Use the Web to Your Advantage
Before heading to the Otherside, do yourself a favor and keep a close eye on the location of the Gulf Stream several days in advance of your trip. Locating the eastern edge of the stream is crucial for gauging your fuel requirements and finding the fast-moving pelagics in this area, but that can be challenging since the stream fluctuates in and out. To stack the odds in your favor, monitor the many websites that display ocean-condition data from NOAA satellites.
 
Some of these sites, such as www.sstcharts.com, are free. Others, like Hilton's Realtime Navigator (www.realtime-navigator.com), charge a fee but offer terrific, interactive color charts and maps overlaid with oceanic conditions such as sea-surface temperatures, chlorophyll and altimetry levels.
 
The Otherside — along with its many fish-holding eddies and pockets — can usually be pinpointed with relative ease by locating these boundary edges and determining where favorable conditions overlap each other. That's where you'll find bait, birds, floating structure and all the game fish.