We bottom fished in 80 ft. today anticipating 2-3 ft. at 9 seconds. It turned out to be 15 knots and breaking seas at more like 5 seconds. We caught 4 limits of good bsb and a couple of others, but we were beat to death. The boat could not recover from one wave before another hit , even though we drifted and anchored. It surely would be good to be able to get an accurate prediction 24 hours in advance.
I learned early on that even though I can make it out in rough weather…I have to ask myself…self, will this be fun to fish in?
My nephew used to work for one of the large shipping companies which had it’s own weather forecasters. Their accuracy was amazing, and that was over twenty years ago.
Surely, technology has improved, but it is pretty difficult to get what we need to plan a trip more than a few hours ahead. Granted, the difference between 10 kts. and 15 kts. may not make much difference to a forecaster, or to some fishermen with larger boats, so they may not feel the need for greater accuracy that smaller boats need. That does not help the small boat guy.
If we could see accurate depictions of isobars with barometric gradients, highs, lows, and fronts, including recent past, current, and predicted a couple of days in advance, most of us could draw pretty accurate conclusions as to the forecast. At least, we would have no-one else to blame if we are wrong.
Is this information available, and , if so, where can we find it?
who’s gon’a teach us to read all that stuff?
If I can understand it, anybody can.
Boatpoor, Google weather symbols