Find areas where the arrows on the map pinch closely together, which shows the edges of a body of water and where it might butt against another. Current vectors can also show where a piece of water is headed and—when compared to a bathymetry chart—where it could be pushing on structure. This can also give you a better idea of which side of the structure to focus on. Just about every service offers bathymetry charts to overlay with other types of data, and finding a good section of water that might hold baitfish over structure can make the charts appealing. To start, it’s important to understand how this data becomes available. The Fall Brawl and Walleye Slam, the two six-week, late-season walleye derbies that both begin on Saturday, Oct. 15 on Lake Erie, had about 2,000 entries a week ago.
If ever there were an expert at reading ocean conditions, this apex predator is it. Even with all available technology, there is no substitute for checking out the conditions with your own eyes, where marked color changes like this one can hold bait and predators. “The LEWT and fishing derbies do a lot to support the local fishing shops and tourism,” said Fischer. “Every year we hand out scholarships, take Wounded Warriors fishing, and donate to local charities,” said Fisher. While a typical LEWT tournament pays off about $7,000 for a win, many have contingency bonuses from boat makers that double their winnings. When you add cash awards with side pots and cash prizes for heaviest fish and biggest bag of fish, a top team could win $30,000 or more in one tournament.
Using Satellite-Based Technology in Offshore Fishing
Hess describes using each variable as a point system—meaning the more factors that line up in an individual spot, the greater amount of points it receives, and therefore is more likely to be productive. With the small $35 entry, many fishermen feel the $100,000-plus boats that are the top prizes should be replaced by smaller prizes earned by far more of the anglers entered in the derbies. Officials would have to fillet hundreds of walleye after the weigh-in during a days-long big tournament. In Ohio, walleye weighed in must also be dressed and sent to soup kitchens. But keeping the top three to five catches to be filleted is certainly easy enough.
In tropical areas or seasonally in some areas, even a small change of a few tenths of a degree can show a convergence zone. For example, in places where there are large, dominant currents, you might put more weight on SST and chlorophyll to find the most productive eddies coming off the main current. In tropical locales such as Bermuda, Hawaii, the Bahamas and the Caribbean, you might want to put more emphasis on current, mixed-layer depth, and altimetry to find where baitfish could be congregating. By combining satellite information with personal experience, you’ll eventually see what combination of elements results in the most success in your area. Generally, though, regardless of where in the world you are, Upton says using the same principle of putting the datasets together along with bottom structure to find convergence zones is the goal.
Areas where high and low altimetry data meet are typically the places you want to be—just another factor to consider to reinforce the idea of a break when looking at SST and chlorophyll data. Sea-surface-height anomaly products are cloud-free and can be helpful, especially during periods when getting a clear satellite temperature shot isn’t possible. It’s also important to note that altimetry tends to be more accurate farther offshore, so this data might not be as useful for fisheries that occur within 20 or 30 miles of the shoreline. Water color, chlorophyll or plankton data is another key source when analyzing a fishing location. This data measures the amount of chlorophyll in the water and is a good indicator of how much phytoplankton is in the area.
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