nope.. i just keep it locked up in my head. i'm not much for reading and writing. (you'll see why soon)
i've just noticed living here that seems to be how it works. i fished on off here for a while, cause i liked back waters.. and well there arent any here really. theres the bay.. but that might as well be open ocean. so it took me some time to say "hey ok i want to fish here."
but this is the main area alot of fish come through to get into alot of back waters. and the MAIN travel path for them picks up right in the middle of the tides. and dies at high and low. one side is harbors and rivers.. the other open beach.. low tide on the beach side is amazing. high tide on the bay side is ok... could be better. the mid point there is alright too but it's closer to the main route in/out. but i know the rivers and i know they are in them by 2 hours before high until roughly 2 after. (honestly it depends more on the depth than the timing, i used to keep track by watching a depth marker on a pier. 9ft marked fishing time) i also know those rivers for the most part empty out almost completely. meaning the fish hafta go some where.
so recap.
low tide open beach = fish
"highway" between open beach and back waters = fish at mid tides
back waters = fish around high tide
its easy to see the travel patterns.
i think the key here for me with the low tide success is, there A WHOLE LOT of backwaters emptying out here. 4 good size rivers and numerous bays/harbors all emptying out at once. thats a whole lot of fish being forced out of their preferred feeding areas.
i also think of low tide as migration time. they swim up and down the coasts and where ever they happen to be at high tide determines what rivers they will be in. they hang out tin those rivers/bays till they get forced out, and then use the downtime of low tide to travel up or down the coast. (they hafta do it at some point right? cant migrate while in a river.)
and i'm not saying they aren't there at other tides. just greater bite numbers at those tides.
shipwrecked and xyzs might tell ya other wise.. and i kinda agree with them but their spot is about 400-500yrds away, and at high tide its a lovely rock outcropping. low tide it's far to shallow. of course i haven't caught anything there... but they swore by it. i've had some almosts there though on incoming.
(this is why i dont keep a log.. i'm scatter brained when it comes to writing. i'm a math guy. i see everything in my head and it all adds up nicely, the second i try to transfer it onto paper... it looks like einstien's chalk board. ok back to it.. )
i know theres so much more to it that i'm leaving out. and honestly theres only so much i wish to divulge in such a public forum. but there are so many spots along a clear cut route, that provide a bite at certain times. and if done right you can literally follow them from the rivers, into the harbors, down the shores of the bays, to that "highway" and out down the beaches and back again. if ya reallllly have that sort of time and gas money and determination (and access which is becoming a real pain). day or night doesn't seem to matter much, other than what you might use for bait.
storms however.. they have a much bigger impact. i am still trying to figure them out. so far all i got down is, hour before a thunder storm. i can find em during good storms though. gotta work on that this year. i cant figure out if they stay inside, or work certain areas outside when theres really rough surf.
i just had a very unlucky last season. i lost three bigguns. and i was always that witness to the biggun. so i know they are there and when.. just couldn't catch em. this year i will get em. spent alot of time out there last season and between what i witnessed, hooked up with, and heard about from my buddies boating excursions.. thats the pattern here. don't know if that will hold where ever you may be. for instance, i can't imagine that would work out on the islands. when the fish have very limited access to back waters. no place for them to empty out of really. down there i would imagine rocky areas of beach at high tide is the equivalent to back waters here. and since those really don't have a route the fish HAVE to follow out, it wouldn't really apply.
make sense to anyone but me?