Bitterroot River (public FAS corridor — Lolo to Stevensville approaches)

Defines riffle, run, pool and glide by what causes them — substrate size, gradient, position on a meander — rather than by how they look, and shows how the sequence repeats down a reach. It gives you the vocabulary before you start deciding where to fish.

Explains stage, discharge and the stage-discharge relation. Read this before treating a gauge number as if stage and flow were interchangeable.

What the gauges actually record — stage every fifteen minutes, converted to discharge through a rating curve built for that one site — and why some sites will never show you a flow number at all. This is what makes a gauge page legible rather than a squiggly line.

The short version of gage height against discharge, and of gage datum — the per-site reference point that means 4.2 feet at one gauge has no relationship to 4.2 feet at another. Read it before you compare two gauges or treat a stage number as a depth.

Why water temperature drives dissolved oxygen, and how a lake separates into layers through the season, with temperature-depth profiles from a real lake across May to October. The general-principles piece behind every seasonal temperature question in this app.

A working example of what a Corps district publishes: pool and tailwater elevations, storage, hourly project data and proposed generation schedules. Use it as the template for finding the equivalent page for whichever district operates your reservoir — every district runs one.

Daily reservoir and river operations across the five Reclamation regions, including the hydromet systems and the RISE portal. Reclamation rather than the Corps operates most western reservoirs, so this is where those levels and releases live.

The three stages of cold water immersion, and the part most anglers have wrong: cold shock can be triggered by water as warm as 77°F, so a mild air temperature tells you nothing. Read it before spring wading and before any early-season boat or shore trip.

EPA's hub, including the route to current state, tribal and local advisories. Advisories are issued locally rather than federally, so this is how you find out whether one specific water is under one right now.

What a bloom looks like in the water — foam, scum, a spilled-paint surface — and the exposure routes for people and for dogs. The practical rule is to stay out of discoloured or foul-smelling water and check the local advisory first.

Clean, drain, dry as an actual procedure rather than a slogan: rinse the hull and gear, flush the motor, drain bilge and livewell before you leave the access, dry five days or towel down, bin unused bait. Written to be done every water, every time.

A good model of how a state regulations system is built: an annual pamphlet of statewide rules, water-specific exceptions that override them, and an emergency rule feed that supersedes the printed pamphlet mid-season. That three-part shape is near-universal, so it teaches you what to go looking for in your own state.

A state identification index covering the 162 species in Minnesota waters, with a downloadable poster and a fish-families guide. Most agencies publish an equivalent, and the agency version is the one whose names match the regulations booklet.

Twelve short lessons on current, cover, pool tails, big rivers, pocket water, floods and droughts. The examples are trout-heavy; the current-reading mechanics travel farther than that.

Why it made the list: Re-verified 2026-09-08: page loads, all twelve segments present. Established instructional series with the whole chapter in one place.

A compact worked example of depth, overhead cover and food supply in an ordinary straight reach. Useful after the schematic because it shows the same questions on real water.

Why it made the list: 6,801 views and 142 likes observed 2026-09-08; The Orvis Company channel, 112K subscribers, published 2020.