UNDERSTANDING TIDES
How much do tides matter when planning and booking your next flats trip? Many factors go into booking a successful saltwater fishing trip, and the most important is the easiest: booking with Yellow Dog Fly Fishing Adventures. Why? We know the process and we have the “inside scoop” for each and every destination that we represent. When working to plan a trip, our methodology takes into account ALL of the available data and information to ultimately set our clients up for a fantastic experience. We consider availability and preferred times to travel, match you with the best lodges and guide, and answer your technical questions about species, equipment, conditions, and each individual fishery. When it comes to technical questions, one topic that we deal with on a regular basis is the impact of ocean tides on fishing conditions. How much do tides really matter, how do changing tidal phases impact and affect specific destinations, and how can we better understand and decipher tidal cycles when planning and selecting trip dates? These are conversations that we have on a regular basis. With that in mind – and at the risk of offending any of our readers who happen to be professional tidalists or oceanographers – let’s review some of the “basics” of tide-talk and provide some details that can perhaps help when researching and booking your next saltwater adventure. (If nothing else, after reading this you can at least talk-the-talk and sound legit the next time you’re throwing back beers at the lodge bar after a day on the flats!) As you probably remember from ninth grade science class, tides result from the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun. While the sun does have some influence, the moon has a much greater influence due to the simple fact that it is closer to the earth. The liquid part of the earth – the oceans and seas that we love to fish – ebb and flow because of the combined effects of these gravitational forces. The moon’s orbit around the earth takes 29.5 days, which is the span of the new moon to new moon cycle. Within this lunar cycle we have four individual stages: new moon, first quarter moon, full moon and third quarter moon. All four stages create various and changing tides. The moon orbits the earth in the same direction as the earth rotates, taking slightly more than a day. (Which is why the tides move forward roughly and approximately one hour each day.) As the moon orbits us, it creates a slight rise in the largest bodies of water and ‘pulls’ them along. In the most simplistic terms, when the moon rises, you get what is called a tidal bulge, and this is high tide.
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Now that we’ve reminded ourselves of the basics, we can navigate and predict the best tides for fishing the flats, right? Not so fast … It is important to remember that tides (and the information that we read on tables and forecasts) are always a “prediction” based on the expected movements of the sun and the moon. There are a number of factors in each destination other than the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun that can also affect what the tides will actually do.
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The shape of the shoreline and the shape of bays and estuaries in a given fishery can magnify the intensity of tides.
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Local wind and weather patterns can certainly affect tides, as strong offshore winds can move water away from coastlines, exaggerating low tide exposures. Onshore winds can also “pile” more water onto the shoreline, virtually eliminating low tide exposures.
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High-pressure systems can depress sea levels, leading to clear sunny days with exceptionally low tides. Conversely, low-pressure systems that contribute to cloudy, rainy conditions typically are often-times associated with tides than are much higher than predicted. Additionally – and this is very important – the actual impact of tides on overall fishing conditions varies significantly depending on the actual destination. For example, with fisheries like the Seychelles or Christmas Island, you have a series of small islands or atolls located in the middle of a large (and very deep) open ocean, with no large neighboring land masses and little to inhibit tidal movement. This is why you see drastically large tidal swings with very high highs and very low lows, and tides generally have a massive impact on the flats and the overall fishery. On the other hand, fisheries like those found throughout the Caribbean and Central America have larger land masses surrounding the fisheries as well as waters that are shallower by comparison. In these locations, the change from high tide to low tide is smaller by comparison – even during a spring tide cycle. Yellow Dog invests so much time with our guide and lodging partners in part because we recognize the importance of local knowledge when it comes to how certain species will react to tides. While in general fish tend to follow moving water (baitfish move with the water, and the fish we pursue move with the baitfish) different tidal cycles create all sorts of opportunities for different species. For instance, when you talk with a known and successful tarpon guide about their favorite moon or
