The best times to fish with the tide

Guide · Tides Pro

Any angler with a few seasons behind them will tell you the same thing in their own words: the sea does not fish the same at every hour. You can present the best bait in the world over dead water and go home empty, or turn up at the right moment and catch more in an hour than you did all week. Most of the time, the difference is the tide. Here is how to read it and pick the best times to fish — no magic formulas, no promises the sea will not keep.

Moving water is where fish feed

Rule number one is simple: still water fishes poorly. When the tide is running — flooding or ebbing — the current becomes a conveyor belt of food: crabs washed off the rocks, worms, molluscs, baitfish pushed out of cover. Moving water also carries more oxygen and stirs the bottom. Predators know all this, and they station themselves in channels, off points and along current seams, waiting for dinner to be delivered.

At slack water — that long half hour when the tide pauses before turning — the conveyor belt stops. Food stops circulating and many species switch off. It is not impossible to catch fish at slack, but if you can choose, choose movement.

Fishing the tide change: the classic rule

Within the moving water, one stretch gets named again and again by tradition: the last two hours of the rising tide and the first hour of the falling tide. During that window the sea floods over ground that has been dry for hours, covering fresh food, and then begins to pull back, dragging it out towards the fish waiting deeper.

A word of caution: it is a classic rule, not a law. Some species and some marks fish better on the ebb, and there are coves where low water concentrates fish into pools and gullies. Bass, for instance, often push in with the flood to feed over shallow rock; other species respond better as the water drains away. Knowing your mark is worth as much as knowing the table. And remember that on most Atlantic coasts the tide is semidiurnal — a full cycle takes about 12 h 25 min — so the same conditions arrive nearly an hour later each day.

Solunar theory, without the hype

Solunar theory holds that fish activity rises at certain moments tied to the Moon's position. The major periods coincide with the lunar transit: when the Moon crosses the local meridian, either overhead or directly on the opposite side of the Earth. The minor periods coincide with moonrise and moonset.

Let's be honest: it is not a guarantee. No solunar period fills the bucket on its own, and there are days of textbook lunar transit with an empty sea. But as a complement it earns its place: when a solunar period overlaps with moving water and low light, the odds stack in your favour. That is the right way to treat it — one more factor on the scale, not the one that decides.

Coefficient, solunar and light: putting it all together

The third ingredient is the tidal coefficient, which on the IHM scale runs from 0 to 120: below 40 are neap tides, 40 to 79 are average, and 80 and up are spring tides. The higher the coefficient, the more water moves in the same amount of time and the stronger the current — a faster conveyor belt. Springs arrive one or two days after the new or full moon (the so-called "age of the tide"), so you know which weeks to watch. One caveat: on some marks a big spring brings too much current or dirty water; the sweet spot is often a strong average tide.

• Tide: aim for the end of the flood or the start of the ebb.
• Coefficient: favour days with a mid-to-high coefficient for your mark.
• Light: dawn and dusk, when predators hunt with the advantage.
• Solunar: if a major or minor period lands on top, all the better.

How Tides Pro's fishing index does the maths

Running this cross-check by hand, day after day and port after port, is a chore. Tides Pro does it for you: its fishing index from 0 to 100 combines tide phase and strength, coefficient, solunar periods and daylight for every hour of the day, and the window finder scans the days ahead and points you straight to the stretches where everything lines up. Under the bonnet there is a serious engine: harmonic prediction built on the FES2022b model, validated against official IHM tables with a median accuracy of about ±10 minutes on the open coast, across 90 ports.

One last thing, because the best session is the one that ends with you back home: before you climb down to the rocks, check the official swell and wind forecast, watch the currents at your mark, and never turn your back on the sea.

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