Read The Ocean
Tides,
Moon, and the Moveable Feast.
by Ed
Jaworowski
 Locating fish in the ocean
constitutes the angler's first order of business,
surpassing tackle choice, fly selection or technique in
importance. Fly anglers in particular, because of the
limited effective range of their tackle, need all the
help they can get to improve their odds in a seemingly
endless sea, shore based anglers even more so. Several
facts compound an already difficult chore.
First, most ocean game fish don't
have homes. Their movements are largely determined by the
movement of the food supply and tides. Second, their
habits are greatly affected by the physical makeup of the
areas in which they feed. This primer will remove some of
the mysteries of tides and structure. Reading the ocean,
like reading a trout stream, is an indispensable skill
and a first requirement for the salt water angler.
Tides represent the single biggest
difference between fresh and salt water fishing. Though
game fish may temporarily take up residence around
structure---inlets, seawalls, rock jetties, sand bars and
the like---they will invariably move on with the next
tide, following migrating food forms which also obey
tidal influences. Any angler who hopes to score with an
consistency in the salt must have at least a rudimentary
knowledge of the way tides work. However subtle, tidal
movements establish what amount to the equivalent of
fresh water rivers. Here are some of the basics and
suggestions on how to fit it all into your fishing.
The gravitational pulls of the moon
and, to a lesser degree, the sun, cause ocean waters to
move, building higher in some areas while getting lower
in others. As a rule, a section of coast will experience
two high tides and two low tides in each 24-25 hour
period. A low will follow a high every six to six and
one-half hours. Each day the highs and lows will
therefore occur about an hour later than the previous
day. This also means that at a given time and day each
week, the tide will be nearly the exact opposite from
what it was the previous week. If you had good fishing on
the incoming tide on Saturday morning at daybreak,
remember that you will have the opposite tide the
following Saturday at the same time.
During different times of the month
tides also vary. When the new moon (the darkest time of
the month) and the full moon occur, expect the highest
highs and lowest lows. Such tides are called "spring
tides". It means during the six hours of tidal flow
between the highs and lows you will note faster flows and
stronger pulls. During the first and last quarters of the
moon the tides are weaker, current flows slower and
differences less great---lower highs and higher lows.
Such tides are called "neap (or nip) tides".
Here's a typical scenario. If the
new moon occurs on the 1st of the month and the full moon
about two weeks later, on the 15th, you will experience
the highest and lowest tides and strongest pulls at those
times of the month (stronger over the full moon). During
the week preceding each of those phenomena tides wax
stronger, waning each successive day following. During
the weeks of the first and last quarters (approximately
the 8th and 22nd) the tides will be gentler. Also, on any
given day, if a high tide occurs at 6:00 a.m., expect the
next low around noon and the next high 6-7:00 p.m.
The change of water level from high
to low will also vary with geographic locale. Consider
the Atlantic coast. On Florida flats, only a few inches
may separate low tide from high tide, particularly during
the neap tide periods. On the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia,
on the other hand, there may be more than a 25'
difference; the flooding tide comes in so quickly that a
man walking rapidly can't outpace it. Mid- Atlantic
coastal states commonly show four to six foot tidal
variations. As a rule, tide variations are less closer to
the equator.
Tide tables are approximations
based upon a couple of dozen factors, in addition to time
of month, time of day and moon phase, and changes in some
of these may alter the predicted times. Other
contributing factors affecting fish behavior are wind,
weather, light intensity, bait availability, barometric
pressure, currents. The wind is one of the strongest. A
strong and persistent wind following the waves can make a
high tide occur much earlier than predicted and reach
much higher onto the shore. Obviously, when blowing
against the tide, it can have the opposite results,
actually holding the ocean back. I've seen 150 yds. of a
New Jersey beach exposed when it should have been under a
few feet of water, totally because of a strong northwest
wind.
Changes in atmospheric pressure
will affect the water. Low barometric pressure will allow
the surf to rise higher and develop more violent wave
action. We've all seen what happens to the ocean during a
hurricane, a period of very low barometric pressure.
All this data may seem confusing to
the newcomer to salt water fishing but it's really no
more so than learning about fresh water insect hatches or
differences in fly dressings. On the other hand,
knowledge of tides can be more important than either of
those concerns; if you fish where there is no water or
can't get the feeding grounds, you're not apt to catch
many fish.
Here is a random list of additional
ideas for the angler to consider.
-When you plan to fish an
area, consider how the tide will affect the water there.
During times of strong tidal flow, bait will be caught
and forced to collect in rips around jetties and inlets;
the bait can't swim against the flow.
-During spring tides, high waters
will flood grass beds in the bays and tear loose a lot of
eel grass and other vegetation. The effect is less during
neap tide periods. Grass build up is generally also
greater the closer you fish to an inlet.
-One change of tide can dirty the
water or can clear a surf, by bringing or removing grass
or cloudy water.
-Usually, more white water tends to
develop when the tide is dropping. It tends to disappear
on a rising tide.
-My experience has been that tides
are less a factor when fishing farther from shore.
Inshore, moving water, whether incoming or outgoing, is
nearly always superior to the static water you get at
flood or ebb tide. A moving tide tends to concentrate
bait; static water allows it to disperse.
-Great changes in water temperature
can effect fishing. If deeper offshore water is cooler, a
strong tide may move it inshore, displacing the shallower
warmer water and turn fish off.
-Know the contour of the beach you
fish. When the tide drops, game fish will make every
effort to get out to deeper water rather than risk being
cut off by a sand bar. If the bar is a hundred yards from
shore, the fish will be out of range at low tide. If you
can't wade to the bar, plan on fishing the area closer to
shore at higher tide, when the fish can get over the bar.
-Note that the times of the highs
and lows along the coast will be approximately the same
along the beach for many miles. Back on the bays,
estuaries and creeks, however, tides may be two, three or
four hours different. Tide tables will tell you how to
make the necessary adjustments. Get a tide table for the
area you are considering fishing. Bait and tackle shops
will carry them. You can also consult local newspapers.
Learn how to read the tables and consider them a basic
part of your equipment.
As with tides, learning to read
structure will increase your odds dramatically. Even when
the arrival of bait and favorable tides indicate the
likelihood of game fish in the area, narrowing the
possible spots demands some skill in recognizing
structure and understanding why some spots are more
likely to be productive than others.
Like fresh water bass, stripers
gravitate to rocks, weeds, bars. Bluefish often feed
close to underwater lumps, ridges or wrecks. Snook hide
among mangroves, weakfish seek out bottom depressions or
jetties and false albacore like rips and strong flows.
All these game fish regularly position themselves where
structure will concentrate food, making it easy to
locate, ambush or trap. Just what constitutes structure?
Basically any bottom formation or contour like a sand bar
or drop-off, rocks, wrecks, bridge and pier pilings,
weeds, even waves. Structure may be natural or
artificial, temporary or permanent.
 One of the most obvious forms of
structure is the jetty or groin, usually a man-made,
rocky finger jutting out from the beach. Jetties cause
waves to break, loosening shellfish and organisms on
which the fish feed. They also provide places for forage
fish to hide as well as causing and directing currents.
The biggest mistake you can make when fishing from
jetties is to cast out and away. Nearly all feeding takes
place close to and among the rocks. Cast parallel to the
rocks and smack your offerings down right in the foaming
water. Rubber headed Siliclone flies are especially
deadly in this situation.
All kinds of pilings also give
shelter to bait. Some are best fished from a boat and
most produce best at night, so scout out your spots at
day. It's amazing how bold fish become in the dark,
swimming around boat docks and harbors they would never
approach in daylight. Look for older pilings, as new
piers and docks haven't yet developed incrustations that
provide food for the chain. White perch, weakfish and
stripers particularly like docks, piers and bridges. At
night, they lie on the edge of the shadows and assault
bait attracted to lights shining on the water. You are
very apt to see and hear surface activity then. I've
taken scores of small stripers all around the piers and
terminals in New York Harbor, the East River and the
Brooklyn waterfront!
Many back bays are marked by sod
banks, grass covered islands and cut-outs of land laced
by narrow streams. Fish take up position any place a
smaller flow dumps water into a larger area. If you can
walk the sod banks (some are mucky and nearly impossible
to walk), stay back from the edge. Not only might it give
way, you could spook the fish, which like to hang under
the overhang and rush out to snatch bait. A small boat,
even a car-topper with a small outboard is adequate to
fish among the sod banks in many areas. Nautical charts
of the areas you plan to fish provide invaluable
assistance in locating channels, holes and dropoffs and
bars.
Some ocean front structure is
obvious. Reading other forms requires more experience.
Look first at the contour of the beach. Is it pretty
straight, north-south, or scalloped out with indentations
and cuts? Straighter beaches generally don't attract bait
so well. They have fewer points to obstruct wave flow and
form holes and pockets, thus fewer ambush points. Storms
and heavy wave action may create new holes and sand
bars---or destroy them. Routinely check out and explore
the beaches you want to fish. They can change in short
order. Also take note of the slope of the beach. Flatter
beaches have less bottom structure, hence less cover for
fish. Steeper beaches allow bait to move closer to the
shore.
 Bars running parallel to the beach
commonly draw fish, yet some provide great fishing on the
inshore side, while others are fishless. The difference
usually depends on breaks in the bar. If you see white
water breaking over a bar within 100 or 200 yards of the
shore, forming a deep trough close to the beach, check to
see if there are any cuts (marked by darker colored
water) through which fish can get back to the safety of
deeper water. Without such cuts, fish have little
opportunity to get over the bar, usually only for the
brief periods of high water and then generally only at
night. On the other hand, fish will stay and feed in deep
troughs close to the beach right through low water, so
long as they have the opportunity to get back beyond the
bar through a cut or channel.
Thick weed masses also serve as
structure. They form slack pockets in the current where
bait can hide and fish can feed, just like weed beds in a
smallmouth stream. A drift over a bay or ocean bottom
with an electronic depth finder/fish locator is a real
eye opener. Fish will register in the tiniest of pockets
or holes, more so if they can hide behind vegetation
anchored to the bottom. However, even clear bottoms can
hide fish in depressions; waves and currents flow over
them.
 Finally, waves themselves sometimes
represent a form of structure. Surf turbulence can
conceal game fish stalking forage. An understanding of
how wave action works shows how this can be so. As a wave
moves toward the shore, the water particles swirl down
and back up in a circular path, equal in diameter to the
height of the wave. For example, as a three foot wave
moves toward the shore, the water particles near the
surface go down and around in a three foot clockwise
pattern, nearly returning to their starting position as
the wave itself rolls along. Sand particles, grass and
other suspended matter are also moved around by this
turbulence. A striped bass can readily move into striking
range concealed by this mass of confusion and visual
disturbance. Incidentally, you can estimate the depth of
water on a bar over which a wave breaks. Normally a wave
breaks when it reaches a depth equal to its own height up
to one and a half times its height. Thus, a four-foot
wave will break when it runs into bottom interference
four to six feet down. The most effective way to fish a
turbulent surf is to let your fly wash around on a
semi-slack line, simulating the naturals which lose much
their ability to swim in the strong currents.
Reading an ocean is fascinating and
challenging. As with all fishing, the more you understand
the environment in which the fish feed, in the long run,
the more fun you will have and the more successful you
will be.
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