Using Commercial Fishing & AIS To Find New Fishing Grounds

Commercial fisherman have a wealth of knowledge gained over many many years and they make there living from the sea. We us as recreational anglers can use this our advantage both in person and also with the help of apps like Marine Traffic and AIS.
I have been using this for the last couple of years to mark our little patches of ground off the beaten track from normal angling marks to good affect and I'm sharing it with you today.
I hope it's off use to you all and adds something extra to your fishing and puts you on some nice fish.
Ben
The Amputee Angler

[@davepoultney4719]

I’ve used marine traffic for years. Both as a boat geek. A map geek and as an NCI watch keeper. I never knew you could do this! Game changer!!

[@theamputeeangler]

I was so buzzing when I discovered this feature 😂

[@Brian-mb9ez]

Hi Ben, thanks for sharing this information, I can’t wait to get into it for my area. Will definitely update you when my baby is back in the water after her spring clean and service. Hopefully this will open plenty of new marks. Thanks again

[@theamputeeangler]

You’re welcome mate I’m glad you enjoyed and let me know if you get any success 👌🏻

[@Roberto-et2tb]

Very interesting Ben, wish that would work over here (Lanzarote)

[@richardgould240]

Thanks for sharing Ben, only had navioncs for a year still learning how to get the most out of it. Definitely going to have a look at Marine Traffic.

[@StephenBurfield]

Thanks Ben, great tip. Sadly my mate has just given up his boat so may not be able to use this for a while, love this sort of stuff though

[@johnnguyen3468]

Great tip mate, very useful info,

[@KristianSloth]

Great video. If you look at the density map for pleasure crafts you can tell where the other rod and reel guys are fishing. Of course there are a lot of sailboats and other stuff on the map view but it's pretty easy to see when people go straight out to a wreck and do multiple drifts over the wreck before moving on to the next :)

[@theamputeeangler]

Yeah thats another use there but many pleasure boats my way either don’t have AIS or switch it off when fishing as that’s certainly what I would be doing otherwise the games up for them 😂

[@KristianSloth]

Most pleasure boats don't have AIS here either but some of the "serious" guys do. And they only need to forget to turn off the AIS once to reveal their spots :) This density map trick was new to me but I just checked and I can easily see the wrecks I went to last weekend. Do you know if it's possible to zoom in more on the density map when using a computer instead of a phone?

[@theamputeeangler]

@KristianSloth I have known and used it quietly for a few years telling only one charter boat about it who Turbot fishes a lot but it had done me well. I haven’t ever used it on a computer just my phone so wouldn’t know but if it didn’t disappear that would make life even easier

[@KristianSloth]

I found a faq on the marinetraffic website that says it is not possible to zoom in more than on the phone. However the website has density maps from 2021 and 2022. On my phone I have maps from 2020 and 2021 so maybe worth a look if you want the newest map (still 2 years old though).

[@rolystaxi]

In and around the cs2 bouy was always banky, also NE of the Glenartney, think they used to call it the cathedral was very steep banks.

[@robertpaterson7311]

First time hearing about this. it is a shame you can not zoom in more. Do you take it any heavy traffic areas are potential fishing spots or could they be just well used travel routes ? Many thanks for sharing

[@theamputeeangler]

Hey Robert, as I do and show in the video mate I have here turned on “fishing vessels only” so all that is commercial activity 👌🏻

[@kinblanking]

You run a nice channel mate. Why put all Info out there? You mention how hard it is finding marks with navionics n Internet etc. Just making it worse.

[@theamputeeangler]

Cheers 🍻 The thing with giving this out is firstly 90% of folk won’t actually do anything with it they will just do what they’ve always done, With this it still requires tons of work to actually find what out of these is worth fishing and when and for most recreational the few times a month they go would take a life time to figure it all out anyways. Much like Navionics, it’s one thing knowing the info it’s another to know what to do with it if that makes sense?

[@MyNanoFish]

The success of many YT channels is down to the fact they are sharing knowledge. He discovered something useful and he is sharing it with other fishermen simply because it works for him, I love that. Same way he may say a particular kind of lure works well for certain fish. He’s right, many people may not bother but the info is there for those that do . Nice one Ben 🎣

[@pauljohnson8573]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge Ben. I use marine traffic on a daily basis due to nature of my job but would never of thought about using in conjunction with fishing. But as have been said you still gotta put in the miles 👍👍