I recently posted a thread with an image I had pulled off of Google Earth asking if anyone knew what was there. I also posted a nearly identical thread on another forum. While it was kindly answered here on GON, it was met with nothing but ridicule on the other forum. Mostly just telling me that if I would just pull up the charts I could see for myself. Well, the charts give some depth readings, but not much else.
This got me wondering if anyone uses this method of locating likely fishing spots down here in the salt. I have been doing this for years in fresh water, whether it be on lakes for bass and crappie, or even on trout streams and rivers. I have found it to be a wonderful tool for pre-scouting water I have never been on before. It even helped me win a very nice tournament pot on Clarks Hill lake when I was able to locate secondary coves with small creek channels in them and concentrate on them rather than try every cove I came accross or just judge them from what I could see on the bank as I rode by.
Admittedly, this is probably not going to be a tool for use far offshore, but you will be surprised what you can find for inshore or shallow water fishing. For instance, this image led me to a field of oyster beds on a mud flat. Having fished it two years running in May, I can attest that speckled trout and redfish both come up into these beds as the tide rises. You will notice a nice little channel meandering across it. They use this path to get on it and to come off of it. As the tide drops lower, the will sit off in deeper water and wait for the bait to be washed out that little channel. As I launched at near high tide the first time I was there, I would have never noticed it, or thought about that little channel, had I not seen it on the satellite images before I ever made the trip.
Another is here. This side creek channel drains a very large area of sparse grass flats and creates a great ambush point with the outgoing tide. There were redfish here both times I went.
Here is a pretty good video by a guy who used to do the same thing with flyovers. Today he uses Google to find wrecks, rock outcrops, even holes created by practice bombing runs (Bet you a dollar none of THOSE are on your old bathymetric charts!)
Yeah, it's not the way it's "always been done", but then most of us are not using the sextant any more either. Give it a try. It's a great tool for unfamiliar waters.
This got me wondering if anyone uses this method of locating likely fishing spots down here in the salt. I have been doing this for years in fresh water, whether it be on lakes for bass and crappie, or even on trout streams and rivers. I have found it to be a wonderful tool for pre-scouting water I have never been on before. It even helped me win a very nice tournament pot on Clarks Hill lake when I was able to locate secondary coves with small creek channels in them and concentrate on them rather than try every cove I came accross or just judge them from what I could see on the bank as I rode by.
Admittedly, this is probably not going to be a tool for use far offshore, but you will be surprised what you can find for inshore or shallow water fishing. For instance, this image led me to a field of oyster beds on a mud flat. Having fished it two years running in May, I can attest that speckled trout and redfish both come up into these beds as the tide rises. You will notice a nice little channel meandering across it. They use this path to get on it and to come off of it. As the tide drops lower, the will sit off in deeper water and wait for the bait to be washed out that little channel. As I launched at near high tide the first time I was there, I would have never noticed it, or thought about that little channel, had I not seen it on the satellite images before I ever made the trip.
Another is here. This side creek channel drains a very large area of sparse grass flats and creates a great ambush point with the outgoing tide. There were redfish here both times I went.
Here is a pretty good video by a guy who used to do the same thing with flyovers. Today he uses Google to find wrecks, rock outcrops, even holes created by practice bombing runs (Bet you a dollar none of THOSE are on your old bathymetric charts!)
Yeah, it's not the way it's "always been done", but then most of us are not using the sextant any more either. Give it a try. It's a great tool for unfamiliar waters.