Why Use Hilton's?
The advent of the internet has brought about fundamental changes in viewing the conditions offshore. You can now, from the comfort and convenience of your home or office in the days preceding your trip, monitor the diferent imageries, determine their tendencies, and ascertain what areas hold the most promise for holding fish. And as importantly, you can also determine which areas are NOT likely to be productive - this can save you lots of time, money, and frustration.
Hilton's has built our reputation as providing the very best service for the money - the proof is in the pudding as we still have many subscribers with us from the beginning when we launched in May of 2004 with the 3 regions in the northern Gulf. Of cousre now we have grown to 34 regions on all 3 coasts and beyond in addition to blazing new trails in the industry by providing the ability for our subscribers to navigate on the latest sea temp, chlorophyll, surface currents, or altimetry imageries on their laptop, iPhone, or iPad!
HILTON'S CONTINUES TO INNOVATE: Hilton's is revolutionizing the marine navigation industry's capability to navigate on the latest dynamic imageries such as sea surface temperature, chlorophyll, altimetry, and surface currents. Simply click "Save Map" while on the dock and within cell range, and that image is saved to your account on our server - save as many charts as you wish. Then, open up the RT-NAV app on your smart device and click "Refresh" and the app will download the saved charts into your smart device. Once that is done it will say "Ready For Navigation" - click Navigate and go forth and fish, as the iPad 3G or iPhone 3G have their own satellite GPS system to navigate by, so you do not need to worry about staying in cell range. Now pick which imagery you want to navigate upon - it's just like looking at the website; same exact images, same waypoints, same icons...except now you are an icon. Create waypoints, routes to temp breaks/color changes, compare your vessel's position to all of the different parameters while out there on the water. It gives you the whole picture of what is happening.
For more info on the nav app, go to: http://rt-nav.com/navigation.php
Hilton's Realtime-Navigator subscribers not only are able to monitor the conditions from their home or office in the days preceding their offshore fishing trip, they now are able to actually see their boat's position relative to the latest imageries while out on the spot!
SST AVAILABILITY: We provide the absolute best sea temp imagery available on the web – no question. Other sea temp services simply give you an image and say “Good Luck” We give you the image then ASK; what part of this image are YOU interested in? You habve the availability to customize the shot based on your preferences. There are usually 6-12 satellite shots each day, per region, and the quality varies due to cloud cover, incomplete satellite shots, etc. There is a learning curve to getting the best results for this imagery – I recommend calling us for a hands-on tutorial – 713 530-2267. We can show you how to customize and pinpoint where weedlines will likely be located using this imagery.
CHLOROPHYLL: This imagery is very sketchy to capture as unlike the sst imagery, we only get 1 shot per day and that is in the evening. If there is a cloud, there is no data. So, we have worked long and hard to make this imagery as useable as possible. You can select “1 Day”, “3 Day”, or “7 Day” compilations. You can animate this imagery to view the tendencies of where the color changes are heading….chlorophyll is green and is found in the phytoplankton. The more plankton, the more turbid and/or green the water becomes. This imagery is shot by the same satellite that shoots the True Color imagery – compare the 2 to get an idea of what the colors on Chlorophyll translate into relative to true water color.
TRUE COLOR: This imagery is closely tied to the Chlorophyll imagery – it is basically a photograph looking down at the ocean, but because you only get 1 shot per day, it is rather limiting. There are some days that are clear and it is very good. The instruments on the chlorophyll are much more sensitive to the variations in color and turbidity than the resolution of the true color allows.
ALTIMETRY: This imagery is a radar product which shoots through clouds and is therefore never affected by cloud cover. It measures the surface height of the ocean, creating a contour map of the surface. Bulges in the surface (orange and red) are to be avoided as they are downwelling, nutrient-poor areas which are basically devoid of life. The depressions in the surface (light blue/dark blue) are desired as they indicate upwelling, nutrient-rich areas – this is the beginning of the food chain and the pelagic follow the food. Green areas are transitional areas, and you can catch fish there depending on the other conditions.
CURRENTS: Surface currents are shown relative to their direction and speed. Purple areas where there are only heads, pointing in different directions indicate slack current – not good. Colored areas indicate fast currents (there is a velocity scale at the right of the image). The idea is to be situated in areas where you have good current – not too much, or too little.
SALINITY: (Not available in all areas). Salinity shows where you have ultra-fresh water I(indicated by purple) and how it gradiates to very saline water (maroon). This imagery is mainly useful to the nearshore pelagic fishermen (king mackerel) as it shows where there is the right mixture of fresh/salt water.
RADAR: (Not available in all areas). Radar shows the latest weather radar to indicate the conditions on the fishing locations offshore.
IR LOOP: This is an overview of the atmospheric conditions of the region – refer to this to see incoming frontal systems, or to see why the imagery has been cloudy lately.
SUBREGIONS: (Not available in all areas). This is where we offer high resolution background 3d imagery and all of the known waypoints we have for that area. It is not possible to show all of the waypoints on the main screen as you wouldn't be able to see the imageries! Simply place your cursor on the waypoint icon and the exact coordinate will pop up.
NAV TOOL: This is the oval with a big white box underneath it which says “Place cursor in oval”. When you take your cursor and click on the NAME of any waypoint, a bullseye will replace that icon. The Nav Tool always reads from the center of the bullseye and the center of the oval. Click on the NAME of your homeport to set the bullseye, then drag the oval out to where you want to go, such as a temp break. It will display the lat/long coordinate, the bearing, and the distance from your homeport.
TRIP PLANNER: This is a recent improvement to the site where you either use the Nav Tool or the Trip Planner – you cannot use them both at the same time. When ready to use the Trip Planner, click on “Start Trip Planner” at the top of the screen and a new window will open called “Trip Statistics”. Zoom in and scroll to the area that you are interested in and the Trip Statistics window will stay with you on the screen. Click on the starting point of your trip, and coordinate #1 will appear in the Trip Statistics window. Click on your next destination, whether it be a waypoint or a temp break, color change, whatever, and coordinate #2 will appear along with a distance and bearing from #1. You can repeat the process until you have up to 15 waypoints, then click “Print Me” and it will print out the Trip Statistics info which also totals up your total mileage required to do this trip.
FLOATERS: (Available in the 3 northern Gulf of Mexico regions only). We pay about $1,500 per year for the absolute best data regarding the locations of the semisubmersibles and drillships in the Gulf. These large deepwater structures are fish attracting devices and hold bait and gamefish year-round.
SERVICE: We pride ourselves on our Customer Service. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or issues using the site. Our philosophy is that if you do not understand how to best utilize the site's features, you are not as likely to be successful – our goal is for you to maximize your efficiencies.
Copyright 2004- Hilton's Fishing Charts, LLC
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