re: Does the tide effect fishing?

Don't really understand why some of you couldn't answer the man's question...

Yes, tide affects fishing, but it's certainly not the only factor. The big ticket is water movement, sometimes it's from tide and sometimes it's wind blown. The water movement stirs up the water and moves the bait. The fish then feed on the bait.

There are way too many people that rely too strongly on tide movement to determine whether or not they will fish. I've caught tons of fish on days with less than .5 ft of tide. I've also struck out on days with more than 1.5 feet of tide.

Also, these tide charts are nothing more than predictions made based off of the moon phase. If you have a week of strong wind out of the south, you can pretty much throw the tide charts out the window.

What i do is trout fish when the tide is moving, and hit the marsh for reds during slack tide if the trout quit biting or never were in the first place.

Since you're pier fishing, the best thing to do is fish different tide movements and make note of the conditions when you do and do not catch fish. You'll figure it out pretty quickly. Fishing is 100% trial and error and the people who do well are the ones who pay attention to everything.

I figured the trial and error part is what I'm gonna have to do. Just record what was on when I was catching and what was happening when I didn't. Sounds easy enough!

Sounds like I'm gonna be watching tv instead of fishing huh?

Yes, the tide movement is 75% of your fishing success. The other 25% is luck, bait and beer.