Interview with Jeff Gammon of Terrafin
Where did the name Terrafin come
from? “Terrafin” was
the name of our boat, at the time we had a 20’ Grady.
When we started the business, we were searching for a suitable
name, and it seemed appropriate. The name originally came
from a combination of the words “Terra” meaning
land or earth, and “fin” which is Spanish for “end”.
How did you get where you are today,
what’s your
background? Prior to starting Terrafin Software, I
had worked for the
last 10 years developing software for a company that
specialized in Travel Industry applications. At the time
I left there
I was Vice President of Development. A pretty nice
job actually, but I never could quite put up with all
the
corporate BS,
so it tended to be a constant battle.
With all of the chart updates are you able to fish
much? Not
nearly enough, although I suspect we all have that
problem! The last couple of years were difficult, our fishing trips
were kept relatively short, so that I could be back
in time to update the charts. This year, I have a full time person
helping with creating the charts, so I’ll get
some of my life back. Our new boat is a 28’ Bertram,
slipped down at Harbor Island, so we’re looking
forward to a great year of offshore fishing.
How about a brief bio on Terrafin We
started Terrafin Software in 1996, our initial product
was the FISHbase angler’s
log software. Based on user feedback we soon thereafter
came out with the SHIPshape software, focusing on the
vessel side
of things, and at the same time we offered a combo
package called FISHbase Deluxe. We started the SST
service in
2000, initially offering only a few SoCal regions.
Our focus
the last few years has been on growing and enhancing
the Terrafin
SST products.
Where did you get idea for SST? Initially I was just
trying to enhance some existing free SST’s to
make them useful for my own fishing. The first charts
were
rough, and took way too long to create, but they definitely
helped
our offshore fishing success. We started working on
ways to improve the charts and reduce the processing
time,
and the current charts just evolved over time.
Can you take us through the process? We start with raw data
from the NOAA Polar Orbiting satellites (POES). We start
by using state of the art Satellite Imaging software to process
the binary satellite data, the result of this first processing
step is a greyscale picture of the specific area. Here’s
an example:
Next is a very important step, re- navigating
the data to ensure accurate coastline placement. Sometimes
the initial
shot is fine, but more often some work is required to ensure
that the coastlines and lat/lon grids are placed accurately.
Here’s an example of a clip from the initial shot,
it’s out of alignment by a few kilometers:
Here’s the same area, after some correction:
Once the area is properly aligned, we can continue
with the next step in the process, which is to apply the
appropriate formulas to calculate the water temperatures,
and at the same time determining which areas are actually
clouds, and marking those areas as “bad”.
Next, we pass this data to our proprietary software system,
which is used to create enlarged images of specifc local
areas, calculating the best temperature range for that area
to help emphasize the temperature breaks, then colorizing
the image based on the selected range. Then we overlay a
lat/lon grid for the region, finally adding local reference
points and bottom contours to the chart. The last step is
to update our web pages and various indexes, and upload the
new charts and pages to our website. Then, we move on to
the next region. When the entire country is completed, we
take a breather for a few hours, and then it’s about
time to start working on the evening update!
How should we use the Sea Temp
charts, what should we look for? That really depends on the species in question
and the area, but I’ll answer it based on SoCal offshore
fishing. In general, what we’re looking for out there
are the “edges”, or “breaks”, where
the warm currents and the cooler water meet. The cool water
upwelling along these edges brings nutrient rich water to
the surface, attracting baitfish, which in turn (we hope!)
attracts the game fish. It’s still a hunt – you
need to find the bait and the life, then hopefully you’ll
find the fish. The key is to focus your time and efforts
in a productive area, and following the edges of the breaks
can help you do that. It’s a big ocean out there, and
just wandering from bank to bank with lines in the water
is not a real productive way to find fish.
Another type of offshore fishing that people often don’t
think about using the charts for, is paddy hopping. Most
of the paddies will end up stacked up along some current
break, so following the edges on the charts will generally
help you to find many more paddies than just aimlessly wandering
around.
What are your area’s of coverage? We now have
over 100 different regions that cover the entire continental
US, from Washington State to California, Texas to Florida,
Florida to Maine. We also cover most of the Pacific side
of the Baja peninsula, all of the Sea of Cortez, and the
Mexico west coast as far south as Acapulco.
What the biggest challenge you have
in providing this service? Clouds!
Even though all of our subscribers know that we can’t
get any readings through the clouds, it’s still frustrating
for them and us, especially when the fish are out there.
Are there any new products or services
on the drawing board that you can talk about? Always, otherwise it gets boring.
We’ve added a few new regions lately, on the Mexico
mainland we added two new regions, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo and
Acapulco. We also just started coverage of some of the offshore
islands off Baja, we have charts for the Alijos Rocks, Clarion
Island and the Revillagigedos. Of course a week after we
started the coverage, the Revillas were declared off-limits
for fishing. We’re still processing them for now, but
if the policy doesn’t change soon we may drop those
areas. We’ve also started adding a few slightly more
zoomed in regions. The first is called “San Diego Local
Banks”. Here’s a link to a sample shot:
http://www.terrafin.com/sstview/samples/smpsdzoom.htm
Over the next month or so we plan to add
a few more regions set at about this same scale. Some will
be from the local
areas here, but some will also be from the East Coast,
The local banks off New York / New Jersey, and the Hudson Canyon
area.
Beyond the new regions, we’re continuing to work
on an optional software product that will work with the
charts.
It will cost a little more, but for those that need the
additional control it should be a very nice addition. Instead
of just
grabbing the completed charts off our website, users of
the software will download the data from our site. Then,
using
the software, they will be able to create the charts, zoom
in on areas, move the cursor around for the exact lat/lon/temp,
etc. I expect this system to be released around the first
of the year.
Nomad: Thanks to Jeff Gammon for his interview
and insight into his temperature charting service. I use
Terrafin's service
for each trip and it's become part of developing my game
plan for my day on the water.
Be sure and visit the Terrafin home page for more information
on this valuable tool for the private boater.
Charlie W. / "Nomad"
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