It is fishing time boys and girls! If you have not checked the weather, check it, and get that boat ready to go. We are writing the synopsis a week early because we will be out on the water the next two days chasing some fish. If you see the team in Venice tomorrow afternoon, come over and say hello. This week’s synopsis is looking good for those who are able to run far to find some fish. We did get a report of a few wahoo coming out of cold water, so we want to retract our statement from the previous weeks that the water temperature is a little too cold for wahoo. They are out there if you put in the work to go find them!
SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE
The shot we are looking at is today’s most recent shot, which is the first time this has happened in the past few weeks. You will see in the shot below that there is an area of warm water hovering around the MS Canyon rigs, with colder 66-68* water directly north of there. It looks like a very good temperature break just south of the Double Nipple that could be worth checking out. We have confirmation from a boat that fished yesterday that actual water temperatures from a GPS unit are probably a few degrees below what Hilton’s is currently showing, but the fish are still there. If you can find the bait, you will find the fish!
ALTIMETRY
The Altimetry shot for this week confirms what we talked through last week that the cold, dense water close to the coast is showing up as a downwelling when in fact it is just cold water. There is a slight downwell hovering over the MS Canyon area and if you are looking to chase big pelagic species we would fish directly south of Venice for wahoos this time of the year. The tunas are not as affected by altimetry this time of the year as they are chasing bait all the way to the mouth of the Mississippi. This also follows what we said in the previous paragraph, if you find the bait you will find the fish.
CURRENTS
We will take a break from currents this week since nothing has changed, but we want to take a minute to talk through what the loop current looks like in the Gulf of Mexico. You can see here that there are two currents active in this chart. We are going to watch for the loop current that is outlined here to hopefully begin to move a bit further north, which will then spin off backflow eddies into the prime fishing grounds that we have reached. These backflow eddies create upwellings that force nutrients to the surface, thereby starting the food chain for pelagic species.
CHLOROPHYLL
The Chlorophyll chart does not have much to write home about this week as cloud cover has affected the shot from being taken clearly.
