Sailfish

More detail

This species map is in development.

What you see. Choose the species from the Bite Intel button along the bottom of the map. The map is colored from dark blue at 50, through green and yellow, to dark red at 90 and above. Anything under 50 is left unpainted. On the website the legend shows that color bar and an Opacity slider that fades the map. Switch on Compare species to show more than one species at a time, each in its own color, brighter where the match is higher.

What goes into it. The map weighs surface temperature, temperature and salinity breaks, current speed and where currents squeeze together, eddy edges, slack water, how deep the surface water is mixed, oxygen, water color and its edges, bottom depth, and how close a square is to bottom structure such as ridges, humps, banks, canyons, drop-offs and domes, each set for sailfish.

On the website, in the Gulf of America, the map carries the banner "No strong dynamic edge today", with the line "Fish structure & reachable water — the shelf edge, rigs, and banks." It shows when one species is on the map, not in Compare species.

How to use it. Let the map narrow a big piece of water to a few areas, then check those areas on the temperature, water-color and current layers. To see what built the score at one spot, click the map on the website; on the iPhone, put the crosshair on the spot and tap the fish-scale button beside the map. A panel lists each condition with its reading and a rating from Poor to Ideal.

Who makes it. RipIQ builds this map itself, mostly from the HYCOM (U.S. Navy model) forecast and the charted bottom depth, so cloud never blanks it.

Its limits. The map shows water that looks like sailfish water, not fish. It has eight frames a day, three hours apart, about a week ahead, with about 5 nautical miles of detail, so read areas, not single squares. The map covers the Gulf of America, the East Coast and Baja, wherever the species list for your region offers it.

The numbers

How often it updates	Eight frames a day, three hours apart
How fresh it usually is	From a forecast run started between one and four days ago
How detailed it is	About 5 nautical miles of real detail in the water, finer on the bottom
Where it covers	The Gulf of America, the East Coast and Baja, in each region whose species list offers it
Observed or modeled	Modeled
What you see on screen	Squares colored from dark blue at 50, through green and yellow, to dark red at 90 and above. Under 50 nothing is painted

Source: computed by RipIQ from the HYCOM and Copernicus model layers (temperature, salinity, currents, fronts, thermocline, chlorophyll edges) and seafloor depth.