FISH CATCHING TRAVEL

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Figuring out the tides.

(The information contained below has been compiled from multiple websites and postings.  It might make sense, it took me a while to digest it, but I hope it makes some sense to you.  This is the hardest question I have ever attempted to answer, hope it helps.)

What prompted this post was the following comment and question I got from Steve.

Good Morning Doug
OK Let’s talk tides. The more I think I know really becomes the less I know. So if its high tide at POC near the jetties at 7:00 am what time is high tide at Big Bayou, the Amy Hole or let’s say Keller Bay. Is there any way to guess about the lag times? I have noticed that the tide charts for Seadrift are a much as 10 hours behind POC and only a fraction of the water movement that POC has for the same tide. Somebody once told me that Indianola was 4 hours behind POC! I’ve noticed that fishing Big Bayou seems to be about 2 hours or more behind and the water moves on a falling tide in the opposite direction than I think it should. Falling tide flows into the narrow end. If I were to fish around First Chain Inland how would you attempt to know when high tide would happen, if high tide was 7:00am at POC. The wind and the effects on tides are for another day!
Thanks for any Help
Steve
Waco

Your question can be distilled down to one – How do I figure out when and where to be on the bay?  Once I thought about your question I realized I do not have a freakin’ clue how it all works together.  So after a ton of reading here is the best answer I can give you.  It is not rocket science, though it seems to be, but there is also a certain amount of voodoo involved so lets see if this makes sense.

When looking at your average tide chart there are highs and lows.  Basically tides are controlled by the moon, time of year, and a few other factors that are irrelevant for our use.  What is important, highs and lows have absolutely nothing to do with water movement.  They simply tell us highs and lows at a specific place.  In other words the times depicted are simply applicable to that monitoring station wherever it is.

So timing your bank selection based on hoped for water movement presents a real question that can be broken down into two parts.  Distance from the opening, big jetties in the POC area, and actual water movement times.  So lets look at the basics.  Tide times on our bay system are based on how far a location is from the jetties in our case, in other words where water enters the system.  The further you are from these openings the later the incoming and the earlier the outgoing.  Last to move in and first to start moving out.  So remember times have to be adjusted the closer you get to the opening, in our case the big jetties.

So lets look at a couple of examples.  Seadrift is a perfect example, it is a long way from the jetties so the tide is way later on the way in, and the water flow is not near as strong as it would be say at the Old Coast Guard Station.   To check I went to a site (see below) that is used by surfers for the 4th of October.  The high tide was projected at Pass Cavallo on the 4th at 8:27 pm.  Then I went to the Texas Tide Table website and checked POC and guess what?  High tide did not get there until 1:21 am on the 5th!  5 hours later.  That surprised the crap out of me.  So if you think about what your buddy told you it actually seems about right that the high in Indianola would be around 4 hours later than POC.

Try visualizing the bay system as the vessels that carry our blood in the human body.  You have the little skinny vessels (drains) way out  ending on your fingertips and toes that carry stuff in and out.  (the very end of the back bays and marsh as far away from the jetties as possible.)  As the vessels (drains, cuts, channels) merge they get bigger as they carry more water faster and faster.  As the small vessel (small drains and cuts) drain into the bigger vessels (channels like Big Bayou, Mitchell’s Cut, and a few others you might know) more water leaves the bay quicker.  They then join the big vessels leading to and from the heart, (the main flow leading in and out of the jetties) and then out the pass.  If you think about it that is why the tide may just be moving out slowly in the back lakes or marsh and later hauling booty near the jetties.

Sorry that is such a weird example but it leads to the answer to your questions as to when to be where.  The good thing there is a fairly simple answer.  (I hope)  It requires time on the water, and maybe a little record keeping, but there is a basic answer.  The basic answer is this – Once you learn the difference in the times from point to point, that ratio basically never changes.  As I fish I will now be watching several places now to be sure that is correct, but much of the stuff I read say this is the case.  We are not talking about crazy events or outside influences, we are simply talking about basic times.  If there is a 5 hour difference between Pass Cavallo and POC, and 4 hour difference between POC and Indianola, or a 10 hour difference to Seadrift, we can start to think about where and when the highs and lows, and water movement times, will be at a specific area.

If you have a map of the bay you can kind of start visualizing timing the water, it helps.  Start at POC and look all the way to Seadrift, if that is a 10 hour difference you can back track to POC and start making a somewhat educated guess as to where the water will be moving at specific place during that tidal period.  You can at least make a projection that can start as a baseline for learning where the water is moving and when related to the monitoring site.  Make sense?  So something so complicated can be reduced to simple deduction, and once we have ascertained the basic difference from any point in the bay to the monitoring station you use, we can start to really project just where we might want to be.  So once we start really paying attention, something I did not do in the past but will do now, we should be able to make a close projection as to whether we go here or there.

So while you digest that lets talk about the real important information not disclosed in some tide tables.  When you look at the Texas Tide Tables it is simply a numeric representation, high and low.  That tells us nothing about water movement, which is where the money is.  For me the best way to read that is on the graphs some sites use to represent water movement during the tidal period.  If you look at that representation it is usually a line that moves between the high and low tides.  The higher the variation in the line the bigger the tide.  So as you look at that line you are looking for a time with a variation in the line or sharper break up or down.  That is a good indication of the best time during the tide when and the water is moving the most.  That is opposed to a nice even line going up and down, with no sharp breaks, which is my nemesis, a flat tide.  A sharp drop or rise on the line between high and low is the best indicator of when the water is moving and the fish might be biting.  Here is where it seems to get a little more complicated.

Lets consider this example using the POC time.  If it looks like the water is going to haul ass at 9:30 about a third of the way through a tide, shown by a sharp up or down turn in the graph line.  That is when the water is moving and we need to be at our spot.  So a little simple math is in order to again make nothing more than a projection as to when you need to be where the best water movement is during the tide you are fishing.  So you still look at how far you are from POC when fishing, if you are using POC monitoring site times, to try to be somewhere on the best water movement.  So high tide and low tide are only the starting point.   Moving water is the ticket and we want to be there when it does.  So while the water may move at POC at 10am, it may not move until 8pm in Seadrift, or 2pm at Indianola.  So in my simple explanation of a really complicated subject is if you are halfway to Seadrift from POC you may want to be in that area at 3pm.  Experience at several places over time related to times will begin to add up, giving you the beginning of a baseline of when and where you want to be.

It is easy to tell when the tide is moving by simple signs like the way the grass is moving, or maybe the direction of mud from your wading. That is just a  simple way to guess whether the water is going in or out.  So in the perfect world we know we should either head towards the POC, the place we are using for tide times, or away from it.

And from my reading wind really does not play a real factor in high and low tides unless it is blowing a gale, the times are what they are.  The wind plays a more important role in locating fish during periods of slack tide.  If there is no water movement then the wind blowing on a bank can make all the difference.  So while the wind is rarely a real factor in tide times in our case, in the Baffin area which has no opening close, it can definitely be a major factor into your fishing day.  So if it is flat where you are look to the wind to provide the current, or make you guess and move.  Back to the basic rule on the bay, fish are more active with current no matter how it is generated.

To simplify this whole mess.  Be wherever the water is moving – end of story.  It will take some time to determine the where and when based on the tide monitoring station you use.  But once you figure out the basics time difference you can learn to be somewhere almost any day with a realistic expectation that the water will be moving there based on what time it is.

Wow!  As I re-read and edit this it seems so simple, or maybe I am just plain reading the information wrong.  But like all factors in fishing there are exceptions, differences, and gremlins.  But hopefully this helps you start to think about tides in an organized manner, which can put more fish on the stringer.  I know that this is highly simplified, but for most of us we are not interested in needing a fancy calculator to go fishing.  The most important thing is, if you can go fishing, go.  Most of us never have enough time on the water and we are stuck with whatever the tides and weather are.  But there is a way to increase the odds to our favor.   So only time will tell if this is the way to go, I know I am going to keep testing it out.

Thanks for your question.  Just reading all the stuff I did gave me a whole lot more knowledge on how I might maximize my fishing day.  Occasionally I make a big move and it works out perfect, other times not so much.  It is clear to me my moves were often willy-nilly with no real thought and I deserved the results.  No wonder, I was probably going the wrong way!

Now for the rest of you.  Does this make sense or is it full of crap?  Have anything to add to this?  Your feedback can lead me to other resources and opinions that will help expand this post.  After a while I will move this to the How-To page and update it with any new information that comes up.  I am no expert, nor do I claim this is the be all end all answer to using the tide to your benefit.  I would love to hear what any of you have to say, I want this to be the right answer that anyone can use.  So keep stopping in and thanks for reading my stuff.

Good Luck and Tight Lines

Resources:  There is a wealth of information on these sites.

http://www.saltwatertides.com/dynamic.dir/texassites.html

This site has lots of water flow info and other cool stuff.

http://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Port-Oconner/tides/latest

The one used by surfers it has ocean tide times for Pass Cavallo and other outside places.

http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/stationhome.html?id=8773701

http://www.tides4fishing.com/us/texas

The tide site I used most of the time.