The first week of the New Year is always a little bleak for us. We look at the weather forecasts and just shake our heads, knowing that it might be another month until we get a good enough forecast to go fishing. As we mentioned last week, the Gulf of Mexico’s SST is A LOT cooler this year than it was in year’s past, so we are not forecasting the same hot wahoo bite for any areas east of the MS river. We are jealous of our Louisiana neighbors who have access to arguably the best wahoo bite in the continental USA in the wintertime.
SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE
We wanted to provide a more accurate understanding of what the SST in the Gulf are right now, so we pulled the clearest shot from Tuesday. This shot is scaled from 69-79 degrees and you can see that the cold water continues to get pushed further offshore. There still looks to be “warm enough” water at the Nipple/131 hole area, but it is at the low end of the tolerable spectrum for wahoo, which is the main fish of target this time of the year.
There is a consistent 70-73 degree water lingering over most of the Northern GoM and we have a confirmed low 70’s from a friend of ours that was at the spur last week. They did not troll the FADs, so we do not have a confirmed report on how the FADs are fishing right now.
ALTIMETRY
There is a small area of interest in the middle of the Northern GoM right now as you can see outlined in the picture below. This area is experiencing a slight upwelling, but as fishing trips get further and few between, it is harder to understand how well the fishing is doing in these areas since they are typically further away from land than most people are capable of going right now.
You will see a massive upwelling to the west of Lloyd’s ridge that we are hoping moves closer to the shelf as the Springtime starts. Near the MS Canyon, the water is basically stagnant.
CURRENTS
There is a slack current in much of the area right now. We are seeing a slight current running the east side of the northern Gulf near the squiggles. This current should continue to bring warmer water from the south closer to the shelf area and into the FADs.
CHLOROPHYLL
There is not a great report on the Cholorphyll chart right now and it has remained this way for the past 6 weeks. We will start monitoring the changes in Chlorophyll when we have our first meaningful change, which is unknown to us when exactly that will happen.
