Terms of service

Who can use CanI.fish

Reading this site is open to anybody, and you can report a mistake or add a water without an account.

An account is for over-18s only. When you create one you confirm that you are 18 or over and that you accept these terms, and we record which version of them you accepted and when. You can see that record, and download it, on your account. An account needs an email address we can verify, and nothing else.

We ask for 18+ because an account can upload photographs and record catches, and because prize draws are 18+. We do not host messaging, comments, forums or any way for people here to contact each other, every photograph is reviewed by a person before anybody can see it, and accounts are private unless their owner chooses otherwise.

You can delete your account at any time; your username is removed and your credits become “Anonymous”, while the contributions themselves stay on the site. That is set out in more detail in the privacy notice.

We may remove a username that is offensive or impersonates somebody. Removing a username does not remove the account.

Nothing here is permission to fish

Rod licences

If you are 13 or over you need an Environment Agency rod licence to fish with a rod and line for freshwater fish, salmon, trout, eels or smelt in England and Wales — even where the fishing itself is free. A licence for a 13 to 16-year-old is free but still required. Fishing without one is an offence, and you can be fined up to £2,500 if you cannot show one when you are asked.

It is separate from any ticket or club membership we list, and nothing on this site removes it. See the rod licence guide.

What we try to do

We record where fishing waters are, who is reported to control them, and what permission each is reported to need. We show the sources behind each claim and the date it was last checked. Always check local permissions before you fish.

Accuracy

We work at keeping entries accurate, but we cannot promise that any entry is accurate, current or complete. Some have never been checked by us and are marked Unchecked. Some are disputed.

The site is provided free, and as it is at the time you use it. We are not responsible for losses that follow from your decision to fish somewhere on the strength of this site — including being refused access, asked to leave, or prosecuted — because whether you may fish a place is something only the person who controls it can tell you.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else the law does not allow us to limit or exclude. Nothing here affects your rights as a consumer.

If you control a water

If we have your water wrong, open its page and suggest a change there, or use Report incorrect information. We read every report.

Contributing

Anyone can draw a water on the map or suggest a correction. Claims about permission, controlling bodies, boundaries, prices, ticket links and all free text are reviewed by a person before they appear. Do not submit anything abusive, defamatory, or copied from a source that does not permit it.

You keep any copyright you have in what you contribute.

By contributing you confirm the information is yours to share and accurate as far as you know, and you grant CanI.fish a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to use, publish, edit, adapt and sub-licence it, including as part of the database as a whole and including if that database is later transferred or sold. A shape you draw is your own approximation of where a water runs, contributed on the same terms.

In plain words: we can keep, edit and publish what you contributed even after you delete your account, and so can anybody we later transfer the site or the database to. That is how a shared record of where people may fish stays usable — an entry that could be withdrawn is an entry nobody can rely on.

Photographs are different. We will remove a photograph you uploaded if you ask us to.

Personal information in a contribution is handled under the privacy notice, not under this licence.

Map data

Map imagery is © OpenStreetMap contributors and its tile provider. Where a water’s shape is derived from OpenStreetMap, its page says so; that geometry is available under the Open Database Licence.

Changes and contact

For anything not covered by Report incorrect information, email contact@cani.fish.

If you think something on this site is unlawful or defamatory, email contact@cani.fish with Content complaint in the subject. We will take it down while we look at it.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you can also bring proceedings in your local courts, and nothing here removes any protection your local law gives you as a consumer.

We may update these terms. If a change is significant we will email account holders 14 days before it takes effect; if you do not agree with it you can delete your account.

Version 2026-09-04 — the version your account records having accepted. Last edited 4 October 2026.

What you give us permission to do

When you send us a photograph, a correction, a new water or a catch report, you keep the copyright in it. The licence you grant us over it is the one set out under “Contributing” above.

For a photograph you also confirm, at the moment you upload it, that you took it or have the photographer’s permission, and that it shows no identifiable person who has not agreed to appear. We record which wording you agreed to and when.

Do not upload a photograph in which a child can be identified.

Every photograph is reviewed by a person before it appears. Anybody can report one, and we will take it down while we look.

Using this site properly

Do not send us anything you know to be wrong.

Do not upload anything that is not yours. Do not use another club’s name. Do not use the contribution forms to advertise.

We may suspend or delete an account that breaks these rules, without warning where the breach is serious — offensive or abusive material, images that are not the sender’s to share, or information that is knowingly false or persistently inaccurate. For anything less serious we will email you first.

If we ever close an account for some other reason we will give you 30 days’ notice, so that you can download your data.

We may remove anything that breaks the rules above.

Keeping the site safe

People can put photographs and written contributions on this site, and other people can see them, so we have thought about what that means.

Every photograph is looked at by a person before anybody else can see it. So is every claim about permission, every controlling body, every boundary, every price and every piece of free text. Nothing a contributor writes appears unread.

There is no messaging, no comments and no forum, so there is no way for anybody here to contact anybody else.

If you find something you think is illegal — or anything else that should not be here — use Report incorrect information, or email contact@cani.fish. We read every report, and we take down anything illegal as soon as we know about it.

Prize draws

There may be prize draws for people who contribute. Entries are earned from contributions that have been accepted after review — never from the act of sending something, and never from catch reports.

The full terms will be published here before the first draw runs, and will set out who may enter, when it closes, how a winner is chosen and told, and what the prize is. Until they are, no draw has been run and nothing on this page is an offer.