How verification works

Summary

Every water carries one of four badges. They say how far we have got with it, and nothing else.

• Reported — somebody told us. Nobody here has checked it.
• Source on file — we hold a source. Nobody has read every detail against it yet.
• Checked by CanI.fish — a person here read every field against a source, on the date shown.
• Maintained by the club or fishery — they keep the page up to date themselves, and the badge carries their name.

Two things can be shown beside a badge rather than instead of it: that we hold conflicting information, and that nothing has been confirmed for over a year.

The blue count of anglers is separate from all of it, and is never added to it.

Reported

The honest default. Somebody told us, and nobody here has checked it.

It may be accurate. It may be something somebody misremembered. The badge stays until there is a source on the page.

Source on file

We hold something specific — a club’s own page, an official document, a photograph of a sign — and nobody here has read every field on this page against it yet.

Most waters on this site are at this stage. It is the step before a check, not a weaker kind of one.

Checked by CanI.fish

A person here read every published field against the source, and they matched, on the date shown. The page also says how it was checked: online, with the club or fishery, or in person.

It does not mean we visited. It does not mean it is still true today. It means that on that date somebody read it against something specific, and you can see what that was.

Maintained by the club or fishery

The club or fishery has an account here and keeps their own page up to date. The badge on the water names them, so it reads “Maintained by Linear Fisheries” rather than anything generic. The date is the last time they changed it.

Conflicting information

We have two sources that disagree and have not resolved it. This is shown beside the badge, not instead of it: a water can have been checked and still be disputed, and hiding the check would throw away work somebody did.

Over a year old

Nothing has been confirmed on the water for more than a year. The badge stays, because a check that was right a year ago is still a check, and the age is shown beside it so you can weigh it yourself.

Was this information accurate?

Every water’s page carries a thumbs up and a thumbs down.

Thumbs up means you went, and what you found matched what the page said. We keep a tally. It appears at the top of the water as a blue “Anglers confirmed” chip beside our own badge and again beside the thumbs themselves, as “3 anglers said this matched”.

Thumbs down asks you what was wrong.

It is counted once per water per person, using a one-way hash of your IP address. We never store the address itself.

It is a popularity signal, not evidence. Ten anglers can all be repeating the same out-of-date thing they read in the same place. A high count means the page is plausible to people who have been there. It does not mean it is true, and it does not mean it is still true. It is shown separately from our own check below, and the two are never added together.

Permission is never granted

No badge on this site is permission to fish anywhere. Always check local permissions before you fish. See the disclaimer.