Low vs high water slack

[Fisherman Rob]

I've always followed my dads advice: best chance to catch a salmon is usually first low water slack tide after dawn. Going to get out off Oak Bay or Vic maybe later this month for last fish before licence expires end of March, however looks like its a high water slack weekends in the mornings. Probably will just go anyway but anyone find there's a difference between high and low slack?

 

[wolf]

Ebb always seems to be better off oak bay for salmon Maybe craven can chime in its his backyard

 

[scott craven]

An hour or so into the flood is usually best on the flats, as a back eddy develops
with the flood breaking off Trial island.
sometimes the bite will go on for an hour or more.
The Gap is best on the ebb, conversely you get a back eddy breaking off Chatham island.
the bite can be very short and fast.

 

[ericl]

Location, location, location

 

[SpringVelocity]

An hour or so into the flood is usually best on the flats, as a back eddy develops
with the flood breaking off Trial island.
sometimes the bite will go on for an hour or more.
The Gap is best on the ebb, conversely you get a back eddy breaking off Chatham island.
the bite can be very short and fast.

Thanks for sharing that.

 

[Oceanmaster]

Current change for me, usually lags the tide by an hour or two.

 

[Fisherman Rob]

Great input Craven! Thanks.

 

[Karlo]

Trolling for salmon along a kelpy shore, one advantage of low slack is that kelp beds that are flooded at higher tides, providing great cover for bait, are partly-exposed at low slack. That means the bait is more likely to be pushed to the outer edges where feeding salmon can gather to ambush them, and you can ambush the salmon. If low tide occurs near first light when the hungry fish can first see to feed, so much the better.

For jigging or bottom-fishing with bait, an obvious advantage of low slack is that kelp on reefs will be at its most visible, and the shape of the reef will be obvious. The kelp won't be streaming out, so you can get right on top of the structure. Lingcod especially like to sit at or around the top of a rockpile. If you're fishing bait for halibut, either slack is good, because the slower current movement lets them find your bait by scent. The slower currents of the first hour or two of the change spread the scent slowly enough for more distant fish to home in, but after that, scent will be much more dispersed.

A valuable fact to keep in mind is the Rule of 12. The most extreme tidal movement, accounting for half of the total, occurs in the middle two hours of our 6-hour tidal cycles. That means that as a general rule, going from high slack to low or vice versa, 1/12 of the movement occurs in the first hour, 2/12 in the second 3/12 in each of the third and fourth, 2/12 in the fifth, and 1/12 in the last hour.

In any case, it's wise to think of how the water is flowing over the bottom structure as the tide flows in from one direction as it rises to slack high, and falls in the opposite direction as it approaches slack low. Feeding fish, whether they're sight-feeders or scent-feeders, usually face into the current as they lurk in eddies behind structure. The shape of that structure in a given location will determine the best spots for bait to be concentrated in that particular spot at a given stage of the tide, and it's always a good plan to have your bait or lure coming from the direction the fish are facing.