US State Fishing Regulations Aggregator

Scrape fishing regulations across US states — bag limits, size limits, season dates, gear restrictions, and special rules per species. Normalizes state DNR data into a single schema for fishing apps, AI angling assistants, and outdoor media.

What It Does

This actor aggregates fishing regulation data published by state Fish & Wildlife agencies across the US. For each state, it:

• Identifies regulation chapters by species or water type (freshwater, saltwater, anadromous)
• Extracts per-species rules including season dates, daily bag limits, size limits, gear restrictions, and special rules
• Normalizes the data into a unified flat schema across all 50 states

Data is sourced from eRegulations.com, an official regulation publisher serving 30+ state agencies, ensuring up-to-date and authoritative regulation content.

Supported States (v1 Seed)

The default run covers the 10 highest-demand states by search volume:

Abbreviation	State	Agency
WA	Washington	WDFW
FL	Florida	FWC
MN	Minnesota	MN DNR
WI	Wisconsin	WI DNR
MI	Michigan	MI DNR
NC	North Carolina	NC WRC
NY	New York	NYSDEC
TX	Texas	TPWD
OR	Oregon	ODFW
CA	California	CDFW

Use the states input to target a specific subset.

Input

Field	Type	Description
states	Array of strings	State abbreviations to scrape (e.g. ["WA", "FL"]). Leave empty to scrape all seeded states.
maxItems	Integer	Maximum number of regulation records to collect. Set to 0 for no limit.

Example input:

{
  "states": ["WA", "TX"],
  "maxItems": 500
}

Output

Each record in the dataset represents one species' regulation entry for a specific state, region, and water type:

Field	Description
state	State abbreviation (e.g. WA, FL)
agency	State fish and wildlife agency name
water_type	freshwater, saltwater, or anadromous
region_or_water	Region, water body, or zone (statewide or named location)
species	Species name
season_open	Season opening date or year-round
season_close	Season closing date
daily_bag_limit	Number of fish allowed per day
possession_limit	Cumulative fish allowed in possession
minimum_size	Minimum size limit in inches
maximum_size	Maximum size limit in inches
slot_limit	Slot limit (protected size range)
gear_restrictions	Allowed or prohibited gear
special_regulations	Special rules such as catch-and-release or artificial lures only
license_required	License type required
source_url	Source URL of the regulation page
effective_year	Regulation booklet year
scraped_at	ISO timestamp of scrape

Example record:

{
  "state": "WA",
  "agency": "WDFW",
  "water_type": "freshwater",
  "region_or_water": "statewide",
  "species": "Walleye",
  "season_open": "",
  "season_close": "",
  "daily_bag_limit": "8",
  "possession_limit": "",
  "minimum_size": "",
  "maximum_size": "",
  "slot_limit": "",
  "gear_restrictions": "",
  "special_regulations": "",
  "license_required": "Freshwater fishing license",
  "source_url": "https://www.eregulations.com/washington/fishing/statewide-freshwater-species-rules",
  "effective_year": "2026",
  "scraped_at": "2026-05-30T21:37:39.700Z"
}

Use Cases

• Fishing apps — Power regulation lookup by state and species
• AI angling assistants — Provide authoritative rule data to fishing chatbots and recommendation engines
• Guide and charter operators — Quickly verify legal limits across jurisdictions
• Outdoor media — Generate regulation comparison content by state

Notes

• Regulation data is public-domain government information
• Season dates and limits change annually — re-run the actor at the start of each fishing season
• The states input allows targeting specific states to reduce run time and cost
• Some chapters contain per-water-body exceptions not captured in the statewide region field; see source_url for the full regulation text