BigBendFishing.Net

Well I have lived on a lake nearly my entire life, and have never really had to be concerned about tides. I do fish the bay Destin and Gulf Shores out of my Kayak every year and have never really given any thought to tides there either. I have been reading on here and there is a lot of mention about tides. Maybe this is something I should care about. I take it I should be fishing the tides but can someone give a little more detail?

Here is the tide for Rattlesnake Cover for tomorrow morning as an example:

2012-07-12 06:47 EDT Sunrise
2012-07-12 09:45 EDT 2.11 feet High Tide
2012-07-12 15:20 EDT Moonset
2012-07-12 18:15 EDT 0.51 feet Low Tide
2012-07-12 20:41 EDT Sunset

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What I get from that is that the water level is going to raise by 2.11 feet by 945am, and it will be .51 feet lower at 615pm. Is that correct? Is there some kind of base line? Say the normal water level is 1' and at 945am the water level will be 3.11' and at 615pm the water level will be .49' ?

Any help would be great. Or should I just get in my kayak and fish?

For me, the larger the difference between the tides is more important than the actual tide "lots of water movement". That being said, I generally catch more in the last hour or two of the rise

Haveuseen1? wrote:Well I have lived on a lake nearly my entire life, and have never really had to be concerned about tides. I do fish the bay Destin and Gulf Shores out of my Kayak every year and have never really given any thought to tides there either. I have been reading on here and there is a lot of mention about tides. Maybe this is something I should care about. I take it I should be fishing the tides but can someone give a little more detail?

Here is the tide for Rattlesnake Cover for tomorrow morning as an example:

2012-07-12 06:47 EDT Sunrise
2012-07-12 09:45 EDT 2.11 feet High Tide
2012-07-12 15:20 EDT Moonset
2012-07-12 18:15 EDT 0.51 feet Low Tide
2012-07-12 20:41 EDT Sunset

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What I get from that is that the water level is going to raise by 2.11 feet by 945am, and it will be .51 feet lower at 615pm. Is that correct? Is there some kind of base line? Say the normal water level is 1' and at 945am the water level will be 3.11' and at 615pm the water level will be .49' ?

Any help would be great. Or should I just get in my kayak and fish?

Just noticed that last part the tide readings are in referance to a dead low. High tide will be 2.11 higher than a dead low and the low tide will be .51 higher than a dead low. You will sometimes see a low tide that has a minus sign beside it and that means that the low will be that much below the dead low tide

Find a tide graph that is in graph form. The steeper the slope, he more moving water. Tide graph is the one I use on the iPhone, but there are plenty. You will usually want to fish when there is good water movement, ie not dead low tide.

I am by nature a visual moron so when I began learning about tides it helped me to look at a tide chart with with flowing lines. What really made me understand it was when I was at St marks and I could visually see the high tide and then I would go to one of the interactive charts, and move the timeline around and see what the tide would be doing.

I agree with wevans.

The higher the difference in the numbers the greater the water flow. Usually the greater the water flow the better the bite but other things also comes into play. In the summer months the above understanding is useful.

Winter months tides take on another useful meaning. A negative tide uncovers a lot of things. It can be helpful or harmful. If the negative tide is on a cold winter night, the rocks, bars and exposed land will be very cold. When the tide comes in during the day and covers cold earth it does not help fishing. However, if the negative low is in the day, exposing land to be warmed by the sun, then water comes in over warmer earth causing a positive effect.

In the winter months remember that temperature is somewhat relative. It can be cold but if it is five degrees warmer than everything else it is better and fish will find what is better.

Here`s a site I`ve started to use ...read through and it may be of some help .
http://www.tides4fishing.com/us/florida ... arks-river