Look for current breaks and eddies
Offshore fishing locations aren’t just wrecks and rock formations on the sea floor. They are a combination of these formations, and how the Gulf Stream current and eddies react when flowing over them or colliding with them.
Flowing over them creates minor disturbances in currents. Flowing into them has potential to greatly disrupt the currents, especially when hitting higher-relief areas like the Steeples. These disruptions create currents, rips, upwellings and other water features. And those locations hold bait and attract fish. So it is really a combination of the bottom structure and the currents that produce superior fishing conditions.
Gulf Stream is always moving
Remember, the Gulf Stream isn’t stationary or fixed in an area. It moves inshore and offshore, influenced by wind and other factors. It doesn’t always strike the same subsurface formations. And if it does, it doesn’t always strike them from the same direction.
The Long Bay area offers different spots (see below) with distinctive bottom topography that disrupts currents, creating good fishing conditions above them. Other spots are productive because the currents hit other bottom features that deflect the currents and wash the preferred conditions over nearby structure. In an extreme situation, the Gulf Stream colliding with the Steeples from just the right direction and with the right wind direction and intensity could create a back-loop eddy that isn’t wide but runs along the nearshore side of the Stream all the way back down to Winyah Scarp or Georgetown Hole. This doesn’t happen often, but when it does, the fishing is excellent from anywhere along Long Bay.
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