It’s no secret that you can improve your catch rate by knowing the best times to fish. So what is the best time to fish? Actually a better questions is “What’s the best time & place to fish”? The short answer is it depends. So let me get into it.
First and foremost you need to understand tide cycles. Before I knew anything about tides, I thought they were the same and changed at the same time everywhere. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In my area we have four tide changes everyday. Some locations only have two changes per day. So the first thing you want to know for your location is what are the tide changes and how does the water level affect my beach.
I’ll use my area as an example. The high & low tide times at the beach here only vary about 11 minutes over a 60 mile stretch. So I can pick a tide location to look up somewhere along that stretch and be close enough. Each day the tide changes about an hour later than the previous day and the range from high to low varies about 4 feet. So if I plan to fish with a particular tide change I need to look up the tides for the day I want to fish.
To do that I put an app on my phone called Saltwater Tides. It’s a free app available for Android or Apple phones. You can also do a search on the web for tide tables. On the web I like a site called Tides4Fishing.com. As a last resort you could ask one of the local bait shops. I’ll get into which tides are best in a bit. So stay with me.
As a general everyday rule without looking up the tides the best time to fish is around sunrise and sunset from dark to light or light to dark. For surf fishing. again without looking up the tides, nighttime is better than daytime because the fish come in closer to feed.
In a previous article I recommended scouting your beach at low tide. Seeing your beach at low tide will help you understand what kind of beach you have. Is it a flat beach also known as a low impact beach, does it have a pretty good slope also known as a high impact beach or is it something in between? Does the beach have any structural changes such as sandbars, holes, points, run outs etc. or is the bottom the same everywhere? A beach that is the same everywhere probably won’t hold any fish. Whereas a beach with a lot of structural changes will probably hold a lot of fish. Fish will always hang in and around the structural changes of your beach as long as there is a food source.
Whether you fish high or low tide is based on when you can get your presentation in front of fish.
To do that you need to know when you can reach structure areas in deep enough water for the fish you are targeting. That could be anytime during low or high tide. It depends on your particular beach.
So Let’s Review What We Have So Far
- Find out what the tide changes are for your area.
- Check out your beach at high and low tide and how the tide changes the fishable areas of your beach.
- Determine what fishable structure your beach has and where they are.
- You need to determine what tides are best for you to reach those structural changes in water deep enough that will hold the fish you are targeting.
If you followed the steps listed above you should have a pretty good idea when the best time to fish is and where. I hope this helps.
One Caveat
Surf conditions will vary. In my area I don’t like to fish when there’s no surf. I want to see wave action coming in over the sandbars and crashing into the beach. The wave action agitates the food sources and cause the fish to feed and scavenge for food. This is where keeping a log or journal of your fishing trips comes in but I’ll leave that for another time
I appreciate the contact and info Randy—-Thanks for what you do!!!!