A good SST can help put you in the right place! Note the dots marking places we found productive kelp paddies, and the strong temp break. Reprinted by permission, Terrafin.
Here are some tips on finding kelp paddies, once you’re on the water. This is Part 2 of a 5 part series on kelp paddy fishing. Part one was “Connecting with Kelp Paddies“. Part Three is “Kelp Paddy Fishing Techniques”
Give me a Break!
Experienced anglers agree that finding current breaks are critical to locating fish offshore. Current breaks are areas where different surface currents meet, and are usually marked by changes in the water’s surface texture and/or a sudden change in temperature.
The temperature break may be anywhere from a few tenths of a degree to several degrees. You may also see a change in water color, foam lines, and an increase in floating debris, such as weeds, trash, and, of course, kelp paddies. Bait schools tend to accumulate near current breaks, and larger predators will not be far behind.
If you find a good current break, you should change course and follow the break. If you’re comfortable with conventional tackle, slow down, break out a couple of trolling rods, and drag some lures during your search. Many times the fish will be cruising along the break, out of sight. However, they will come to the boat to investigate the noise and wake, and if you don’t have something in the water, you may never know they came by to visit.
If you don’t want to put out conventional tackle, and just want to search for kelp paddies, stay at cruising speed, in order to cover as much territory as possible.
7x binos with a large front opening can be an invaluable tool.
Finding Kelp Paddies
As you search along a current break, keep a sharp lookout for kelp paddies. Believe it or not, they can be very difficult to spot, especially when it’s dark or overcast, the swell is up, or there is a lot of chop on the water.
It’s actually quite common to drive past a paddy without seeing it, or to drive over it.
- Use polarized sunglasses. Captain Conway Bowman feels that amber-colored lenses, rather than the gray lenses commonly used offshore, help to accentuate kelp color
- Binoculars can also be useful. Gyro- or image-stabilized binoculars are the easiest to use on small boats, but are extremely pricey. A good pair of weatherproof 7×50 standard binoculars is the next best thing. Don’t go over 7x magnification with standard binoculars, as they are much harder to hold steady in a moving boat.
Learn to time your scans to compensate for swell and the boat rocking. Click for larger image.
- Get up as high as possible. This increases your field of view and reduces the impact of glare. In a small boat, this means standing up instead of sitting down. In a larger boat, this means going up to the flying bridge or tuna tower.
- Learn to time the swells. Most people scan the water in a circular pattern around the boat. As they look around the boat, they forget that the swell is moving the boat and kelp paddies up and down while the boat is moving forward. This can result in spots that are overlooked because they were on the wrong side of a swell when the fisherman scanned the area. To compensate, you should gauge the period of the swell, and scan each area at least twice in the time it takes the swell to go by the boat. The second pass will usually catch areas that were on the wrong side of the swell during the first pass.
Wind shadows can help you spot paddies on overcast or dark days
- Look close, look behind you. The natural tendency is to look in a forward direction towards the horizon. However, you must learn to continually look close by, and occasionally behind, the boat. You will be surprised how many times you stumble over paddies within a dozen yards of the boat path, or discover that you drove past a paddy a few seconds earlier. If you are dragging trolling lures behind the boat, you’ll sometimes get a “blind” strike, but when you stop the boat, you’ll discover that you just passed a small paddy that no one saw.
- Look for wind shadows. A “wind shadow” is the small patch of flat water that forms in the lee of a paddy. A wind shadow can be seen from a much greater distance than the paddy itself, especially in choppy water.
Birds can not stand on water!
- When the water is flat with a lot of glare, look for small segments of the paddy protruding above the surface of the water. This disruption to the smooth surface of the water can be seen from a long way off.
- Birds that appear to be standing on the water (as opposed to sitting in the water) will be perched on a kelp paddy or other floating debris.
- See a group of boats? When the fishing is a little scratchy, it is not unusual to find two, three, or more boats working a single paddy. When you see several vessels stopped fairly close together offshore, you should head over for a look. If they are fishing a kelp paddy, hail them on your radio and ask for permission to join them. If they decline, or you get no answer, move on. But keep in mind that the kelp paddy they’ve stopped on is likely to be lined up on a current break of some sort, so there may be other paddies nearby.
Mola mola can often be an indicator of a paddy
- Ocean sunfish are a peculiar-looking species known locally by their scientific name, Mola mola (or “Mola” for short). A Mola looks like the head of a giant fish, with rudder-like dorsal and anal fins jutting straight up and down on the very back end of the “head”. You will often see them cruising alone or in pairs in the open ocean, with their dorsal fins sticking out, and they will often be found near kelp paddies, being groomed of parasites by the small fish that live inside. A concentration of Mola fins in a relatively small area can be an indicator of a paddy. They will also somtimes breech like whales, which can be seen from quite a distance away.