Most of the spots I fish, I used the trial and error method to determine which stages of the tide were best. I am not talking about river mouths or breachways- more point and bowl water. Eventually I figure it out.

Is there some general rules that can be followed to cut down on the trial and error? Generally I find that a point fishes better in low outgoing or first incoming to get at deeper water. Some bowls or flats -high incoming. Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason and the opposite is true.

This is like the Phantom Beach article that was in On The Water question-when would you fish spot 6.

So based on structure or depth that I see on GeoGarage-are there best guesses?

Just gotta work it and establish a pattern for when the fish are there.
Backside in the old days, some times they'd fish in, some times drop. Had bowl/ bar type structure. Always changing.
My rule is always that if the water is really warm, I do my best when dead low is just after sunset, and a little bit cooler water pushes in with new tide in dark, fish follow.
I got spots that are VERY tide specific, some in, some out, some half up, some half down and some only middlle of either way. Every time I think I got it figured it, the fish don't cooperate.

I do believe that covers it all.

Every time I think I got it figured it, the fish don't cooperate.

Coincidentally, those are usually the nights I decide to come.

I agree with Mike about the cold incoming water. Everything little thing can make a difference. I have one spot that is only good at the top of the flood during the big tide phases. Once the tides weaken, the fish don't get close enough to shore and theres not enough water in that spot. Some points fish good at 2 hours before and after slack, others only fish 2 hours before low. Some turn on 3 hours down.

The best thing you can do is focus on what is happening NOW, not follow rules of thumb that guys used 15 years ago (although keep it in the back of your mind if they're legit). Pick a few areas and fish them hard at different stages of wind and tides. Pay attention to the weather 3-4 days before. Don't stresss if you're striking out at a spot, just jump around a bit. For whatever reason, a spot could turn on late in the year, while all summer it sucked. Usually every area has a prime time and unique conditions turn them on. A spot may produce low to mid 40 pound fish for 9 nine years, then the fish have a good year for some better forage and theres your 50.

I fished a new area this year and used those same rules of thumb. Did horrible for big fish up until mid-july. Was getting pretty down about strking out again and again. Had no one to show me anything or network with. Each time out you learn stuff though, and eventually piece alot together. By spending all the time out there, I knew the areas I was fishing once things turned on and could "pattern" fish that thole stretch of shoreline and it worked well. The quicker you learn to figure things out on your own the better as its always changing. None of the best guys on here will give up the areas and windows they fish because they did the same thing to find theirs. Maybe 20 years from now they'll burn those spots, but by then it could be completely different.

Obviously nowadays you don't need to learn any of this. Just surf the internet and rely on your contacts and cellphones to put you on fish. But if you have no friends and don't live near the canal than you can consider the following.

Current, ambush spots, and bait collectors more than tide stage are what really counts.

Don't overlook that current is often affected (or even created) by wind/wave direction, not just tide, particularly on rocky corners that end long stretches of open beach.

Big fish don't like to hold in open current, so you need something else, an edge, bar, rocks, to make a spot in current worth your time.

Currents past points often create a back eddy on the downcurrent side of the point. Don't ignore that.

Wind pushes bait. A shore that is mediocre when calm may get active after a few days of onshore wind.

Coves and bowls collect bait, but their real advantage is that they create areas with gentle water movement inside their corners where bait wanders and big fish like to wait.

Water depth is a factor if you are plugging. Shallow is OK, 4-8ft ideal, but deeper than 12-15ft requires clear conditions and minimal current if you hope for a fish to come up for your plug. Which is why chronic beginners use eels ;).

Weed screws you up. Wind, current, tide, and lunar stage all have an effect.

Once you are pretty sure you know when and where fish will be, you stop fishing other times and places that are not "right" and miss out on lots of great fishing.....but since you never know it you can still feel smug about what you do know. Works for me.

A spot may produce low to mid 40 pound fish for 9 nine years.

DAMN! All of a sudden my spots all seem like crap.

hey G give me a call next time you find some fish, better yet I'm going to, befriend, PM Mr. Rizzo my cell #, he seems to know some way better spots.:uhuh:

BTW if anyone wants to know how to find some crappy spots I got plenty of them lately.

DAMN! All of a sudden my spots all seem like crap.

Its a surfcasting commandment that on the tenth year, a spot like this will produce a fifty. In that ten year period, you don't have to catch a 40 every year. If you lose a fish you think was bigger than 40 pounds it continues the streak! Also, rumors of other big fish being caught in the area count toward this rule. This works like clockwork, trust me, keep a log to know when you're close to catching a fifty. It just sucks when the rule resets on the 9th year! :wall:


Surfcasting is a secret society, not many will post the "real" commandments of surfcasting in an internet forum! :hihi:

Surfcasting is a secret society, not many will post the "real" commandments of surfcasting in an internet forum! :hihi:

bummer I'm screwed

It changes season to season... year to year... sometimes day to day..... it's about current ( as in time oriented) patterens what works in a specific area.. patterens/tides that worked in June, may no longer apply in September... next spring it may change again...the only way to nail it down is to get out and fish...unfortunatly , where I fish... it is not like the vineyard .. where fish are stacked like cord wood waiting to jump on your plug:uhuh:.. there are times.. especialy early in the season and in the dead of summer.. if you dont fish eels:devil2:.. you go fishless..it's just the cold hard facts... even in 3' of water....

this season is a good example of fish changing patterens.. I have a section of beach I fish.. ( Slip and the Professor can back this up) the entire incoming tide will produce, but once the tide tops off... game over... in years past, it's been only the first hour then they disappear... other years the top and first two of the drop...that section of beach remains pretty much unchanged over the last 20 years.. it all depends on bait that is available,,, the river also had some quirks this season... in a certain area, the last hour of the incoming and the first two of the drop produced fast and furious.. after that.. it's curtains...in the past it has always been the last two of the drop.. this pattern hels all spring, summer into the early fall...only experimentation and time on the water can truely point you in the right direction..

bummer I'm screwed

Same here, I don't know any of them, just trying to make it look like I know what I'm talking about to infiltrate the secret society :devil2:

. there are times.. especialy early in the season and in the dead of summer.. if you dont fish eels:devil2:.. you go fishless..it's just the cold hard facts... even in 3' of water....
.

That has not been my experience....and I drowned a lot of eels before I woke up to what I was missing.

Very informative thread. Good question , good answers

...... and sand I most like dropping tides as that is when everything is getting sucked out and condensed into a smaller area. On the In they start spreading out.
......rock / static structure I usually prefer incoming as the fish are moving in to get all the bait that is fleeing into the rocks to hide or coming out of hiding as the tide rises to get further into protection. That is also in conjunction with my previous theory of the cooler water. By same token like the drop cause everything is getting sucked out of the rocks trying to stay wet as the tide goes down and the fish cruise the edges of the rocks eatin like grapes on a vine........
All depends on the spot. Then you gotta take in to consideration the wind and moon for each spot at the variuos tide stages.
Takes A LOT of hours invested into a few places to get dialed in and narrow it down. Then something can change and the fish move and you gotta start over for new locations to find them. Then you gotta make more decisions between which spots to fish and when.....
Gets maddening.........You can only be in one place at a time. Got to zig when the fish do instead of ziggin when they are zaggin......

That has not been my experience....and I drowned a lot of eels before I woke up to what I was missing.

see... you learned something today... go north and the fishing is not quite so easy...:)

Worst is when I fished a spot for a many years- figured out that the first 2 hours of the incoming when low is 11 pm on a new moon with the wind from the southwest in August or September is as close to guaranteed as you can get- and that is only a couple of nights- and I can't go because life gets in the way. Then wherever I have to be that's not at the spot- I am dying inside.

Worst is when I fished a spot for a many years- figured out that the first 2 hours of the incoming when low is 11 pm on a new moon with the wind from the southwest in August or September is as close to guaranteed as you can get- and that is only a couple of nights- and I can't go because life gets in the way. Then wherever I have to be that's not at the spot- I am dying inside.

Sounds like somebody has been keeping a good log. :uhuh:

Pat- my problem is that I cannot fish as much as I want and I try to make each trip the best shot at it- and cut down on unproductive time.

So I stick to my known areas- until a client says they have a beach house in a private restricted area- then I try to figure it out in a hurry. Nice to pull up to the gate and tell the guard- I am a guest of Mrs Jones.

Surfcasting is a secret society, not many will post the "real" commandments of surfcasting in an internet forum! :hihi:

Pretty sure it was Frank D. who wrote, "You might be a member of the secret society by day, but you won't be alone tonight"

Every time I think I got it figured it, the fish don't cooperate.

I hear you there Mike.

Mother nature has a way of throwing curve balls at you when you think you know what bait/tide/moon is best for a certain location. If I know there are very large fish around in a certain spot I will fish that spot exclusively and fish all tides cycles while I am confident the fish are there. My pb 46#er I caught earlier this year came that way. A spot I normally fish on the last 3 hours of the ebb was producing big fish so we fished it at the opposite end on the flood on a hunch. If I had followed my log-book I would have slept in that morning. One things for sure, you need to be out there to catch em'.

Here is a lesson I learned today.

Had the day off. Too windy to boat fish today, too rough or wrong tides for a predawn effort at the usual shore spot. Couldn't bring myself to drive to Sandwich and go scouting. Depressing, so I started cleaning the cellar. By 11am I couldn't stand it so I took the dog for a walk. Took a rod and a few plugs.

Horrible conditions. Slack high, screaming SW wind, dense rain, mid day, no bait.

First cast I catch the largest bluefish I've caught in years.....maybe 16 lbs. Then 4-5 small bass. Hey, this looks good all of a sudden. So I plug a mile of rocky shore with loads of structure.....nothing. Get to a sand swimming beach.....boom....another blue probably 14+lbs (picture).

Now I am happy, the tide is ebbing, nearby are a couple of jetties one which fishes well on the ebb. I walk to them and carefully fish them the way I know best....nothing but a few misses (probably decent blues again). So out of boredom I throw a cast cross wind and skitter the pencil past a rock pile between the jetties where in 40 years I have never raised a fish and usually ignore. KABOOM!!! One of the largest striped bass I have ever seen jumped that plug and rolled all over it. Got a great look at it. More likely 50 than 40 lbs. I missed it, then missed a 30lb fish following it, and then hooked a 3lb fish in the aftermath, which was retrieved and unhooked faster than any 3 lb fish in history......all to no avail. Chance blown.

I go to really great extents to put myself in prime striped bass spots at prime times. Yet one of the best fish I am ever likely to have a shot at, shows up at 1 in the afternoon on a dark day with too much wind, dead water, and in a spot I considered garbage, at a time I wouldn't ever choose to fish seriously.

Live and learn, and remember, you don't learn unless you step beyond what you know.

Thank you for sharing and congratulations on avoiding the cellar for something far more enjoyable. Fishing with Fido. Can't get much better than that and you didn't lose any sleep.

ab

for me the key is to find the H incoming/L outgoing of your Title in conjunction with nearby areas,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

meaning that i tend to work SECTIONS of Cape Ann, The Ditch, AQI, Gansett, and SoCo from Low to High to Low to High again, or vice versa based on when i can be there and for how long. sometimes it's a much narrower window,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

however when i can, i try to fish as many of the PRODUCTIVE phases as possible in between and dependent on my best intell/lawgs/pm's for any given SPOT and series of spots that are within workable distances of each other. that, of course, is subject to change ~~frequently. but in this way i am able to cover more preferred lies at their "best" times.

then again there are those nights that i hunker down, based on too much info,,,,,,,,,and the dreaded, "should i stay, or should i go" dilemma consumes me!!

and then there is the fishing in the "blind" factor that is nothing short of AMAZING, sometimes. often, i'll happen on a spot for the 1st time and it will WHAIL!!! and this is the stuff of which George, The Wiseone, speaks,,,,,,,,,,,,,,doan ask me why, but perhaps it's the searching of the unknown, the reading of water w/out pre-formed criteria, or just sheet-bum, blind-arsed, feels right, hey what about that current/drop/flat/structure/trough/eddy/wind driection/younameit that i've yet to try, and BINGO you cain't MISS!! the key there is, to remember the data and to try to get it to repeat.

likewise, there are many places that i've yet to even get a bump from,,,,,,,,,,,,,but i just KNOW will produce one night, so i keep them honest, sometimes to a fault!!

i still have waaaaaay too much to learn, with only six migrations under me belt. yer better off listening to the wily vets, i'm still trying to finger out how to work a needle without losing it to the bottoms!!

hope this helps,,,,,,,,,,,,keep at it and yer time will be rewarded~~~
:grins: :grins: :grins:

this is a good read. ~ printing for bathroom reading to allow further deeper thoughts ~

Just remember tide and current arn't the same thing..........current can change and the tide can still be falling or rising ....Rookies that fish the canal think tide and current are one and the same, they are not......to make things worst a lot of folks, myself included talk about current as tide :smash:
wind can affect the tide geographically........I.E. buzzards bay.....n. wind blows the tide out, s. wind keeps the tide in.........

I throw a cast cross wind and skitter the pencil past a rock pile between the jetties where in 40 years I have never raised a fish and usually ignore. KABOOM!!! One of the largest striped bass I have ever seen jumped that plug and rolled all over it. Got a great look at it. More likely 50 than 40 lbs. I missed it, then missed a 30lb fish following it, and then hooked a 3lb fish in the aftermath, which was retrieved and unhooked faster than any 3 lb fish in history......all to no avail. Chance blown.

Great story, George, and sorry to hear you missed the fish. That would have been a real great way to finish up the season and perhaps add another plug you don't need to your arsenal....







































...next time take the effing hook bonnets off!!!!

an old wise fisherman once told me he could care less about tides and time of day when he gets a chance to fish he goes, just that simple. Good fish story George. I have fished and scouted every day this week and have practically nutin to show for it. I'd be thrilled with a large blue right now.

an old wise fisherman once told me he could care less about tides and time of day when he gets a chance to fish he goes, just that simple. Good fish story George. I have fished and scouted every day this week and have practically nutin to show for it. I'd be thrilled with a large blue right now.

This is very true......best time to go fishing or hunting.......whenever you can!........

My best outing of my life was the result of being somewhere in the wrong conditions.Three hours of 40 pound fish from shore.

My best outing of my life was the result of being somewhere in the wrong conditions.Three hours of 40 pound fish from shore.

here are sum quotes from some wily old salts i've garnered along the weigh~~~

the best time/tides to fish?
"forget about all that crap! if there's water there, high or low, then fish it"

"find the bait, and you will find rhe fish and they don't care about the conditions!"

"if they are there at night, they'll be there during the day"

"don't believe that BS about too sandy, too much weed, to rough! the BIG fish aren't affected by that sheet! find the structure and give them your offering"

which lure works best for such&such condition?
"the lure that's on the end of yer line. it's all about the wiggle/vibration. they don't see with their eyes, they feel it with their stripes~~ first"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEELS! you want big ifsh? use eeeeeeeels!!"

One of the biggest fish I ever had on and lost came on the 5th of July in Gansett on a full moon, 2:00 AM, dead low tide in a spot I never figured would hold a fish that big.

10 minute wrestling match and my homemade black joined swimmer came back with 2 times on a 3X 3/0 VMC treble straightened and a metal lip bent straight down.:drool:

Funny you should mention.........went back last pm, 3 hours, 1 big hit, brief run, and this is what I got back........those are 6X VMC 3/0's, not just straightened front and back, but the front hook is also crushed. Some kind of impressive jaw strength to do that.

Doesn't mean much in my case (a big blue could do that as well as a bass), but certainly shows what a fun time the late fall is to fish........anything is possible.

probably a snapping turtle