If you ever listen to inshore fishermen talking about when and where they fished, more often than not the topic of tide will come into play. I recently listened to 2 very successful anglers talking about different parts of a river they liked to fish. One mentioned that a certain area he found to be an outgoing tide spot and that the fish did were not feeding in that area on the incoming tide. The other agreed and mentioned he had found the same to be true and then they discussed where they fished the incoming tide in different spots within the same river. While I recommend keeping a comprehensive fishing log including tide, moon phase, barometric pressure etc., many people just do not take the time to log all of these variables. Just keeping a simple tide log can help increase your fishing success greatly. Many times when we can go, we cannot wait on all of the variables to be optimal, but we can always fish different stages of the tide.
Years ago I had a trout spot that the fish stacked up on just as the tide turned and began to head out. I would get to that point and catch fish and about an hour after the tide was moving out I would need to move down the bank to continue to catch fish as the flow of water changed. I had a boat arrive one morning and anchor up down the bank from my boat and the point. I began to catch fish and the fellow saw me catching fish and moved his boat a little closer. We caught several fish and then it was time to move down the bank. The other angler still had not caught a fish and when he saw me pull anchor he immediately pulled his and moved into the point as I was moving out. I went down the bank within 10-15 yards of where he was anchored up and within 10 minutes we were catching fish and he was fishing the point not catching anything. I know he was about to pull his hair out trying to figure out what he had done wrong, but if he was not paying attention to the tide, he probably never figured out what happened.
Fish are opportunistic when it comes to feeding. They will gi