Is it about to be the weekend of the year?
- It’s a Good Friday and Easter Sunday
- With a great weather window on Saturday
- And warm water inching closer to the shelf
We have been intensely watching the warm water that moved through the fads and pushed towards the southwest ledge from Destin. The reason that we are so hyper focused on this is because this time of the year we are looking for pockets of warmer water that have intersected with great bottom structure to start targeting wahoos. Once the warm water passes through the Nipple, Southwest Ledge, and gets within 20 miles of land we usually have incredible pelagic fishing until the beginning of November.
This week we are forecasting above average pelagic fishing as long as you can reach where the warmer water has pushed in. I would also expect a few boats that commit to live baiting for blue marlin to come in with incidental bluefin tuna bycatch.
Sea Surface Temperature
As mentioned above, we are looking at this chart very closely. You will see the warm water that we talked about above moved into the Nipple area with a few pockets of colder water still hanging around. Where the temperature breaks are along this warm water push, we would start looking for floatsam forming little rip lines. Even if you find a rip line thats only a few hundred yards long, it is worth putting baits in and trolling it. We have had success catching 40+ pound mahi off smaller rip lines.
The natural bottom area on the shallow side of the steps would also be a great area to start targeting wahoos this time of the year as the water has warmed up to 72-73 degrees in that area. All of the rigs in the MS Canyon are fair game right now for small schoolie yellowfins and there are probably a handful of bigger ones mixed in.
Altimetry
There is not much to write home about in the altimetry shot this week. Most of our area is covered in water that does not have an upwelling or a downwelling. There is an upwelling that is further south around the Ocean Blackhornet/Thunderhawk/Thunderhorse.
Currents
There also is not much to write about the current this week. The giant backflow eddie that had moved into our area a month ago has now completely moved out and back south of Lloyd’s Ridge. There is a small current line running north to the W Florida Slope, throwing currents to both the east and west. The current from the Double Nipple all the way north back to land is stagnant and not moving much.
Chlorophyll
We had a funky shot of the Chlorophyll last night, so I would check back into your Hilton’s subscription tonight to see if we get a clear shot. Sometimes the satellite does not get perfectly clear shots when it passes over the Gulf of Mexico and in turn it can create shots like this. I would expect that the warm water on the SST shot should mirror closely to where you will find clearer, more blue water.
