We are back with our week 44 synopsis of the Northern Gulf. We are forecasting a great week of fishing if the weather ends up allowing us to get out there. Last week the fishing was not as strong near the shelf as we were anticipating, but the fishing towards the deepwater oil rigs was still consistently hot with reports of big tunas and a handful of marlin. We believe it will continue to get better over the next 2 weeks as we are headed away from the full moon which was on Sunday.
SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE
If you click the THU NOV 02, 2023 07:10 sea surface temperature (SST) shot, you will want to adjust it to be a max of 79 and a minimum of 72 to see what we are talking about. The cold front that is currently passing through is moving colder water offshore, where it is meeting the warm water current that was pushing north last week between Destin and Pensacola. This has lead to some interesting counter-clockwise looking breaks starting around the Tryslers, Nipple, 131 Hole, and working its way out to the elbow. This area could be very productive for trolling if you are able to find where a clear break intersects bottom structure. I personally love to troll around the natural bottom this time of the year in shallower water, so the Yellow Gravel area is an area of interest for Wahoos and Blackfin Tunas.
ALTIMETRY
The altimetry has not changed much from last week to this week. There is still an upwelling happening out near the Mississippi Canyon deepwater rigs and this should continue to produce consistent blue marlin and tunas. This time of the year all of the rigs from the ghetto/shelf to the ones in the MS canyon are fair game and should be holding good fish.
CURRENTS
The latest current shot for the day shows the currents moving in a counterclockwise motion near where the altimetry shot is showing an upwelling as expected. Here you will also find some counter clockwise motions happening near our area of interest over the Yellow Gravel, Nipple, and 131 Hole area. There is also a warm water current moving north over towards the squiggles and moving onto the shelf. If you are leaving out of PCB we would target ledges in 180-250 feet of water where that current line is running straight over the ledge.
CHLOROPHYLL
The chlorophyll shot this week is not providing much information to hone in on a specific fishing spot. We are seeing blended blue/green water throughout much of the northern gulf coast line to the shelf. There is a push of blue water into the western fad system, but nothing to write home about. The deepwater oil rigs in the MS Canyon still are in great water with some of it being blended blue green and some deep blue.
