How this works

About Go or Stay Home

Go or Stay Home (goorstayhome.com) is a Texas hunt and fish planning site. It answers one question before you load the truck: should you go, or stay home?

Search a town, county, ZIP, or lake and pick your dates. Trip Check gives a Go, Maybe, or Stay home call, plus the weather, wind, fronts, shooting hours, what's in season, water and tides. Maps is the where-and-when page, with radar, wind, alerts, rut timing, deer and duck zones, public hunting land, and official boat ramps. Near Me is the shop list: processors, taxidermy, boat and ATV repair, guns, tackle, gas, and ice.

How the Go, Maybe, or Stay home call works

The call is a score from 0 to 100, then a band: Go, Maybe, or Stay home. The numbers below are the ones in the live code. Use it to plan. It is not a guarantee, and it is not legal advice.

The score starts at 70.

The bands

The score is then limited to the range 0 through 100.

Wind

The score uses the highest wind speed in the forecast text for your dates. If the forecast gives a range, it uses the high end.

Coastal wind cuts apply when the spot is in one of the 18 counties named in the Texas General Land Office Coastal Management Program boundary (Texas Administrative Code, Title 31, section 27.1): Aransas, Brazoria, Calhoun, Cameron, Chambers, Galveston, Harris, Jackson, Jefferson, Kenedy, Kleberg, Matagorda, Nueces, Orange, Refugio, San Patricio, Victoria, and Willacy. Bays marked in the site's water file also count as coastal. This is not a list of town names.

Rain

Only a day with a 60% or higher chance of rain counts as wet.

Thunderstorms on the water

On a fishing or water trip, including the General hunt and fish preset, any day with thunderstorms or t-storms in the National Weather Service short or detailed forecast is capped at Maybe. This applies at any rain chance. A Stay home call stays Stay home. Hunt, Whitetail, and Waterfowl calls are not changed by this rule.

National Weather Service alerts

Only alerts whose start and end overlap your trip dates are used in the score. The alerts list on the page still shows what is active at the point right now. The weekly email uses this same rule.

Fronts

If the front tracker flags a front in your dates: plus 5. The front rules are separate and are shown on the Trip Check page. That flag is not an official National Weather Service front call.

Seasons

The site uses a curated statewide season calendar, not every county exception. Always confirm county rules with the TPWD Outdoor Annual.

Days past about a week out

Those days come from a longer outlook and are less certain.

Air quality

After the first score, the page may nudge for air quality. This cannot by itself make the call Stay home.

After that nudge, the page checks Go again against the same Go line used in the first pass (72, 76, or 80). Air quality still cannot by itself make the call Stay home.

What else appears under Why this call

When the values already exist for your spot and dates, Trip Check also lists front timing, first-light and last-light wind for hunt mode, the size and timing of a day-to-day high temperature drop, the pressure trend, the best solunar peak that overlaps legal hours, and the latest lake level reading. If a factor has no data, it is omitted or marked unavailable. Those lines are supporting facts. Only the score rules above change the Go, Maybe, or Stay home call.

Species presets

The default preset is General, the hunt and fish call described above. You can also pick Whitetail, Waterfowl, Bass, or Inshore. The Why this call block names the preset. Shared wind, rain, thunderstorm, alert, outlook, and air quality rules still apply. A hunt-only or Whitetail or Waterfowl trip does not treat fishing as in play just because the spot is on the coast.

Whitetail

Waterfowl

Bass

Inshore (redfish, trout, flounder)

Other scores on the page

Best day this week uses a separate day score for the next 7 days. It uses the same 18, 25, and 30 mph wind limits and the same 60% rain cutoff as the main call. Days that stay under those limits are then ranked by front timing, morning temperature, and which day is a little calmer or drier. That tie-break is not a second Go line. Bay days use a separate Good, Fishable, Tough, or Blown out score. Those do not change the Go, Maybe, or Stay home call.

Saved spots and offline checks

You can save favorite counties and lakes on this device, with no account. The home page can show a This weekend call for those spots. You can also save a finished Trip Check for offline viewing, including shooting hours and solunar peaks. Those times are computed on your device so they stay visible if live weather is slow.

This is not legal advice

Always confirm seasons, bag limits, shooting hours, and public land rules with the TPWD Outdoor Annual for the county you hunt or fish. Maps and pins are for planning only. They are not a legal survey. See also our Privacy note.

Where the data comes from