How to find fish with the maps
The two navigators do the legwork: they score real spots for each fish from today's water, wind, tide and season, and tell you why. Here's how to use them to catch more fish, in about two minutes.
Inshore in 30 seconds
- Pick your fish and the hour in Best spots.
- Go to the green rings and read the Why.
- Pinpoint where to cast, add a mark, go.
Offshore in 30 seconds
- Set your port, then the fish, the day and your range.
- Open the top picks; check SST and color yourself.
- Add waypoints, check the fuel, send the GPX.
Inshore Navigator
Open the Inshore Navigator →Bays, passes and jetties from Sabine Lake to the Lower Laguna Madre: trout, redfish, bull reds, flounder, black drum and sheepshead.
- 1
Pick your bay
Pan the map or choose a bay system in the panel. The strip across the top is the wind, tide and water at the nearest port right now, so you know what the fish are dealing with before you look at a single spot.
- 2
Choose your fish and your hour
In Best spots now, tap the fish you're after, or Best of all to see which fish each spot is best for. Then pick when you'll be there: Now, 6 Hours Later, Next Morning, or drag the slider to the hour you launch. Every score on the map follows that hour's forecast wind, tide and light.
- 3
Go where the rings are green
Each marker is a real spot. The letter is the fish; the ring is the rating: green Excellent, lime Good, amber Fair. Set Show to "Good and better" to clear the clutter, and use Top picks: tap one and the map flies there with its card open.
- 4
Read why it scores
The card gives the score and the reasons: ▲ helps, ▼ hurts. Tide direction, wind on that shoreline, water temperature for the season, salinity, fronts, recent guide reports and decades of state survey nets all count. Below that: the conditions at your hour and a local tip. Trust a spot when its reasons match what you see on the water.
- 5
Pinpoint where to cast
Zoom in close, or tap ◎ Pinpoint best positions in a card. Numbered pins 1–3 mark the exact best positions on the structure: which end of the jetty, which reef edge, the grass line, the drop-off. Tap a pin for why and how to fish it.
- 6
Mark it and go
+ Add mark saves a spot (it stays on this device). Locate me shows where you are on the water and can mark it. Download GPX sends your marks to a GPS or phone chart app.
Six ways to catch more inshore
Be there when the water moves
Moving water feeds fish. Every card says when the tide turns: be set up before the water starts moving, and when it goes slack, run to a spot that still has current, like a pass or a drain.
Hide from the wind
On a windy day, look for "Protected from the … wind: cleaner water" in the Why lines and skip spots marked "blown out and muddy". Turn on Wind arrows to see which shorelines are in the lee.
Find clean water
Under Bottom & imagery, pick Satellite 30 m to see clear and muddy water from the latest clean satellite pass. Fish the clean side of a mud line.
Fish the edges of structure
Turn on Oyster reefs, Seagrass and Depth contours around a good pick. Fish gather where shell or grass meets deeper water, and along guts and drop-offs.
Lean on 38 years of survey nets
Survey catch shows where Texas Parks and Wildlife's gill nets caught more (red) or fewer (blue) fish than the bay average, spring and fall, since 1982. Red dots near a good pick are a strong second opinion.
Follow the salt after rain
After big rains, trout and reds slide toward saltier water near the passes. The Salinity layer shows where the fresh water is.
Each fish has its own pattern through the year: speckled trout, redfish, bull redfish, flounder, black drum, sheepshead. Each guide's "Best spots right now" button opens the map with that fish already picked.
Offshore Navigator
Open the Offshore Navigator →The Texas Gulf from the beachfront to the deep: snapper and amberjack on structure, kingfish, mahi, wahoo, sailfish, marlin and swordfish.
- 1
Set your home port
Run distances, range rings, fuel and Best spots are measured from the jetties you leave from. Pick yours once; it's remembered on this device.
- 2
Pick a fish, a day and a range
In Best spots now, choose the species (or Best of all), then Now, Tomorrow or Day After (each at dawn, from the forecast), and a Range your boat and fuel can really do.
- 3
Start with the top picks
Top picks lists each species' best spot in range. Tap one: the card gives the score, the run from your port, and why: temperature breaks, blue-water edges, warm and cold eddies, weed lines, bottom relief, depth and current.
- 4
Check the water yourself
Switch the Satellite layer: SST for temperature breaks, Chlorophyll for the green-to-blue edge, Altimetry for eddies, Seaweed for Sargassum. Clouds leave gaps: use Date to step back to the newest clear day.
- 5
Add the structure
Overlays add rigs and platforms, natural banks, artificial reefs and wrecks for bottom fish, and Survey biomass for where federal trawls find more red snapper and vermilion. Temperature breaks and Color change draw the edges for you.
- 6
Plan the run
Tap + Add waypoint on a pick or anywhere on the map. The Trip planner adds up distance, run time and fuel at your speed and burn; Download GPX loads the route into your plotter.
Five ways to catch more offshore
Stack the edges
The best blue-water spots have two or three things at once: a temperature break, the blue-water edge and weed. Turn on Temperature breaks and Color change together and look where they meet a pick.
Use the newest clear picture
Breaks and eddy edges move from day to day. If today's SST is clouded over, step the Date back a day and treat the lines as approximate; the scores already use the freshest data.
Bottom fish live on structure
For snapper, amberjack and grouper, picks on rigs and natural banks beat open bottom. Survey biomass shows where federal trawls find more snapper at the same depth.
Plan tomorrow tonight, check it at dawn
Tomorrow and Day After come from the forecast. Look again the morning you leave: a shifted break or a new weed line can move the picks.
Keep the run realistic
Set Range to what you'll really run, put your speed and fuel burn in the Trip planner, and check the Wind overlay and Gulf seas on Conditions for the ride.
Going for the big ones? Read the marlin and sailfish guide and the wahoo guide.
Scores compare spots; they don't promise a catch. They're built from Texas guide and TPWD rules of thumb, live NOAA data and decades of state and federal surveys, and they update through the day as new readings come in. For how every rating on the site is read, see How to use this site.