How to read tide charts

[azmdted]

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can help me figure out how to read a tide chart for the Chesapeake so that I can make better decisions on the water. Here's the tide information from 'saltwatertides.com" for this coming Saturday at Annapolis:

High 6:43 AM
Low 1:47 PM
High 7:08 PM

What I'm trying to figure out is, based on that information:

When is the slack tide?
When is tide running hardest?
When does it start and stop running.

My personal experience is that out around the rockpile it seems like the tide runs fastest about 1.5 hours before a high or low tide time. For those who've figured this out I'd appreciate your knowledge.

Thanks

[john from md]

Here is a resource for you to read. It has information that will help you to learn about tides and currents which will help your fishing.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/naviga...esandcurrents/

Regards,

[bluefishnc]

Slack tide and the when the water is moving best changes from spot to spot and day to day (tidal coefficient) and also with the weather (wind, low pressure systems, etc...). Your question has no "set" answer for any particular place because they are all different and all constantly changing. Go here for some good Bay info. Noaa publishes predictions of the tidal speed in the tide predictions they publish so slack is visible on the charts. https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/ofs/cbofs/cbofs.html

Tides4fishing is also a decent site for finding the basic info but really the answer is find your spot, learn your spot, then go by gut. It takes about 5 or so years of hard fishing but I can tell when my spots are gonna be ripping best just by knowing the high tide, wind direction, and moon phase. If any one variable is out of whack the tides can be worse or better than predicted so only experience at your spots can really tell you your answers.

[azmdted]

Thanks guys. I was hoping for an easy answer, but after my own experiences and research I figured the answer would come down to “it depends”. Oh well. All part of the fun of learning new things.

[brianisoutside]

Let’s take wind and moon out of the equation, slack would be at the height and lowest of tides when it is transitioning.
Momentum of the tide ripping hardest would usually be on a falling tide, but can vary based on the bottom contour.
The factors really change with wind and moon or even fronts / storms.
For example a wind blowing up river will help keep water in the river, think of it as an air dam not allowing water to fall into low tide or by pushing water in building to a high tide.
Moon phases are like gravity on the water.
There’s so many factors on tides.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rwh]

Use tide charts for high & low tides and current charts for the currents. As already mentioned, it depends on the location as to when the currents move in relation to the tides.
Check out fishcurrents.com. Once zoomed in on your area, you will see arrows for the current flow predictions for any selectes date & time. click on an arrow for a 24 hr table of slack & max currents. It uses the data from the NOAA current predictions

[J.A. Veil]

If you look at the Tides tab on Windfinder, you can see the projected height of the high and low tides for each day. Within the same day, there often is a higher high tide and a lower high tide. Likewise there is a higher low tide and a lower low tide. Consider the height differential between the high and low points when you will be on the water. The larger the differential, the more water will move, and the stronger the current (at least in principle). In our area, wind effects often dominate such that the projected tides are not actually realized. As previous posters have noted, determining peak current flow is not easy, but gets easier the more you learn an area.

[azmdted]

All,

Thanks for the information and the links. I think the tidesandcurrents link gives me the info I need for my questions. I like the look of fishcurrents and can see how in the bay itself you can have water running in and out at the same time, which I assume makes for an interesting situation at the demarcation area.

Thanks for the help,

Ted

[john from md]

Now get out there and fish!

[mchottie]

You may need Windfinder Pro for this, I cant find the tides tab on the freebie version.

If you look at the Tides tab on Windfinder, you can see the projected height of the high and low tides for each day. Within the same day, there often is a higher high tide and a lower high tide. Likewise there is a higher low tide and a lower low tide. Consider the height differential between the high and low points when you will be on the water. The larger the differential, the more water will move, and the stronger the current (at least in principle). In our area, wind effects often dominate such that the projected tides are not actually realized. As previous posters have noted, determining peak current flow is not easy, but gets easier the more you learn an area.

[Big Mike]

Regular Windfinder has this. When you select a site make sure it’s on the water, an inland site obviously won’t have tide forecasts. Select the site, go to Forecast and the info will be there.

[J.A. Veil]

You may need Windfinder Pro for this, I cant find the tides tab on the freebie version.

The Tides tab is on the computer version of Windfinder. It may not be on the cell phone app version.