TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

USGS Surveys Can Help You Find Fish

ADVERTISEMENT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 7, 2007

The challenge in finding fish around Tampa Bay is often in finding their habitat, and in water deeper than 5 feet or so, that requires something more than a pair of polarized sunglasses.

Sonar or 'fish finders' have been standard issue for anglers for years, but even these machines (now with color monitors that make it easy to separate bottom contours, baitfish and gamefish) leave much to the imagination when it comes to visualizing what is below.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration charts are also a big help, providing paper or electronic images of the bottom, based on sonar use or, in some cases, historic soundings.

But there is now another helpful system, available online from the U.S. Geological Survey. It is based on a combination of aerial surveys, some with laser-powered Light Detection and Ranging, which shows current topography in a 3D perspective that makes it easy for anglers to take advantage of the information.

Images of Tampa Bay are available at http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1051.

For anyone interested in finding grouper, snapper, tarpon or any other species that may relate to bottom structure, the free images should prove valuable.

On the negative side, there is no GPS overlay to help find specific locations of the structures, and even major landmarks such as Port Manatee are not shown, but if you take along the USGS color printout and compare it to your paper or electronic charts, you'll be able to put things together.

For example, the dredged channel along the north side of Courtney Campbell Causeway, a noted spot for big snook, is clearly shown as a dark blue cut through the otherwise shallow water.

For those not familiar with the famed trout and snook channel leading into Double Branch Creek on the north side of Old Tampa Bay, the USGS image shows the cut clearly, including its tricky horseshoe bends.

The tarpon basin on the west side of Davis Islands is neatly outlined, as well.

Some of the prime areas that show up are not deep cuts, but bars and rubble stacks. The long bar off the tip of Picnic Island, an outstanding fall mackerel spot, is well defined as a long white strip surrounded by otherwise light blue depths.

The rubble off Weedon Island, near the shipping channel, also shows up in obvious relief. The area is a noted spot for summer tarpon, and holds mackerel in fall.

Other great mackerel spots, including the famed bars on either side of the Port Manatee channel, also show up; there, bars rise from about 20 feet of water to as little as 5 feet, making a great ambush point for the fast-moving predators.

The chart is not as useful in shallow water because it doesn't give adequate definition between water that's 1 foot deep and 3 feet deep, often a big difference on the flats. But at some medium depths, it can again be revealing. The numerous access channels into Mullet Key Basin at Fort DeSoto, for example, are nicely revealed, including several that run behind the mangrove islands into some extremely good snook territory.

The endless rubble fields along the main shipping channel are also outlined with the 3D shadowing that make them obvious. While many anglers assume the best grouper trolling is directly in the channel, the chart reveals many acres of rocky spoil a considerable distance from the cut.

Use of the chart is a bit clumsy; it's not a click-and-zoom interface that those who use online maps might be used to. You have to use a scale at the top of the chart to zoom in, and at magnifications above 200 percent, the image becomes so pixelated it's no longer useful. Moving around the chart requires clicking on arrows at the bottom or side of the chart - you can't 'pull' it wherever you want as you can with many online mapping systems.

However, considering the fact that it is free and provides a ton of new information, odds are this is a Web site a lot of anglers will want to add to their 'favorites' list.

SNOOK RELEASE: Mote Marine and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission released about 3,000 snook fingerlings into four creeks feeding into Sarasota Bay on Thursday. The release marks the first time fish from hatchery-reared parents have been released into the wild. The fish are wire-tagged, and scientists will attempt to recapture them at intervals in the future to check survival rates. Many small fish stocked in saltwater fall prey to predators, but researchers are hopeful that the relatively large size of the stocked fish, 4 to 6 inches, will reduce the mortality rate.

CHAMBER TOURNAMENT: The annual Chamber of Commerce Fishing Classic is Friday at Westshore Yacht Club, 6001 S. West Shore in Tampa, $2,500 grand prize. Entry is open to all anglers. The captain's reception is Thursday at the Florida Aquarium; (813) 276-9440; ccongelio@tampachamber.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT