Taylor Shropshire | FishCast | Ep. 998
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Meet the Guy Using AI to Help You Find Offshore Fish
If you’ve ever stared at an offshore chart wondering which direction to run, this episode is for you.
My guest today is Dr. Taylor Shropshire — Head of Ocean Analytics at Fathom Science and the lead developer of FishCast® powered by ROFFS®, an AI-driven fishing forecast that now runs directly on Simrad® multi-function displays through C-MAP® charts. Instead of just showing you pretty pictures of water temps and color, FishCast uses decades of ROFFS® fishing reports and high-resolution ocean models to highlight high-probability fishing zones in real time.
I’ve been guiding a long time. I came up in the era of notebooks, tide charts, and trying to remember what the wind and current were doing on that one magical day years ago. What Taylor and his team are doing feels like the “next layer” of that same process — just powered by some serious math and a lot more data.
In this episode, we talk about how FishCast works, what AI actually does behind the scenes, and how better ocean forecasting might change not only fishing… but also safety, hurricane tracking, and the way we make decisions on the water.
FishCast 101: Turning Ocean Data into a Fishing Forecast
Taylor starts by explaining what FishCast actually is.
Instead of a one-time satellite snapshot, FishCast gives anglers a 3-day ocean forecast in 3-hour increments. It runs as a subscription data layer on Simrad displays — you download the latest forecast at the dock through C-MAP, and then you’ve got a moving picture of what the water is going to do over the next three days.
FishCast currently focuses on:
Optimal Catch Location Map – a color-coded overlay that highlights high and low probability zones for big game fish like billfish, tuna, and wahoo
Sea Surface Temperature Forecast – not just where the temperature is today, but how it will move and change over time
Ocean Color/Chlorophyll Forecast – helping you track color changes, blue-green breaks, and frontal boundaries that often hold bait
Coverage includes the U.S. East Coast, Gulf of Mexico, and The Bahamas, with forecasts centered around specific inlets so you’re seeing what matters where you actually fish. C-MAP+1
The idea is simple: we’ve had weather forecasts for years… now FishCast is trying to give anglers a true water forecast.
From ROFFS® Reports to AI: Moneyball for Offshore Fishing
To really understand FishCast, you have to understand the partnership behind it.
For decades, ROFFS® (Roffer’s Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service) has been producing detailed offshore fishing reports using satellite imagery and expert oceanographic analysis. Captains would buy these reports to find the best combinations of temperature, color, and structure for a given day. ROFFS®+1
Taylor tells the story of asking ROFFS what they did with their old reports.
The answer: they were sitting on a hard drive.
So Fathom Science ingested thousands of historical ROFFS® reports and built models that looked at each recommended hotspot in space and time. They pulled:
Temperature
Currents
Salinity
Ocean color
Bottom depth
Tides
Sea surface height
Then they trained machine-learning models to recognize the combinations of conditions that historically led to good fishing.
Taylor compares it to Moneyball: instead of picking baseball players with a “gut feeling,” you let the stats show you what actually works. In this case, the “players” are offshore hotspots — and FishCast is scoring conditions based on how likely they are to hold fish.
AI vs Experience: Where the Line Really Is
One of my favorite parts of this conversation is when we get honest about AI and fishing.
Taylor is very clear: AI is not a silver bullet, and it’s not meant to replace time on the water.
He breaks offshore fishing down into three big steps:
Finding the fish
Having the right rigs and presentations in the water
Hooking and fighting the fish
AI and analytics help with step one — getting you into the right neighborhood. After that, it’s still about reading the signs, understanding how your boat drifts, knowing how a spread should look, and making decisions when things don’t go according to plan.
We talk about:
The danger of chasing “easy answers” vs using tools as decision support
How experienced captains can use FishCast as a sanity check against what they already know
Why beginners might first need time on the water before they fully appreciate what a tool like this can do
If you’ve ever been skeptical of AI in fishing, this is a grounded, honest discussion that doesn’t ignore the potential downsides — but also doesn’t ignore how powerful the upside can be when used correctly.
Inside the Ocean Models: Forecasting Water Like Weather
A big chunk of this episode goes nerdy (in a good way).
Before Fathom Science turned their models toward fishing, they were building ocean forecasts for ports, global shipping, and offshore energy platforms. They specialize in predicting currents, waves, and other ocean variables that really matter when big money and safety are on the line. Simrad USA+1
Taylor walks through:
How traditional ocean models are physics-based and extremely computationally expensive
How AI models can be trained on those physics-based forecasts and then run much faster, allowing you to generate many different forecast “scenarios”
Why clouds in satellite imagery are a huge problem, and how model output fills in the gaps so you’re not paying for a blank image
How far back the data goes (early 1990s) and why that long history matters when you’re trying to see real patterns
For most anglers, you’ll never see any of this complexity — you just see red and yellow patches on a chart that say: “Hey, you might want to check here first.” But behind the scenes, there’s a lot going on to make sure those colors actually mean something.
From Fishing to Hurricanes: Where This All Might Be Going
We start in offshore fishing… and end up talking about hurricanes, safety, and quantum computing.
If you’ve been in Florida or along the Gulf Coast the last few years, you know how much better (and sometimes scarier) hurricane tracking has become. Taylor and I talk about:
How improved models and cloud computing have already changed short-term weather and ocean forecasts
Why better data and more computing power will likely keep improving hurricane track accuracy
How offshore tools like FishCast are a small piece of a much bigger puzzle in understanding the ocean in real time
Some of the risks of relying too much on any model — and why human judgment still matters
We also touch on the future of computing, including quantum, and what it might mean when you can run insanely complex ocean and weather models in a fraction of the time.
Again, the through-line is simple: better forecasts = better decisions, whether you’re trying to win a tournament, keep a boss happy on a day trip, or get your family safely out of the way of a storm.
How to Try FishCast on Your Own Boat
If you run Simrad® electronics and C-MAP® charts, you can try FishCast directly on your MFD.
Taylor explains that you:
Need a Simrad display running the latest NEON™ software
Can subscribe to FishCast for a week, a month, or a year, depending on how you want to test it
Download the forecast through Wi-Fi at the dock, then head offshore with three days of 3-hour forecasts already stored on your unit C-MAP+1
You can choose your inlet and get coverage out to roughly 120 nautical miles, with analytics tuned to that local region.
If you’ve ever wanted to “peek behind the curtain” of what the ocean is doing before you burn the fuel, this is a pretty interesting way to do it.
If you have questions or suggestions for the show you can text Tom at 1 305-930-7346 or contact Tom through email: Podcast@saltwaterexperience.com
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