For outdoor writers covering Great Lakes steelhead
Story angles, founder bio, fact sheet, and downloadable visual assets — all on one page.
In one sentence
Steelhead Addiction is a free, ad-free fishing-conditions site that pulls live USGS gauge data, NOAA weather, and angler-validated optimal-flow zones into a single dashboard for 31 Great Lakes tributaries — built by an angler, for anglers.
Story angles
Drop me an email and I'll send a deep dive on any of these with current data + screenshots.
"Why a 'good' steelhead day isn't about cubic feet per second"
Most fishing forecasts publish raw flow numbers. Steelhead Addiction publishes where today's flow sits in each river's own historical distribution — a percentile-zoned gauge bar that shows whether 2,500 cfs on the Cuyahoga is "low" or "blown out" relative to its own log-normal flow history. Reframing the data this way is a story about angler intuition meeting hard statistics.
"The Chrome Clock — five tabs, one screen"
A single-screen visualization that combines sun arc, USGS gauge, 4-hour weather forecast, water temperature, moon phase, and barometric pressure trend. Story angle: how solo developers are building niche tools that out-design the institutional players.
"Free, ad-free, and built by one angler"
Site is free, no paywall, no ads on river pages — only Amazon affiliate links on dedicated gear pages. Counter to the consolidating-publisher trend in outdoor media. Story angle: open-data activism in the era of paywalled fishing reports.
"Statistical optimal-flow zones, learned from angler reports"
For rivers with at least 20 user-submitted "Good" or "Excellent" reports, the site swaps the heuristic optimal range (p50–p80) for an empirical range learned from those reports. The zone literally adjusts as more anglers submit data. Story angle: citizen-science in fisheries.
"Same-day fishability call: how condition trends predict the morning bite"
Real-time pre-dawn projection: if current flow is dropping at X%/hr, when does it cross into the optimal window? Story angle: the data that turns "is it worth the drive?" from gut feeling to forecast.
About the founder
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D.J. Buell is an Ohio-based software engineer who's been steelhead fishing the Alley for over a decade. Steelhead Addiction grew out of personal frustration — five tabs open every pre-dawn morning to check gauge, weather, water temp, hourly forecast, and solar — and the conviction that anglers deserve the same data quality as commodity traders.
Reachable for interviews and feature stories at djbuell@buellea.com.
Visual assets
Free for editorial use, attribution appreciated. Email for higher-resolution versions.
Quick fact sheet
- Founded: 2026 (publicly launched April 2026)
- Coverage: 31 Great Lakes tributaries across Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York (Steelhead Alley + select Lake Ontario rivers)
- Data sources: USGS Water Services, NOAA NWS, AHPS forecasts, ODNR, PA Fish & Boat Commission, NY DEC
- Refresh cadence: 15 minutes for conditions, 3 hours for weather, daily for statistical baselines
- Operating entity: Buell EA LLC, Ohio
- Revenue: Amazon Associates affiliate referrals only (no paid advertising on river pages)
- Site: steelheadaddiction.com
- Founder: D.J. Buell, djbuell@buellea.com
Want a personalized angle for your column?
Email djbuell@buellea.com with the publication and audience, and I'll draft an angle that fits — whether it's a hyperlocal river spotlight, a regional outlook for the upcoming run, or a meta story about open-data fishing tools. Same-day reply.
