This week we fished what we thought would be the last of the outgoing tide down to low and the first half of the incoming tide. I know a dozen guides who would not be on the water under those conditions. I know a dozen more who swear by those conditions. I guess it all depends on how you learned to catch the fish you catch.
As we fished early in the morning for redfish and sheepshead in one of the many creeks along the Intracoastal Waterway in north Florida, the tide went as low as I have seen it in a long time. It was about 9:00AM when it stopped going out. It was dead low tide. I mean it was dead, and it was dead for the rest of the day. There was no current at all for the remaining six hours that we fished.
Was this some earth-shattering phenomenon we experienced? No, actually we knew it was going to happen. It was overcast and raining most of the day, but the reason the tide failed to come back in was the wind. A stiff west breeze (the reason we were in the waterway and not offshore!) blew the water out of the inlets on the outgoing tide, and then kept it from coming back in on the incoming.
We took advantage of the low water, and headed for a number of creeks that had some relatively deep holes. The fish had to be somewhere, and with no water, that somewhere would be one or more of those holes.
It worked, and we ended up with a limit of sheepshead and actually lost count of the number of reds we caught. For a sloppy rainy day, the fishing was awesome. And it’s all because we figured out what the fish would be doing and where they might be on this all-day, low tide.
As you plan your next inshore fishing trip, make sure you take both wind and tide into consideration. They can make a big difference in where the fish will be and in where you should be fishing!
