written permission. Map design and imagery subject to the MapBox Terms of Service

PAYMENTS AND REFUNDS FOR OUR APP

The Trout Routes App may either be downloaded, for free or for a fee, through a third party applications marketplace. Any refunds must be processed through the third party applications marketplace. Trout Routes is not responsible for the exchange of funds that does not flow through the Site or App directly.

REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES

OUR SITE OR SERVICE ARE OFFERED “AS-IS”, INCLUDING ANY ERRORS, BUGS OR OTHER TECHNICAL ISSUES. YOU AGREE THAT WHILE USING OUR APP OR SERVICE, YOUR RESULTS MAY VARY AND YOU MAY NOT ACHIEVE ANY DESIRED RESULTS. WE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. OUR SITE, APP, OR SERVICE MAY NOT BE FIT FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND MAY NOT WORK OR BE APPLICABLE WHERE YOU RESIDE. WE MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE REASONABLE SKILL AND CARE INVESTED IN OUR SERVICE, SATISFACTORY QUALITY OF OUR SERVICE, MERCHANTABILITY OF OUR SERVICE OR THAT OUR SERVICE IS NON-INFRINGING. FURTHERMORE, WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE SITE OR SERVICE WILL MEET ANY REQUIREMENTS OR NEEDS YOU MAY HAVE, THAT THE SITE OR SERVICE WILL OPERATE ERROR FREE OR IN AN UNINTERRUPTED FASHION, THAT ANY DEFECTS OR ERRORS IN THE SITE OR SERVICE WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT THE SITE OR SERVICE IS COMPATIBLE WITH ANY PARTICULAR PLATFORM. TROUT INSIGHTS, LLC IS NOT OBLIGATED TO PROVIDE YOU ACCESS TO OUR SITE AND SERVICE. IN THE EVENT OF ANY PROBLEM WITH THE SITE OR SERVICE, YOU AGREE THAT YOUR SOLE REMEDY IS TO CEASE USING THE SITE OR SERVICE. IN THE EVENT OF ANY PROBLEM WITH ANY PRODUCTS PURCHASED THROUGH OUR SITE AND SERVICE, YOU AGREE THAT YOUR SOLE REMEDY, IF ANY, IS THROUGH THIS AGREEMENT.

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

IN NO EVENT SHALL TROUT INSIGHTS, LLC, ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, OR AGENTS, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM (I) YOUR USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE, APP, WEBSITE OR OUR SERVICES ERRORS, MISTAKES, OR INACCURACIES OF CONTENT, (II) ANY PERSONAL INJURY OR PROPERTY DAMAGE, OF ANY NATURE WHATSOEVER, RESULTING FROM YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF OUR SITE OR SERVICE, (III) ANY INTERRUPTION,MISINFORMATION, INCOMPLETE INFORMATION, OR CESSATION OF TRANSMISSION TO OR FROM OUR SOFTWARE TO YOU, (IV) ANY BUGS, VIRUSES, TROJAN HORSES, OR THE LIKE, WHICH MAY BE TRANSMITTED TO OR THROUGH OUR SITE BY ANY THIRD PARTY, (V) ANY FAILURE OF ANY THIRD PARTY INFORMATION LISTED ON OUR SITE AND SERVICE, INCLUDING ANY FAILURES OR DISRUPTIONS WHETHER INTENTIONAL OR UNINTENTIONAL OR (VI) ANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS IN OUR SITE OR SERVICE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND INCURRED AS A RESULT OF YOUR USE OF OUR SITE OR SERVICE, WHETHER BASED ON WARRANTY, CONTRACT, TORT, OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY, AND WHETHER OR NOT THE COMPANY IS ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. THE FOREGOING LIMITATION OF LIABILITY SHALL APPLY TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW IN THE APPLICABLE JURISDICTION

For Jurisdictions that do not allow us to limit our liability: Notwithstanding any provision of these Terms, if your jurisdiction has provisions specific to waiver or liability that conflict with the above then our liability is limited to the smallest extent possible by law. Specifically, in those jurisdictions not allowed, we do not disclaim liability for: (a) death or personal injury caused by its negligence or that of any of its officers, employees or agents; or (b) fraudulent misrepresentation; or (c) any liability which it is not lawful to exclude either now or in the future.

IF YOU ARE A RESIDENT OF A JURISDICTION THAT REQUIRES A SPECIFIC STATEMENT REGARDING RELEASE THEN THE FOLLOWING APPLIES. FOR EXAMPLE, CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS MUST, AS A CONDITION OF THIS AGREEMENT, WAIVE THE APPLICABILITY OF CALIFORNIA CIVIL CODE SECTION 1542, WHICH STATES, “A GENERAL RELEASE DOES NOT EXTEND TO CLAIMS WHICH THE CREDITOR DOES NOT KNOW OR SUSPECT TO EXIST IN HIS OR HER FAVOR AT THE TIME OF EXECUTING THE RELEASE, WHICH IF KNOWN BY HIM OR HER MUST HAVE MATERIALLY AFFECTED HIS OR HER SETTLEMENT WITH THE DEBTOR.” YOU HEREBY WAIVE THIS SECTION OF THE CALIFORNIA CIVIL CODE. YOU HEREBY WAIVE ANY SIMILAR PROVISION IN LAW, REGULATION, OR CODE THAT HAS THE SAME INTENT OR EFFECT AS THE AFOREMENTIONED RELEASE. YOUR ABILITY TO USE OUR SOFTWARE IS CONTINGENT ON YOUR AGREEMENT WITH THIS AND ALL OTHER SECTIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT. YOU AGREE OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU IS NOT MORE THAN $100 U.S. DOLLARS OR THE TOTAL AMOUNT YOU SPENT WHILE USING OUR SITE, APP, AND SERVICE WITHIN THE LAST SIX MONTHS, WHICHEVER IS GREATER.

INDEMNITY

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Trout Insights, LLC its officers, directors, employees and agents, from and against any and all claims, damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses (including but not limited to attorney’s fees) arising from:

• your use of and access to the Trout Insights Site and Service;
• your violation of any term of these Terms of Use;
• your violation of any third party right, including without limitation any copyright, property, or privacy right; or
• any claim that any of your Content caused damage to a third party.

This defense and indemnification obligation will survive this Agreement and your use of the Trout Insights Service. You also agree that you have a duty to defend us against such claims and we may require you to pay for an attorney(s) of our choice in such cases. You agree that this indemnity extends to requiring you to pay for our reasonable attorneys’ fees, court costs, and disbursements. In the event of a claim such as one described in this paragraph, we may elect to settle with the party/parties making the claim and you shall be liable for the damages as though we had proceeded with a trial.

 

TroutRoutes would not be possible without the use both proprietary and publicly-available geospatial datasets. Below is a summary of some of the key sources of data that makes TroutRoutes possible. This list will be updated as more states become available.

TroutSpotr:

TroutSpotr is a website developed by Stu Anderson out of Minnesota. TroutSpotr’s mission is to provide anglers a tool to make safe and legal decisions when exploring trout streams in the United States. TroutSpotr has two parts, both of which are publicly available under specific open-source licenses; the website (front end) and the database (back end). The backend database of TroutSpotr is covered under a slightly modified version of the MIT license at the Github site below.

https://github.com/troutspotr/troutspotr-db

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources:

Minnesota DNR has a wide range of public datasets available for download, ranging from county forests to MN trout streams. These datasets are all available on the MN GIS repository at the link below.

https://gisdata.mn.gov/

OpenStreetMaps:

OpenStreetMaps is a collaborative open-source mapping project with the primary objective of creating a publicly available comprehensive global map database. You can download specific query datasets via many methods. The map homepage is at the link below.

www.openstreetmap.org