Publish date: January 31, 2022

Clapper Rail feeding at low tide.

The high tide was hanging slack when we moved my old flats boat onto a long and narrow grass flat in a bayou just a couple hundred yards from the Gulf Of Mexico. The water was almost dead still and beautifully clear as I cast my topwater plug, a "Bagley's Jumping Mullet", up ahead of the boat and began working it back in short jerks, suddenly there was a flat sounding smack and a huge splash were my plug was, a large fish had slammed into the plug and in the excitement I jerked too soon and missed the fish. He hit the plug again and I missed him again. This happened several times until I slowed my response down, and allowed the fish to take the plug in his mouth, the other two fishermen in the boat were having no better luck. We figured these fish had to be big Redfish that we were accustomed to catching on this type tide during the spring. Finally, we got the hang of it and what a surprise, these fish were large Speckled Trout ranging from four to near seven pounds and there was a bunch of them.

The definition of slack tide is when the tide has reached the very high or low range range and the water is hanging very still or “slack”, it’s not going to last long,because the tide is going to reverse and began moving in or out, whichever the case may be. I’ve noticed that on the very top of the tide the wind drops off and more so on the high tide. We discovered we could catch huge Speckled Trout on the high slack tide on the grass flats just before we left the bayou going into the Gulf of Mexico. We hadn’t been fishing this far up on the grass flat because we had been catching 36 inch long Snook in our “Honey Hole where the water dropped off at the end of this grass flat. After the tide turned the Shook would stack up in this hole, and it would get pretty wild catching those Snook on top water plugs. The reason we were on this grass flat that day was because we were killing time waiting for the tide to turn, we knew that about 45 minutes on the outgoing tide in the late evening the Snook were going to be laying at the end of this grass flat waiting for the tide to bring the baby Mullet, Pin fish and other species of baitfish to them, all they had to do was wait.

I’ve been fishing saltwater seriously since 1983, we moved from Georgia to Florida and then we moved here to Louisiana in 1994 where the fishing is second to none. The year we moved to Florida we were fortunate enough to move into a house right on a canal. That canal led out into a huge bayou before going through a narrow pass into the Gulf of Mexico. The water in that canal was around 6-8 deep and led out into the bayou where the water depth was from one to four feet. My son and I spent many hours fishing about every place possible in that bayou. We fished high tide or low tide, it didn’t matter, we fished whenever we could. I’m not one of these fishermen who stays home just because the tide is low, if you’ve got the time, go fishing, it sure beats working.

This is not going to be one of those scientific articles about tides, you can learn all about that here at Scijinks or at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “NOAA”. they’re all about the tides and weather, so read up. Here we’re going to talk about having fun, catching fish, crabs, flounder, bait, no matter what state the tide is in.

I learned a lot about tides during the time we lived on that canal, in the spring we would get strong high tides up to five feet. Early in the morning I would get dressed and walk out on the dock on those tides with a Bagley’s Jumping Mullet tied on my bait caster, and catch several Specked Trout before heading to work, it was catch and release, but it sure made the day go better.

We found where to catch Speckled Trout, Redfish and Snook on a high slack tide, low tide and all in between, the places you fish matters, the gist of the matter is get to know the area you fish. When we moved to Florida, I only had a 14-foot aluminum Jon Boat with a 7.5hp Firestone boat motor, that left us confined to the canal and the bayou and we got to know ever foot of it.

During the wintertime on a dead low tide we would catch Redfish up to 30 inches, here in Louisiana where I live now that’s considered a medium Redfish, but in Florida the Redfish have taken a beating and a 30-inch Redfish is a prize. These Redfish would hang out in the very back of the bayou where the water was warmed by the sun, the water in those areas was a lot warmer than the surrounding open and deeper water. We would fish using The Bagley’s Jumping Mullet, a top water plug that is just great, we caught so many fish on that plug. the water was so shallow you could see those Redfish coming for your plug leaving a wake like a beaver, you had to be careful that you didn’t pull the plug out of their mouths, that’s called nervous, jerky, fishing.

Just because the tide is low is no excuse not to go fishing, diversify, carry different gear, we never left the dock without our cast nets, a low tide is a great time to chase mullet, if you’ve never eaten smoked mullet you’re missing out. Here is Louisiana folks don’t eat Mullet like they do in Florida and Mississippi, I don’t know why, smoked Mullet are the best.

The other thing we would always have in the boat was a fishing gig just in case we saw flounder in the shallow water, yep even during the daytime you can slip up on flounders if you move carefully. I remember one day we didn’t have the gig in the boat for whatever reason and we saw a big flounder laying on the bottom on the low tide, we were wading and dragging the boat, My fishing buddy David hollered, give me the gig, I says it’s not in the boat, hit him with the boat paddle, and he did, he only slowed that flounder down but he still chased that flounder down and caught him.

The other piece of gear to have it the boat is a couple of long handled dip nets, if the fish aren’t doing anything, get out of the boat and wade you may be able to dip up a bucketful of Blue Crabs, that’s fun and easier to do on a low tide, if it’s too cold to wade you’ll always have plenty of string in the boat, so just tie a piece of bait on the string and drop it into a hole and lure in some Blue Crabs, nobody at home is going to complain about fresh boiled Blue Crabs.

Now when I say get out of the boat and wade take precautions here, test the bottom, I learned the hard way that there’s places the bottom may look firm but when you step onto it you go to your waist in mud, and that could be disastrous, believe me always check first, here in Louisiana I would never step out of the boat without testing the bottom first.

The Highest tide in the world can be found in Canada and the Bay of Fundy, the tide can rise as much 14 meters in as little as 6 hours, now that’s a high tide. In the United States the highest tide is around Anchorage, Alaska, the tide can be up to forty feet, that’s a little over our heads folks, head on over to Wikipedia to read up on tides. Click Here to read about Bore Tides, Alaska's Bore Tide, is one of the largest in the world, it's huge and accessible, read all about it, maybe it could ba a vacation trip in your future.

I’m about of the opinion that if you fish inshore the best thing you can do it to know the area you fish, the smaller area you fish the better your going to know it and the more fish you will catch. It takes time to get to know an area and that’s to include how to fish the tides, so do yourself a favor, fish the same area in all kinds of conditions and just have fun, I have and do.

God Bless

The Webmaster

James Allen