Ebb and Flood: Changing tides and changing times…

As the tides rise and fall, the fishing conditions can rapidly change as well.  When a tidal current moves toward the land and away from the sea this is considered the “flood.”  When this current moves away from the land and towards the sea, this is called the “ebb.”  These changing water conditions can dramatically affect our fishing grounds. The tides can push fish into our fishing grounds, and move fish out. The tide can also change the weather. For example, when the wind and current are moving against each other the seas can dramatically chop up. Vice versa when the wind and tide are moving with each other, the seas will flatten out. The changing tides also present us with the “magic hour” called “slack tide.” At this time there is little water movement and it can trigger the fish to bite.

We had a difference of 17.3 feet in our morning tide yesterday. This change brought heavy currents, while dramatically changing the surroundings of our fishing grounds in between the high and low tide. The slack tide today brought the big fish in, and it led to several Tyee-class Chinooks being caught. Bird Rock 2 and Parker Point held some big fish and gave up a few of them! This adds a little extra motivation to get out early as some of their large friends have probably moved into our grounds. This excitement will get the anglers out to the grounds early in search of these monsters. The currents also brought schools of Coho inshore, which provided anglers with flurries of aggressive Coho bites. I am excited to get out tomorrow and get the lines wet to and see what we can troll up.

That is all for now, Signing out,

Skywalker