Hiltons Offshore Satellite Fishing Maps

What do Hilton's Offshore satellite fishing maps cover?

Hilton's Offshore satellite fishing maps track sea surface temperature, chlorophyll, altimetry, surface currents and salinity against bottom topography, with known fishing waypoints laid over the top. When this video was filmed, the service covered 36 regions in the Americas, from both U.S. coasts and the Gulf of Mexico to Central America, Bermuda and the Bahamas.

Thomas Hilton is clear that it isn't worldwide. Coverage ran from the East and West Coasts through the Gulf of Mexico, Central America, northern South America including Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, the Windward Islands, Bermuda and the Bahamas. The waypoints matter as much as the imagery. Drill ships and semi-submersibles move often, and a chart is only useful if the rigs on it are where the boat will find them. That's the reason he left paper charts behind in 2003: a printed chart book couldn't change until the old inventory sold, and that could take years.

Which fish are satellite fishing charts built for?

Satellite fishing charts are built for pelagic fish that follow moving water: billfish, tuna, dolphin, wahoo and king mackerel. Bottom fish relate to fixed structure rather than temperature breaks and color changes, so the charts add much less to a bottom fishing trip than to a day spent trolling or running offshore.

Hilton says it plainly: for bottom fish, the service probably isn't worth the money. Kingfish and wahoo sit in between. He calls them structure fish that will hold on a rock with no rip or rig nearby, as long as the temperature, water clarity, current and altimetry are right, which is why the kingfish charts mark wrecks, rocks, ledges and wellheads. Billfish, tuna, dolphin and sailfish favor the same conditions as each other, so one read of the charts covers all of them.

Why is a real-time satellite pass more useful than a drawn analysis?

A real-time pass shows the water as it was a few hours ago. A drawn analysis has to stop collecting data at some point, then get interpreted and delivered, so it's older by the time it reaches the boat. When the water moves every day, those hours change where you should run.

Hilton's point is that navigating to a moving structure from a static image isn't enough; you have to know which way a weed line or color change is heading and what structure it will cross. He tells the story that convinced him the charts worked. A customer fishing the Grand Isle Rodeo asked where he'd go. Hilton sent him to a north-south rip by Devil's Tower. They caught six marlin with one other boat on the rip, and that boat was another of Hilton's customers who had read the same chart without any contact between them.

Inside the video

• The move from paper chart books to online charts, and why
• The chart layers and the rig and structure waypoints
• Which waters the service covered when it was filmed
• Pelagics versus bottom fish, and kingfish charts for wrecks, rocks and ledges
• Navigating offshore on a cellular-capable tablet or phone
• Swordfish day and night drift zones drawn by Booby Trap owner Brett Holden
• Reverse engineering past tournament results

Hilton's Offshore Questions

Choosing a Satellite Chart Service

This video explains what one service was built to do and why timing matters. How the main services compare on layers, update speed and cost is in comparing offshore satellite fishing map services.