I think the above descriptions are omitting a couple of very useful indicators. While it's good to look at the current lanes and all, I also pay attention to:

1) foot prints. Like it or not, on the well known rivers, most of the good spots are known, and trails and litter will indicate the general area of where people have caught fish. Please do not add to either. Drive around on a saturday afternoon at the peak of the run, and look for the cars. Then, if you really want to calibrate this, drive around on a tuesday after that, and look for cars then. Then you really see where the best spots are.

2) The OFI. What is the OFI, you might ask? It's the Old F*rt Indicator. Basically when you see of bunch of guys in the range of 40 to 60 years old heading for a spot, you can bet it isn't 'cuz they think Brittany Spears is going to make a guest appearence. Look for those guys, and watch what they do.

The OFI is calculated by the average age of the fishermen about a spot. You want an OFI of about 40 - 56. Much higher, and the guys are too feeble to bust brush to the good spots. Much lower, and the guys are using effort rather than cunning.

This is not to say that there aren't plenty of younger individuals that catch lots of fish. They are, however exceptional (yes, all of you here may take a bow). On average, in most fisheries, it's the old guys that know what they are doing, and know where the easy fish are. So look for them.

Then, Phish (a good band, i must say), I have to say that over the years, I at least have developed a sense for water that seems to translate between rivers pretty well. I think you just need to fish more of them, and the sense starts to come. Many of the folks I fish with and I have come to a piece of strange wtaer, and have had our fish alarms go off simultaneously as we look at a new drift. You just need more data points

Just my two cents.