# Tides & Tails > Tides & Tails is a saltwater fishing data hub for the US Gulf, Atlantic and California coasts. It publishes structured records for every fishery it covers — the waters themselves, the species that live in them, state-by-state regulations, verified charter boats and bait & tackle shops, a lure and bait database and live conditions — as HTML pages with schema.org markup, as JSON feeds and through an assistant plug-in. Free to read and cite with attribution. ## About Tides & Tails covers inshore saltwater species — red drum (redfish), spotted seatrout (speckled trout), common snook and tarpon among them — with habitat, water-temperature and seasonal-bait guidance, a lure and bait database, state-by-state regulations, verified charter and bait-shop listings, and safety and navigation references written for use on a boat. Independent, free to read, and built on public NOAA, USGS and state-agency data rather than folklore. How the conditions are scored: the bite outlook is derived from measured inputs, not solunar tables. It weighs tidal current speed (the first derivative of the tide curve, which is when moving water concentrates bait), water temperature against each species' documented tolerance and lethal thresholds, dissolved oxygen, salinity, light level and season. Disqualifying conditions cap the score regardless of everything else — for example water below 10 °C (50 °F) is lethal to snook, and below 7 °C (45 °F) causes seatrout cold-kill events. Solunar major/minor feeding periods and barometric-pressure folklore are deliberately excluded because the evidence for them is weak. Data sources: NOAA CO-OPS tide and water-temperature stations (one real station per coastal fishery; the inland lakes have no tide station), NOAA National Weather Service forecasts and marine alerts, USGS water-quality gauges for salinity and dissolved oxygen, and state wildlife agencies for bag and size limits. - [For AI & data](https://www.tidesandtails.net/ai): Plain-English guide for agents and data users: what the data is, how to query it, how fresh it is, the rules. - [Feed index](https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/index.json): Directory of every JSON feed with the record types they carry. Prefer the feeds over scraping HTML. ## Where the data lives Each record type is published three ways: an HTML page with schema.org markup, a JSON feed, and (for the directory and waters) the assistant plug-in below. - [Waters / fisheries](https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/locations.json): One record per covered fishery: coordinates, NOAA tide station, target species by season, nearby towns and seasonal guidance. HTML at https://www.tidesandtails.net/locations/ · JSON feed https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/locations.json · schema.org Place (BodyOfWater) · 38 records. - [Species](https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/species.json): One record per species: habitat, water-temperature tolerances, light preferences and season-by-season bait and lure guidance. HTML at https://www.tidesandtails.net/species/ · JSON feed https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/species.json · schema.org Taxon · 26 records. - [Regulations by state](https://www.tidesandtails.net/regulations): Bag and size limits per state, verified against the official agency, with license rules and the date each entry was checked. HTML at https://www.tidesandtails.net/regulations# · HTML only (no feed yet) · schema.org Dataset (per state) · 5 records. - [Charters](https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/charters.json): Verified charter boats and guides grouped by home water: phone, website, marina, trip type and, where published, packages, rates and trust badges. HTML at https://www.tidesandtails.net/charters/ · JSON feed https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/charters.json · schema.org LocalBusiness · 124 records. - [Bait & tackle shops](https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/bait-shops.json): Verified local bait and tackle shops, shown alongside the charters for their home water: phone, address and website. HTML at https://www.tidesandtails.net/charters/ (shown alongside the charters) · JSON feed https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/bait-shops.json · schema.org LocalBusiness · 100 records. - [Lures & bait](https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/lures.json): The lure and bait database tagged by species, season, region, water clarity and light, with color and technique notes. HTML at https://www.tidesandtails.net/lures · JSON feed https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/lures.json · 56 records. - [Articles](https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/articles.json): Full-text editorial guides on boats, gear and tactics. HTML at https://www.tidesandtails.net/articles/ · JSON feed https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/articles.json · schema.org Article · 4 records. ## Search & near me - [Directory search](https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/search.json): Queryable search over charters and bait & tackle shops. Parameters: type, water, town, coast, species, trip, badge, maxPrice, q, page, limit, lat, lon, radius. type=charters|bait-shops|all, coast=gulf|atlantic|pacific, trip=inshore|offshore, badge=verified|featured|responds-fast (repeatable), maxPrice in USD, q free text, page from 1, limit max 50. Flat, paginated results with a link to each listing; demo profiles never included. - Near me: lat, lon and radius (miles, default 75, max 300) turn any search into a “near me” search: results are sorted by distance when lat/lon are given, and meta.nearestWaters lists the closest covered waters. - [Near-me pages](https://www.tidesandtails.net/near-me/charters): Charters, bait shops, fishing spots and tide & bite conditions near the visitor, each with a static version per state. Pages: https://www.tidesandtails.net/near-me/charters, https://www.tidesandtails.net/near-me/bait-shops, https://www.tidesandtails.net/near-me/spots, https://www.tidesandtails.net/near-me/conditions; static per-state versions at https://www.tidesandtails.net/near-me// for texas, louisiana, mississippi, alabama, florida, georgia, south-carolina, north-carolina, maryland, california. ## Assistant plug-in (MCP) - [MCP endpoint](https://www.tidesandtails.net/api/mcp): Add as a custom connector / MCP server in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor. Tools: search_charters, search_bait_shops, get_water — the same data and rules as the search endpoint. ## Rules for agents - Credit “Tides & Tails” and link the listing's url field whenever you show a business from the directory. - Do not republish the phone numbers as a standalone directory — send people to the listing, where the owner keeps it current. - Conditions data (tides, water temperature, wind, bite outlook) is for planning a fishing day, not for navigation — see https://www.tidesandtails.net/terms. - Regulations are summarised from official agency publications and can change mid-season; the state agency is always the authority. - Sample/demo profiles never appear in a feed or search result; every listing is a real, verified business. - Privacy: https://www.tidesandtails.net/privacy. Member tools (spot book, catch log, trips, crew) need an account and are excluded from indexing. - Conditions readings are live and change through the day; treat any quoted temperature, tide or score as valid only at the time it was fetched. ## Optional - [llms-full.txt](https://www.tidesandtails.net/llms-full.txt): The whole catalog in one plain-text document: every water, species, state regulation, charter and bait shop. - [Sitemap index](https://www.tidesandtails.net/sitemap.xml): XML sitemap index with one map per record type (waters, species, directory, content, feeds, near-me). - [OpenAPI](https://www.tidesandtails.net/feed/openapi.json): OpenAPI 3.1 description of the search endpoint and every feed. - [Site map](https://www.tidesandtails.net/site-map): Every human-facing page, grouped. - [Field Guide](https://www.tidesandtails.net/manual): Task-by-task usage guide for the site's features.