Sea Surface Temperature - SST Charts

What are sea surface temperature SST charts and how do you use them to catch more fish? Sea surface temperature is the measure of changes in water surface temperatures that attract and concentrate baitfish, which in turn attract apex predators like billfish, tuna and wahoo. You can use sst charts to predict where pelagic gamefish are more likely to be holding, so more efficient trip planning can take place. Knowing the right fishing ground can optimize your catch result, time efficiency, and reduction of fishing cost. Hilton's Realtime Navigator service provides the most cutting edge presentation of SST, especially when combined with their other fishing forecast data, like chlorophyll and altimetry. Think about it this way. Sea surface temperature charts tell you where you can locate potential fishing hot spots or what areas lack the dynamics to attract fish. Knowing the water temperature near the surface will help you better understand what species of fish are more likely to in specific locations. This allows you to better plan your offshore fishing trips. By using this data, fishermen can plan more direct trip routes. There are no absolutes, but knowing the water conditions affords better decision making about where and when offshore fishing will be more productive. Let's look at blue marlin in the Gulf of Mexico. These billfish have preferred water temperatures of 78-88 degrees. Blue water in that range is ideal. Using sea surface temperature readings and chlorophyll data provides fishermen with better opportunities to locate marlin. Now, any sport fish can be caught outside its range of preferred temperatures, but hook-up ratios will drop the warmer or colder the water gets away from the preferred.