Yesterday could be summed up in a single sentence: A wrong weatherman with a hot bite. The forecasted seas were calling for less than 10mph winds out of the north and seas less than a foot for the whole day. It ended up being 2-3’s with a few 4s mixed into there not even a few miles out of the pass. The people who stuck through the snotty inshore conditions were rewarded with blue marlins, dolphins, and a few nice sized blackfins.
We are looking forward to the fishing picking up these next few weeks and it definitely feels like fishing season has officially arrived. This week we are forecasting another HOT bite around floating structure and for swordfishing as the moon phase is just right for the next 4 days.
Sea Surface Temperature
The SST shot from today had a ton of cloud cover, but still enough visibility to gain some insights from it. There is a push of warm 74+ degree water hanging around both the eastern and western FADS as well as at the Double Nipple and south of there in the MS Canyon. It looks like some warmer water is moving towards the shelf right now near the Oriskany and Ozark, with the bait most likely not far behind. It could be any week now that we start to see wahoos, tunas, and king mackerel start to show up inshore around the ledges.
Altimetry
There is an area of upwelling that has consistently stayed a bit further south of the MS Canyon. This area should be holding everything from tunas to billfish right now and it should be any day that someone comes home flying a nice stringer of flags. There is an area of no movement or 0 water hanging out around the FADS and the Double Nipple right now, which we do not see any negative or positive effect of this 0 water. We would look for areas that have warmer water and stronger current lines within the 0 water area to then find the fish.
Currents
We had been watching a backflow eddie for the last 4 weeks move into our area and then subsequently move out of our area. It looks like that same eddie has stayed put over the W Florida Slope and could be making a move back to the north. This is the eddie that brought with it tons of warm water and the great fishing that we had this past week. We are hoping that it continues to move north and make a final push of the warm water into shore.
Chlorophyll
The blue water continues its push into the shelf. If you guys remember last year around April we saw that the blue water pushed almost 6 miles away from the Destin pass and it was the prettiest water we have seen in our 12+ years living in Destin. We are hoping for a repeat of that and right now that water is lingering near the Ozark, Oriskany, and Maritimer. It looks like it has stopped right near the southwest ledge from Destin. The blue water is very much linked with the SST chart right now, so if you see pockets of warm water pushed in close, you can assume the water will be a bit prettier there than the surrounding water.
There is blue water sitting over the spur right now, which should lead to a hot swordfish bite as we approach the full moon and the few days following the full moon. The MS Canyon is completely covered in blue water if you are making the run out to the rigs.
