It can sound weird but a comprehensive knowledge on tides and their
effect on your fishing area can actually pay big dividends. In fact, it
is considered to be one key to being successful in the realm of deep
sea fishing, by the experts. A lot of fishing guides and charter-boat
captains know this secret. They even make close studies on currents,
tides, and how they would affect fishing on their areas.
It can sound weird but a comprehensive knowledge on tides and their effect on your fishing area can actually pay big dividends. In fact, it is considered to be one key to being successful in the realm of deep sea fishing, by the experts. A lot of fishing guides and charter-boat captains know this secret. They even make close studies on currents, tides, and how they would affect fishing on their areas.
The Unknown Secret
However, sad to say, that a lot of informal deep sea anglers actually pay very little attention to such important details. In fact, some anglers don抰 pay attention at all! And then they would wonder how come the other guy catches all the fish and they don't. Nevertheless, there are still those who realize that somehow tides can affect their fishing. However, they do not know exactly how and why this happens.
These anglers usually waste their precious hours trolling, casting and sinker bouncing even when the tide is not right. However, the deep sea angler who knows his tides could pick in advanced the most favourable fishing periods and concentrate on his efforts during those times. This simply means you can have less of those wasted days and get more fish on your deep sea fishing trips.
Getting Started
You don抰 have to delve into tide抯 science here, except to point out that tides are due to the gravitational forces that are brought about the sun and moon. Since the moon is nearer earth, it has greater influence with tides than the sun.
Types Of Tides
Every time the tide is up, water would move towards land, which is also known as "flood tide". On occasions that tides drop, moving its way back to sea, is called "ebb tide". The period in which it doesn抰 move either way is termed as the "slack tide". It usually takes a period of 6 hours for it to rise, and 6 to get low. For every 24 hours these tides occur 50 minutes later than the last, approximately.
Variations
They also vary in regards to the degrees that they drop or rise. The highest tides occur when the sun and moon are situated on Earth抯 same side, creating a direct line. Such kind of tide is called "spring tide", which occur during new-moon and full-moon periods.
During these times, both low and high tides are higher than their usual state. However, during the last and first quarter phases of the moon, tides don抰 fall or rise or fall that much. This is called as "neap tides".
Which Is Which
So which of theses tides are helpful and which are not? To start off, most experts believe that moving tides or currents are most of the time more productive than having no currents or tides. Thus, a "slack" tide would rarely produce good catch.
Using The Tides At The Right Time
You can take advantage of tides even more by knowing when to go. The period in which an incoming tide starts is considered to be one of the productive periods for fishing, especially if you are targeting for gamesters like bluefish, striped bass, channel bass, and weakfish.
During the periods of slack water, the small bait fishes tend to scatter, and having a lack of strong currents they are able to swim faster and escape their predators.
However, when tides start moving, such small bait fishes are at the strong rips and current抯 mercy. Thus, they are easier to catch and find by stripers and other kinds of game fish. When an outgoing tide starts is yet another good time do fish, simply for the same logic. In general, the popular change of tide, whether it be low or high, is actually the best time to do your fishing.
