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Random Quote: You can live on your boat but you can't fish in your house........JUST BUY IT....
Does anyone have any experience with these charts? The price seems fairly reasonable if you are fishing a lot. Way cheeper than Roff's. I would love to hear any feedback regarding Hilton's. Thinking about giving them a try this year.
Thanks in advance.
I use them in South Louisiana, where there are multiple rigs within running distance, and so far, I love em. Tell you depth, coordinates, ect. Also, able to see bottom structure without having to slow troll looking for you spot, definately worth the $30.
Hiltons charts are the best bang for the buck. Tom has put together a great site. I have been hooked on them since I first registered. Best thing about them is you can look at archives- meaning if you had a great trip last year pull the conditions for that day and try and match those conditions to your current conditions. These charts have proven very accurate for me. Water condition are + or - a few miles some days. You can also animate the chloro shots so you can patern water movement.
Howdy,
Tom Hilton here - I hope this not considered spam, as I am simple responding to an inquiry about our service, and showing the difference of the imagery from an alternate service that was shown on this thread.
The sea temp imagery that we offer is actually one of the strongest features of our site...we give YOU the ability to "tweak" the imagery based on YOUR specs. We do not process the imagery with multiple images to make a pretty picture - what you see is what you get...if there are clouds, there is no data. If there is data, you KNOW that is what was happening at the time of that shot. We get usually about 6 or so images per day so usually there is at least one image with data in the area you are interested.
Enclosed are 2 versions of the same sea temp shot this morning. In the first image, the colors are based on a 40-78 degree temp range - the broader your temp range, the more diffuse the data. The second image shows a refinement - I told the computer that the ONLY water that I want to look at is 60-78 degrees - you can see how much clearer this 2nd shot is relative to the temp breaks. I have made Carolina Beach Inlet as the starting point on this 2nd image, and the Nav Tool is situated on a 5 degree temp break that has been sharpened substantially by this "tweak".
Also, I have enclosed a water color shot from last night (we only get one shot per day). You can see that you need to go at least 52 NM to get out of the green water. You can see the variations in the blue water as well, once you get out to it.
Lastly, as the gentleman mentioned, we are providing and open-ended database...when an image hits our server, we don't let go of it. The images are stored for our subscribers to access at their leisure...say if you fish the same tournament each year, you will have an idea where the fish were caught at last year's tournament...pull up the images from the tournament fishing days last year and look at what was happening in the areas where fish were caught. Look at today's imagery and look for similar conditions - it's a GREAT learning tool.
All the best,
Tom
__________________ Get the Edge - Realtime-Navigator.com
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We have been using Hilton's Realtime Navigator for several years and utilize the coverage for all of our kingfishing areas. NC, SC, GA, FL, AL and LA. It is a great system giving the angler the ability to look at the water temp, altimetry, color and several other variables. It is THE BEST system we have suscribed to. We also have several of Hilton's offshore atlases and love them as well. Tom is giving several tutorial seminars at the Miami boat show for those interested.....
The reason I like oceantemp is the structure and contours are accurately represented on the chart. When chasing tuna, what are the best odds for finding them....gulf stream eddie over the 100 fa curve. Oceantemp clearly shows where the 100 fa curve is as well as 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 500, 1000. When I see an eddie approaching the 100 fa curve that is in range of my fishing grounds, then I put together a tuna plan. To find the 100 fa curve on Hilton's offshore, I either have to guess where it is or extract the lat/long, then go to another chart that has the 100 fa curve represented.
Tom, if you could simply put the structure on your charts, I would likely resubscribe.
Maybe you could record your tutorial and post it on you tube. I am interested in your service as well. You know if you gave people a free analysis it may be like crack to them. Sorta like the razor compainies. Give em the razor, sell em the high priced blades.
I'd be interested to see what the service in zones 8/9 is like. I really don't want to have to suscribe to find out.
The trial period is a very good idea btw. Other services will allow free access until the offshore season opens up here (I think they lock it down mid april). The NE canyon season isn't usually active then, so you really aren't giving away anything except familiarity. If that's a good thing, it's worth a shot.
__________________
Terry Jason 35, Yanmar 370 hp, Lots of fun at a leisurely pace
In the gulf regions Hiltons has a 3D bathy. Super defined, but it doesnt look anything like a regular bathy chart. No lines just a really clear picture of the bottom depths shown by varying shades of color.
Outstanding Tom, thanks for the response. Oceantemp will lose a customer once you do that. FYI...The contours on the oceantemp shot above is very close to my navionics gold chip which is very accurate.
Hilton's offshore Charts... any good? 
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