Best tide for fishing

CDFW's guides to beach fishing in Southern and Central California, made with California Sea Grant, list three conditions under which you are more likely to catch fish from the beach:

• an incoming tide toward high water, because the rising water washes small invertebrates out of the sand bars and that sets fish feeding;
• the early morning, or the hour before dusk;
• surf that is mild to moderate.

Note the wording: "more likely", from guides written for beach anglers. It is advice from the state wildlife agency, not a promise, and it does not cover every fish or every kind of fishing (CDFW, California beach fishing).

NOAA calls the incoming tide a flood current and the outgoing tide an ebb current. It also notes that the strongest flood and ebb currents usually come before or around the time of high and low tide, and calls the weakest current between them slack water. So the water level and the current are related but not the same thing. Our charts show the level; for the speed of the water, NOAA publishes separatecurrent predictions for the stations that have them.

On a tide chart, the incoming tide is any stretch where the curve climbs from a low to the next high, and the outgoing tide is the stretch where it falls from a high to the next low. The chart marks both for Newport Beach on Thursday, October 1.

From October 1 to October 7, the biggest incoming tide at Newport Beach runs 1:43 AM to 8:06 AM on Wednesday, October 7, 5.3 ft in 6 h 23 min; the smallest, 8:15 AM to 3:09 PM on Saturday, October 3, lifts the water only 1.8 ft.

CDFW treats beach and surf fishing as one subject, so the best tide for beach fishing is the same answer: the incoming tide. Where beach fishing differs is in what you can do before the water comes in. Since CDFW's guides send you to sand bars, drop-offs and channels, it helps to know where they are.

From October 1 to October 7, the lowest daylight low tide at Newport Beach is 1.2 ft on Wednesday, October 7 at 1:56 PM; the water then rises 4.4 ft to a high of 5.5 ft at 7:52 PM.

If you want to see a beach's lowest daylight tides in advance, the monthly calendar on each place page shades them; our tide chart guide shows how to read it.

California tides are mixed: two highs and two lows a day, of different heights, according toNOAA. So there are usually two incoming tides a day, and because the highs and lows differ in height, the two rises usually differ in size too. On Thursday, October 1 the two incoming tides at Newport Beach differ: from 5:27 AM to 12:22 PM the water rises 3.2 ft, while from 8:20 PM to 3:51 AM Fri it rises 2.7 ft.

Putting CDFW's two pieces of timing advice together, the best time to fish tides from a California beach is a rising tide early in the morning or in the hour before dusk. The table checks exactly that for each of our places over the next seven days: is the predicted tide rising at sunrise, and is it rising one hour before sunset? From October 1 to October 7, the tide is rising at sunrise on 4 to 5 mornings, depending on the place, and rising an hour before sunset on 3 to 4 evenings. Because the tides come later each day, these runs of rising mornings or evenings shift from week to week.

These are the hours CDFW points to, not a forecast of fish. The best tide to fish saltwater from a given beach also depends on the species, the surf and the weather, which no tide table includes. If you also like to plan by the moon, our solunar calendar lists the traditional solunar periods for the same places; it is a separate tradition with no official backing.