How to predict current?

[Noah Freediver]

Ran out to a deep wreck a few days ago to be greeted with screaming current making bottom fishing impossible. How can you predict when the current will be slack when planning long trips?

[Flatdog]

Moon Phase buddy, better to ask when will it be slack type question? Answer moon phase, plus wind direction for a few days of puff will tell yer. Watch those red coils on the map temp movements. It all adds up, wind plus moon (and sun) plus water temp. Simple Really.

[Noah Freediver]

What confuses me is sometimes I'll pick up and move a mile and find completely different current... this is all in SW Florida water, on the shelf, so I don't believe it would be loops off of the Gulf stream. I know moon/tide is a factor, but it just seems like there's another variable.

Maybe sea surface temp. satellite imagery could shed some light... anyone have a favorite link?

[ADDfishing]

Rutgers is a free sea surface temp (SST) that I think most guys use. The pay sites like Roff's, and Sirius are great, if you want to pay for more info such as forecasting fishing hot spots.

When you use Rutgers, you'll most likely need to use data from 3 or more of the last images to compensate for cloudcover. It's definitely a great tool though.

Please, someone speak up if I've misrepresented the pay sites. I've never acutally used them, so they very well may be much more useful than I'm aware.

http://marine.rutgers.edu/mrs/sat_da...sst&nothumbs=0