I just finished reading Raymond's one-man research on this topic of when to fish in estuaries and he sort of agreed at the end, fish when you can. He said that he had held the belief that around the high tide was best and began to question that so he did 18 years worth of observation in estuaries for sea-run cutts. What he found was that the long-held belief just didn't hold true. Getting down to the nitty gritty he said that the 2 hour middle of a slow incoming tide in the morning or a 2 hour middle of a fast outgoing tide that hit at mid-day seemed to be the statistically best time to find sea-run cutts on the feed but all the other times only showed a few fish difference for the most part. It was a good bit of research actually but concentrated on sea-runs in just a few areas so it can't be generalized to other fish or other habitats but it seems that some fish are almost always on the feed regardless of tide and time of day.
Tim -----Original Message----- From: rderedfield [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 9:18 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Estuary question Exactly! I love the way you said that, Preston! Richard Embry ----- Original Message ----- From: "Preston Singletary" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Washington Fly fishers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2001 2:46 PM Subject: Estuary question > I think the answer to "What stage of the tide is best to fish?", is > "Whatever the stage of the tide happens to be when you're there." Some > beaches fish best on an incoming tide, some over the high slack, some over > the low slack and some on the outgoing. I realize those are pretty broad > statements and that, on the whole, most of the beaches, most of the time, > will fish best on an incoming tide. Why all the qualifiers? Because I've > caught many cutts, coho, and even the odd blackmouth at what would be > considered the least propitious stage of the tide, at the worst time of the > day, and in bright, sunny weather. If you wait for just the right tide or > just the right river levels, you'll spend an awful lot of time not fishing. > Don't ever forget that the best time to go fishing is whenever you can. > Life's far too short to adopt any other sort of philosophy. > >
