Terms of Use

1. Agreement, acceptance and changes

1.1. These Terms are an agreement between you and CastScience, the service at castscience.net, contact [email protected] ("CastScience", "we", "us"). CastScience is run by its owner; a company that takes over the service takes over these Terms (section 19.5). "You" means the person using CastScience.

1.2. You accept these Terms by ticking the box and choosing "Accept and continue". The lake choice, Setup and the planning screens (plan, PDF report, forecast, water conditions, calendar, catch log, forum) open only after that.

1.3. Some pages can be read without ticking the box: the areas and area pages, the regulations, the science pages, the data page, the Legal page and these Terms. Using them is also subject to these Terms.

1.4. When you accept, your device keeps a record: the version of these Terms, a fingerprint of the statement you ticked, the time, and that you confirmed you are 18 or older. If you are signed in, the same record is also kept with your account.

1.5. These Terms include the wave height disclaimer of each lake, on the Legal page, and the community rules in section 11. The privacy policy explains how personal information is handled.

1.6. We may change these Terms. A change to the statement at the top, or to sections 3 to 9 or 18, is a material change: you will be asked to tick the box again before you use the planning screens. Other changes are listed with their date in section 21. If you do not accept a new version, stop using the planning screens and cancel any paid plan; until the plan ends, the version you accepted applies to it. You can still read the public pages, download your data and delete your account.

2. Who may use CastScience

2.1. You must be 18 or older to use CastScience.

2.2. You may not use CastScience for or on behalf of a person under 18. A parent or another adult may plan a trip that a young person joins. The adult accepts these Terms for themselves only, and is responsible for the trip.

2.3. If you are under 18, do not tick the box. The app shows a short message and stores nothing about you.

2.4. Accounts are for people 18 and older. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we delete it with its data.

2.5. Fishing guides and charter captains may use CastScience to plan trips for clients. Their clients have not accepted these Terms. If you use CastScience for paying clients: you alone decide whether to go out; you tell your clients that CastScience gives estimates, not a safety judgment; you carry your own insurance for your business; and your indemnity in section 7 covers claims by your clients and passengers.

3. The service

3.1. What it is. CastScience is a planning tool for smallmouth bass fishing on Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie. It shows lake conditions, forecasts and wave estimates. On a lake with ranked plans it also ranks fishing areas and suggests depths, lures and times, from lake temperature, wind forecasts, wave estimates, tournament and guide records, and your boat, limits, licences and tackle.

3.2. Some features need an account, and some may need a paid plan (section 9). The app shows which features each plan includes.

3.3. Estimates, not measurements. Wave heights, over-water wind, water temperature projections, area scores, the schedule and confidence labels are calculations from models and data. They have errors. The measured accuracy of the wave estimates is in each lake's wave height disclaimer on the Legal page. Values labeled "Starting value" or "Working rule" on the science pages are not measurements.

3.4. Third-party data. Much of the data comes from others: NOAA (the National Weather Service, the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, the National Data Buoy Center, the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services, the Office of Coast Survey and nowCOAST), Environment and Climate Change Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework, OpenStreetMap contributors, the U.S. Geological Survey, Natural Resources Canada, and state, provincial and tribal agencies. This data can be late, missing or wrong, and a feed can stop. Buoys are taken out of the water in winter. The app shows the age of each data source; old data lowers a plan's confidence. We do not control these sources.

3.5. Maps. Not for navigation. Use official charts and your chartplotter. Depth lines, area outlines and launch positions are approximate. The U.S.-Canada line on the maps is approximate and not for legal use. NOAA's chart layer does not cover most Canadian water. Lightning maps are 12 minutes old or more when they appear, and radar images can be several minutes old; neither is a warning. Head for shore at the first thunder.

3.6. The crossing rule and your limits. A plan leaves out an area whose route crosses open water unless, for the hours of the trip, the forecast wind over the water is under your crossing wind limit (default 15 mph), the route's estimated wave height is within your wave limit (default set by your boat), and no small craft advisory is in effect. On Lake Erie, some Environment and Climate Change Canada warnings and National Weather Service dense fog advisories also stop crossings. In Setup you can set the limits stricter or looser, within 0.5 to 6.0 ft and 5 to 30 mph, and "Override all limits" shows areas that break a limit, in red. The limits are planning filters, not safety ratings. A route within your limits can still be unsafe. Loosening a limit or using the override is your choice and your responsibility.

3.7. Availability. CastScience may be slow, unavailable, changed or stopped at any time. The installed app may show older copies of data when offline; check their age. Section 9.8 says what happens to a paid plan if a paid feature is removed or the service stops.

3.8. Not professional advice. CastScience is not a weather service, a navigation service, a marine safety service, or legal advice about regulations.

4. No warranty

CastScience is provided as is and as available. To the extent the law allows, we make no promise or warranty, express or implied, that CastScience or its information is accurate, complete, current, available or free of errors, or that it is fit for any purpose. This includes the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. You use it at your own risk.

Some places do not allow these warranties to be excluded, or give consumers who pay for a service a right to a service of reasonably acceptable quality. Where such a law applies to you, you keep that right, and the exclusion above applies only as far as that law allows.

5. Your responsibility and the risks you accept

5.1. Boating and fishing on the Great Lakes and connected waters are risky. The risks include sudden wind and waves, fronts and storms, lightning, fog, cold water, current, shallow reefs and rocks, shipping and other boats, ice and equipment failure. They can cause injury, death and damage to property. Conditions can change within an hour.

5.2. The decision to go out, where to go and when to come back is the boat operator's. CastScience provides estimates to help plan, not a judgment that conditions are safe.

5.3. Before and during every trip:

• read the current marine forecast for your area (National Weather Service, or Environment and Climate Change Canada in Canadian water) and check for a small craft advisory and other warnings;
• check recent buoy or shore observations where they exist;
• look at the water at the launch, and keep watching it;
• know your boat, its load and your experience.

5.4. You are responsible for your boat, its condition and load, the safety equipment the law requires, your operator card, licences and permits, border reporting, following fishing and boating rules, and the safety of your passengers.

5.5. You accept the risks of boating and fishing, including risks that come from relying on CastScience's estimates.

6. Release of liability

6.1. To the extent the law allows, you release CastScience, its owners and the people who work on it, including volunteer moderators (together, the "CastScience parties"), from all claims, demands and liability for any injury, death, property damage or other loss arising from your use of CastScience or its information. This includes claims that a CastScience party was negligent.

6.2. This release does not cover gross negligence, or willful, wanton or reckless misconduct. It does not cover any claim that the law where you live does not allow you to give up.

6.3. The release binds you and, as far as the law allows, your heirs, your estate and anyone who claims through you.

7. Indemnity

7.1. To the extent the law allows, you will indemnify the CastScience parties: you will pay their losses and reasonable legal costs from claims by others that arise from your use of CastScience, your posts, photos or other content, or your breach of these Terms. A claim by a passenger or another boater about a trip you decided on is an example.

7.2. You do not have to pay for losses caused by a CastScience party's own negligence, gross negligence, or willful, wanton or reckless misconduct.

7.3. We will tell you promptly about a claim covered by this section. We may handle the defense ourselves, and you will cooperate.

8. Limitation of liability

8.1. To the extent the law allows, the CastScience parties are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, such as lost trips, travel or fuel costs, lost data, lost profits, fines, tickets, or seized fish or equipment.

8.2. To the extent the law allows, the total liability of the CastScience parties for all claims about CastScience is limited to the greater of US$50 or the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim.

8.3. Nothing in these Terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by gross negligence, or willful, wanton or reckless misconduct, or any other liability that the law does not allow to be limited.

9. Paid plans

9.1. Plans and prices. A paid plan gives an account the features the app lists for it. At the date of this version it costs US$9.99 a month or US$86.00 a year, in U.S. dollars, after a 2-day free trial (section 9.7); the price that applies to you is the one shown at checkout. It is charged in advance for each billing period and renews automatically. Before you subscribe, the Account page and the checkout page show the price and currency, the renewal period, when the trial ends and the date and time of the first charge, taxes, how to cancel, and the sentence "Your subscription renews automatically until you cancel", and ask you to agree to that separately from these Terms. Paid plans are sold to people 18 or older, with an account, in the United States and in Canada except Quebec.

9.2. Payment and taxes. Payments are processed by Stripe, under Stripe's own terms and privacy policy. CastScience does not receive or store your full card number. Prices do not include sales tax, GST, HST or other taxes unless the checkout page says so; taxes are added where the law requires them.

9.3. Automatic renewal. A paid plan renews automatically at the end of each billing period, for the same period, at the price then in effect, and your payment method is charged, until you cancel. The checkout page asks you to agree to this separately before you pay. After you pay, we send you a confirmation by email with the price, the period, the next renewal date, how to cancel, the refund policy and a link to these Terms, and you can keep a copy of the agreement. For a yearly plan we send a reminder 15 to 45 days before each renewal.

9.4. Cancelling. You can cancel at any time on the Account page, online, in no more steps than it took to subscribe, through Stripe's customer portal and without contacting us. Cancelling stops the next charge; the paid features continue until the end of the period already paid.

9.5. Refunds. If you ask within 14 days of your first payment for a plan, which after a free trial is the first charge when the trial ends, or of a yearly renewal, we refund that payment in full; write to [email protected]. Otherwise payments are not refunded, except as sections 9.8 and 17.2 say or where the law where you live requires a refund.

9.6. Price changes. If the price of your plan changes, you will be told by email 30 days before the change takes effect, and you can cancel before it does. The new price applies from your first renewal after that date.

9.7. Free trial. A paid plan starts with a 2-day free trial, once per person and per payment method. The checkout page shows when the trial ends: the date and time of the first charge. If you do not cancel before then, your card is charged at that time for the period you chose (US$9.99 for a month or US$86.00 for a year, plus any tax), and the plan then renews as section 9.3 says. You can cancel during the trial on the Account page, online, through Stripe's customer portal; if you cancel before the trial ends, you are not charged. When the trial starts, we send you an email with the date and time of the first charge, the price and how to cancel.

9.8. Features and limits. The service enforces each plan's features and limits. We may change features. If we remove a feature the app lists for your plan, or stop the service, during a period you paid for, you may cancel and we refund the unused part of that period.

9.9. Failed payments and chargebacks. If a renewal payment fails, Stripe tries again for a short period; if it still fails, the plan ends and the account keeps its data. If a payment is reversed through your bank or card issuer (a chargeback), the paid features stop until it is resolved. Please write to us first; we answer refund questions by email.

9.10. Consumer rights. The laws on automatic renewal, cancellation and refunds where you live apply to you in addition to this section. Residents of Ontario: the warranty of reasonably acceptable quality in section 9 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2002 applies to the paid plan and is not excluded by section 4 of these Terms.

10. Regulations, closed waters and conservation

10.1. Summary only. Check the official regulations before fishing. The regulations in CastScience are summaries in our own words, with a link to the official source and an as-of date. The official rules govern. A rule past its review date is marked "not re-verified".

10.2. A plan leaves out areas for a closed season, a missing licence, a permit or restricted water. That is a convenience, not a legal ruling. You are responsible for knowing and following the rules where you fish: seasons, limits and sizes; licences and permits; sanctuaries, parks, refuges and security or firing zones; First Nation and Seneca Nation rules; and border reporting to the Canada Border Services Agency and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. A fine, a ticket or a seizure for breaking a rule is your responsibility.

10.3. CastScience does not endorse fishing in spawning areas during the spawning season. The spawning sites are shown so that they can be avoided.

11. Your content and the forum

11.1. The forum is for signed-in members 18 and older. Posting needs a forum name. These community rules apply to it:

• Post about fishing and the water, in the category that fits: catches, conditions on the water, or general. Requests and ideas for the app go in App Upgrade Requests.
• Be civil. No harassment, threats, hate or sexual content.
• No advertising or spam.
• Do not post anyone's personal information. Do not post photos of other people without their permission.
• Post only photos you took or have permission to share.
• Do not post anything that shows or encourages breaking fishing, boating or border rules.
• A conditions report says what one person saw at one place and time. It is not a forecast and not a safety judgment. Check the marine forecast and the water at the launch before you go. The decision to go out is yours.
• Posts with photos appear after a moderator has looked at them. A post or comment reported by 3 people is hidden until a moderator decides. Moderators may hide or remove posts and comments that break these rules, and may stop an account from posting.
• Use the Report button on a post or comment to tell the moderators. Only the moderators see reports.
• CastScience removes the location (GPS) and all other photo data (EXIF and other metadata) from a photo before storing it. The picture itself can still show a place: check it before you post. You can choose to have a post shown 1 or 3 days after you send it.
• You can delete your posts and comments. Deleting your account deletes all of them, with your photos.

11.2. You keep the rights to what you post. You give CastScience a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, copy, resize, display and share your posts and photos inside CastScience (the website, the installed app and any later store app) while they are posted. Deleted posts can remain in the database's automatic restore points for up to 30 days. You confirm that you have the right to post what you post.

11.3. Posts are the views of their authors. Text posts are not checked before they appear, and conditions reports and catches are not confirmed. The CastScience parties are not responsible for other members' content.

11.4. To report a post that infringes your copyright or breaks the law, write to [email protected] with the post's address and the reason. We remove illegal content and report it where the law requires. An account that posts infringing content more than once is closed.

12. Your logbook and privacy

12.1. Your logbook is private to you: sessions, catches, catch positions, lures fished and catch photos. Other members cannot see it. The owner of CastScience can reach stored data only to run and repair the service.

12.2. Shared calibration is off unless you turn it on. If you turn it on, your sessions may be used, without positions, notes or photos, to calibrate the scores for everyone. That calibration is not running yet.

12.3. Your setup, fishing hours and last plan are kept in your browser. Without an account, nothing about you is kept on our servers except request logs, which are kept 3 days.

12.4. You keep the rights to your logbook. You allow us to store and process it to provide the service to you, including your personal calibration.

12.5. The privacy policy explains what is stored, who handles it, how long it is kept and your rights, including downloading your data and deleting your account.

13. Product links and ads

13.1. As an Amazon Associate, CastScience earns from qualifying purchases. Product links are examples that match the lure, not endorsements. CastScience does not see what you buy.

13.2. A purchase through a product link is between you and the retailer. The CastScience parties are not responsible for products, prices, delivery or returns.

13.3. Links and ads never change a plan. The scoring has no price, retailer, product or advertiser input.

13.4. Ads are switched off. Before they are switched on, the privacy policy will describe them and your choices.

14. Accounts

14.1. You can plan without an account. An account keeps your logbook and saved setup on our servers, and is needed for the forum and for a paid plan.

14.2. Sign-in is run by Clerk, by a code sent to your email address or by Google. Keep access to your email and Google account secure. One person per account.

14.3. You can download your data and delete your account at any time on the Account page. Cancel a paid plan before you delete the account. When you delete it, a record that the account accepted these Terms is kept for 3 years without your account id, as the privacy policy says.

15. Acceptable use

You may not:

• use automated tools to read or copy the API or the site beyond normal use of the app;
• get around limits, plan features, sign-in, moderation or bot checks;
• share an account or a paid plan with other people;
• attack or overload the service;
• resell or republish plans or data as a service without our written permission.

You may share your own plans and PDF reports. People you share them with have not accepted these Terms: tell them the reports are estimates and not for navigation.

16. Intellectual property and data licences

16.1. CastScience's text, code, design, name and logo belong to its owner. You may use the app, and share your own plans and reports for non-commercial purposes.

16.2. Third-party data is used under its own terms and credited on the Data and sources page and the Legal page. In particular:

• Environment and Climate Change Canada: Data Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada. Used under the ECCC Data Servers End-use Licence 2.1.1.
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Natural Resources Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada data sets: Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada.
• Base map and some launch positions: © OpenStreetMap contributors, under the Open Database License (ODbL). Map tiles by Protomaps.
• Spawning and nursery sites and lake bottom types: the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework (GLAHF), University of Michigan and Michigan State University, after Goodyear et al. (1982), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, updated 2011. GLAHF states no licence; it is credited as its layer describes.
• NOAA, the National Weather Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and other U.S. government sources; Natural Earth; the Iowa Environmental Mesonet.

16.3. Regulations are summarized in our own words, with links to the official pages. Some sources are cited only as links until their owners agree to more: the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Seneca Nation.

16.4. A credit to an agency or organization is not an endorsement by it. Other names and marks belong to their owners.

17. Ending use

17.1. You may stop using CastScience at any time. Cancel a paid plan on the Account page, delete your account there, and remove what your browser keeps with "Clear this device".

17.2. We may suspend or end your access for a breach of these Terms, for example with a forum ban, or for misuse of the API. If we end a paid plan for a reason other than your breach, we refund the unused part of the period you paid for. We may also stop the service (section 9.8).

17.3. Sections 4 to 8, 16, 18 and 19 still apply after use ends.

18. Governing law, courts and disputes

18.1. These Terms, and any dispute between you and CastScience about CastScience or its information, are governed by the laws of the State of Ohio, United States, without regard to its rules on conflict of laws.

18.2. Any court case about CastScience or these Terms is brought in the state or federal courts located in Ohio, and you and we accept the jurisdiction of those courts.

18.3. There is no arbitration clause and no class-action waiver in these Terms.

18.4. Nothing in this section or elsewhere in these Terms takes away a right that the consumer law where you live does not allow you to give up, including a right to bring a claim in your own courts or under your own law.

19. Your rights as a consumer, severability and general terms

19.1. Nothing in these Terms takes away a right that the consumer law where you live does not allow you to give up, waive or limit by contract. Where such a law applies, the terms that conflict with it do not apply to you to that extent, and the rest of these Terms stays in effect.

19.2. If a court finds part of these Terms unenforceable, that part applies as far as the law allows, and the rest stays in effect. In particular, if the release (section 6), the indemnity (section 7) or the limitation of liability (section 8) cannot be enforced in full where you live, each applies to the greatest extent that law allows.

19.3. These Terms, with the texts named in 1.5 and, for a paid plan, what the checkout page shows, are the whole agreement about CastScience. Not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it.

19.4. Headings are for reading only. These Terms are written in English.

19.5. We may transfer these Terms to a company that takes over CastScience. We will tell account holders by email, and your rights under these Terms stay the same.

20. Contact

CastScience. Questions, notices, refund requests and complaints: [email protected].

21. Changes and previous versions

Every earlier version of the statement and the checkbox label is kept here with its fingerprint, so that a record of acceptance can always be matched to the words that were shown.

• October 5, 2026: First version.