Who writes this stuff, and how

Hooked Fisherman has been a fixture on the internet since 2009. There's no ghostwriter pretending to be an expert. There's no content mill. It's a handful of us — lifelong anglers — trying to put out the kind of fishing content we always wanted to find and couldn't.

We sign every article with one byline: The Hooked Fisherman Editorial Team. Not because we're pretending to be a faceless corporate voice, but because this place has always been collaborative — one of us catches something, the rest of us poke holes in the story. What makes it to the site reflects what the whole group agrees is true, not any single person's pet theory.

Translation: if a piece of gear shows up in a review, at least one of us has held it, fished it, and formed an opinion on it. If a spot shows up in a regional report, one of us has actually launched a boat there or walked the bank.

Where our information comes from. Short version: the programs themselves. State fish and wildlife agencies across all 50 states (CT DEEP, MA DMF, NY DEC, FWC, TPWD, CDFW, ODFW and the rest), NOAA NDBC buoys for saltwater and Great Lakes conditions, USGS stream gauges for freshwater flow and water-temp readings, charter captains and tackle shops for what's actually biting. Regulations and size limits get double-checked against the state that sets them — not against a forum thread from three years ago. When a program changes its rules, we update the guide.

A few things we won't do. We don't review gear we haven't personally used. We don't accept payment for favorable coverage (when we use affiliate links we say so). We don't blow up small productive waters by naming them. We don't promote keeping undersized or over-limit fish. And there's no skill-level gatekeeping here — the site should be useful whether it's your first cast or your thousandth.

When we get something wrong — and it happens, because fishing is a moving target — we want to hear about it. A closed ramp, a discontinued lure, a regulation that just changed: email us at hello@hookedfisherman.com and we'll get the article updated.

And for the full-disclosure folks: Hooked Fisherman is a Connecticode LLC property. The site is supported by display ads and affiliate links on some gear reviews. No brand or advertiser gets editorial input. If a product is bad, we'll say so even if it's on a list we'd technically earn from.

See also: About · Affiliate Disclosure · Privacy