We use analytics to understand which fishing guides and tools readers use. You do not need an account to use the site.
What we collect
- Google Analytics. Google Analytics 4 records page views, approximate location, device information, searches and clicks, including outbound gear links. We use these reports to see which guides and tools readers use.
- Our own analytics. We also record pages viewed in the same browser tab using a temporary tab identifier and page sequence. These records include the time, referring page, campaign labels from links, approximate country, region and city, and device type. Saved page paths and referrers exclude query strings and fragments. We also record clicks on links, buttons and forms: which action happened, on which page, and the link's destination, with no names, email addresses or other personal details. The records are stored with Cloudflare and used in Bold Coast Analytics, our reporting system.
- Location, only if you ask. When you press a location button, your browser asks permission. The homepage and Bar Harbor finder send the coordinates once to our same-origin location API to identify the nearest supported Maine place; the fishing map uses them in your browser to sort waters by distance. We do not store the coordinates.
- Email. We keep messages you send us so we can answer them. We no longer run a newsletter, so this site does not collect email addresses for one and sends nothing to a mail service.
Third parties
If you click a gear link, you land on a retailer's site (usually Amazon) and their privacy policy takes over. Affiliate programs set cookies on the retailer's side so the retailer knows the visit came from us; that is how commissions work.
Cookies and browser storage
We set no cookies of our own. Google Analytics may set its standard measurement cookies; common browser tools and extensions can block them without breaking the site. We use localStorage for small browser-only preferences: your chosen location (never precise coordinates) and an analytics opt-out. Our own pageview tracking uses sessionStorage to relate page views in the same tab; this browser storage normally clears when you close the tab. Your browser's "clear site data" control removes these local values, but does not delete records already saved in our analytics system.
Your analytics choice
You can turn off Google Analytics and our own pageview tracking in this browser, or turn them back on. The choice is saved in localStorage. Clearing this site's stored data removes the opt-out. If your browser blocks site storage, these links cannot turn analytics off.