Joomla 1.5 Template By Youjoomla.com

By Hippo Lau - An old Jewish neighbor of mine had a favorite expression he’d pass on to me after watching me struggle with yet another project. He’d watch me for a while, he’d stroke his grizzled beard, and then he’d say, “Don’t work harder, my son, work smarter!”

And so it’s been like that through my life; when confronted with a job that seems to be more work than it should be; I’d figure out a way to do it more easily. Fishing is no different, if you can make it easier on yourself, go for it! Nowadays, with most people finding it harder to fit in any free time for the more important things in life (like fishing), it pays to maximize the experience while minimizing the time spent. This is sometimes referred to as “high percentage fishing” .

All the fish in San Francisco Bay respond one way or another to the ever changing tides and currents that run through the bay. By learning the best tides and currents to fish for your targeted species, you can plan the optimal days to fish months ahead of time, thereby freeing up all those non-productive days to get stuff done around the house (or the car, or the boat, or the office, or whatever).

The first thing to get is a good tide and current book. I like mine to be printed in military time, with the tides and currents listed in chronological order. I once had a tide book with all of the low tides on one side and all of the high tides on the other side and you had to do a kind of mental Texas Two-Step going back and forth to figure out what tide was happening when. I got so dizzy that I had to take some Dramamine just to read the darn thing. I finally threw the thing out when I couldn’t afford the pill bill any longer (lining the bottom of the bird cage with it would have been too kind of a death) .

Tide is the vertical movement of water and is measured in feet. A one foot difference between two consecutive tides is considered a weak tide. A seven foot difference between two consecutive tides is considered a strong tide. (Consider yourself lucky that you don’t live near the Bay of Fundy were there is a 30 foot difference in tides!) Current is a horizontal movement of water and is measured in knots (a nautical measurement of speed equal to about one and one-eighth mile an hour). One knot of movement is considered slow; six knots is considered pretty fast. An “F” after the knots is for “flood” (incoming), and an “E” after the knots is for “ebb” (outgoing).

Now that we have or ups and downs and ins and outs all squared away, next time we’ll get into the actual predicting of when should be optimal times for different fish and then you’ll be able to fit in that visit with Aunt Bertha.

Last time, by way of review, we were looking into tides and currents, that tides are vertical movements of water and are measured in feet, and that currents are horizontal movements of water and are measured in knots. It was also mentioned that by knowing the tide and current preferences of different target species, you can optimize your fishing time and then find time to visit your Aunt Bertha.

The following are some suggestions for the big four “S” fishes in the Bay Area:

Salmon
I have noticed that my best fishing for king salmon comes from fishing a slow moving tide in the four, maybe four-and-a-half foot range, the top of the tide reading about five feet above sea level. The fishing should peak at the top of the tide. I like the top of the tide to occur between 9:00AM and 11:00AM: that way you can limit out and be back at the dock by lunch.

Sturgeon
No doubt about it, the best tides are big outgoers, even though the best fishing occurs at the tail ends of them. I don’t even try for them until the current chart reads that the speed is down to about 2.5 knots or less. For me, the easy way to figure that out is whether or not an eight ounce sinker can hold down my fifteen pound test line. Any faster than that and you’re wasting bait.

Sharks
Yep, even shark fishing has an optimum tide. For midbay fishing, I like very slow tides of no more than three feet or so of moving water. And although either tide can work, I generally like the outgoing tide. The slow moving tide allows the smell of your bait to waft downstream without diluting as much as with a fast tide, making it easier for sharks to find your bait. If there is a slow tide that peaks out at over four-and-a-half feet above sea level, you may find some super leopard shark and stingray fishing in “the flats”. Break out the light tackle and prepare for some fun!

Striped Bass
Wow, here’s a big subject! There must be a dozen different ways and a hundred different spots for stipers in the bay. Generally speaking, live bait drifting is best during swift tidal movements, with 4.5 to 6.5 feet differences in height. The problem is that some spots are better during a specific tide. Spots like the Bay Bridge and the Raccoon Straits are definitely incoming tide spots. The Golden Gate Bridge is the ultimate outgoing tide spot. Some places like the Harding Rock can be good both ways. To have the bite at the maximum and the loss of tackle at the minimum, I like to fish when the speed of the current is less than 2.5 knots after maximum current (roughly the tail ends of the tides).

For shallow water trolling, plugging, and fly casting, I like moderate tides of about three to three-and-a-half feet that peak out at five feet above sea level or better. This is especially important in the spring when the first “schoolies” appear in the flats in San Pablo Bay.

Next time, we’ll get around to halibut, rockfish, perch, and that favorite of my buddy Nick Fedoroff, the mighty kingfish.

I gave a few opinions on the optimal tides and currents for the “S” fishes found in the Bay Area; you know, the real glamour fish: salmon, striped bass, sturgeon, and shark. In this last part of this article , we’ll talk about the fish that most of us really catch: perch, rockfish, halibut, and that often maligned pier fishing favorite, the mighty white croaker, locally referred to as the “kingfish”.

Perch
The best fishing in the bay comes when fishing a moderate tide of between 2.5 and 3.5 feet of moving water. The water can be going either way when fishing pilings and piers and offshore rocks, with the best action at maximum current. On the beach, the best action occurs with the incoming tide, especially when the tidal difference is no more than about 4 feet.

Rockfish
Because most of rock fishing is done from a drifting boat, the slower the tide, the better the catch. With swift tides, these slow moving fish sometimes have a tough time swimming, much less feeding, and will often hold closer to structure. Factor in a fast drift, heavy weights to hold your rig down, and fish holding close to structure and you get a day of tough fishing, fewer fish caught, and lots of lost rigs. Once, while fishing a day with less than 1.5 feet of tide, I was able to get a 2 oz. Dix jig down to 160 ft. using 12 lb. line and had a terrific time nailing yellowtail rockfish, red rockfish, and yelloweye rockfish to 10 lbs. and a pair of lingcod that went 15 and 19 lbs.

Halibut
Here is a fish where the tide you pick depends on the bait you are presenting. If you are using natural bait and are drifting in a boat, the best time to fish is during a small 3 ft. or so incoming tide followed by an even smaller outgoing tide. This is not so much because the flattie prefers a slow tide, but it is because of the peculiar way you have to fish them. Instead of wolfing down your bait, the halibut often grabs the bait with its spiky teeth and holds on until the baitfish is dead before it swallows it to the point where you can sink a hook. Sometimes, on a fast drift, you can let out as much as 75 yds. of line before getting a solid hookup. You let out less line on a slow drift and your hookup success increases, simple as that.

The story is a little different when it comes to pulling a hoochy rig with wire line. Then the best tide is a 4 to 5 ft. tide, either way, with the best fishing tending to be towards the maximum current. This is because the current actually helps in handling the boat. By matching boat speed with the current speed, the boat can actually hover in place, with the hoochy skirts hovering most tantalizingly over the halibut’s head. Increase or decrease the throttle, steer straight ahead, slide to the side, or slip back slowly, and the boat pulling wire and hoochies can effectively cover every square foot of prime halibut real estate. Now, that’s presentation control!

Kingfish
This member of the croaker family is sometimes referred to as the “carp of salt water”. It is often ill spoken of, if for no other reason than it is plentiful and generally easy to catch. A common insult is, “He’s so lousy a fisherman that he couldn’t catch a kingfish!” Nevertheless, it is a ideal fish to start a beginning fisherman on, and for kids there is the added bonus of having no teeth or spines to get hurt on. If you can get one to actually make a croaking sound, your kids could be giggling all afternoon.

Kingfish can be caught on all kinds of tides, as any sturgeon fisherman can tell you with disdain. Even in the swiftest of outgoing tides you can get one to suck up your expensive mud shrimp meant for Mr. Sturgie. (How do they get a 7/0 hook into that little mouth, anyway?) My buddy, Nick Fedoroff, three time world kingfish champ (1990, 91, and 93), will tell you that the best tides are the slower tides of 2 to 3 ft. This is only because he dearly loves to catch kingfish on light trout fishing type tackle. Heavier tides would necessitate heavier tackle, lessening the kingfish’s fight. “Catch one of those disgusting DFG planted trout on a rig with an 8 oz. sinker and see how much of a fight you get!”, says Nick, “And maybe you’ll rethink about these kingfish!”

So there you have it, pick a fish and pick the recommended tide and see if your catch doesn’t go up. Remember, it is no guarantee, but it will put the odds in your favor.