TIDAL STRATEGIES
particular nature of the rivers reinforces
that. On a lake, there might be a lot of
productive water from 2 to 30 feet
deep, but on rivers, there tends to be a
very sharp transition from good water
to a 20-foot-deep channel that isn’t
productive.
Vaughan’s two summertime off-
shore patterns are cranking hard spots
and shell and fishing brush.
He’ll usually target hard spots on the
outside edges of flats in perhaps 5 feet
of water before they drop into the abyss
of the river. Greenway Flats on the
Potomac is a good example. There are
lots of hard patches and shell bars that
can sometimes produce crankbait fish.
More commonly, Vaughan will tar-
get planted brush or snags and woody
debris that’s submerged.
“The fish don’t get on brush until
July. They’re going to start getting on
that brush when that water tempera-
ture starts to get on up there,” says
Vaughan. “It’s a lower tide deal. It pulls
the bait out off the flat. You always put
your brush in the mouth of a creek, on
a bend or on the edge of a drop, where
it falls down into 5 or 6 feet of water.”
Vaughan fishes tidal brush just like
you’d fish it anywhere else, with the
only adjustment being that it’s gener-
ally shallower. First, he fires a
crankbait in for a few casts. Then, he
hits it with a worm. After that, he
moves to the next pile.
almost to the first lock and dam,” says
Dortch. “The water temperatures are
lower, you have a constant flow of water
and the fish seem to bite a lot better.
“In the spring, we run 40 miles
south to the bay,” he adds. “There are
real shallow, black mud bays, and the
water in them will be 15 degrees
warmer than it is in the river or deeper,
shady creeks. The fish in them will
spawn way before fish that are just 20
miles up the river.”
8. KNOW
THE TIDE
Entirely understanding and predict-
ing the tide is hard for the most sea-
soned tidal anglers, but the better you
understand the tides, what affects
them and how they affect the fishery,
the more you can anticipate possible
changes. Fish in tidal systems don’t
bite well all the time, and being in the
right place at the right time is critical
for success. That’s why Dortch is
adamant about carefully noting the tide
during practice and the tournament.
“You may go in a place in practice,
catch them and think it’s the best
place on Earth,” says Dortch. “But if
you run down there right off the bat in
the tournament and it’s not the same
tide, you might not catch them. That’s
what hurts a lot of people. Yeah, the
fish are still there, but they really don’t
bite until you get to a certain point.”
Both pros also believe the wind is
an overlooked factor.
“We see it all the time,” says
Vaughan. “A really strong east wind
will push the water in from the ocean
and the Chesapeake Bay into the tribu-
tary. If you get a west wind, it will blow
it all out toward the ocean.”
On the Gulf Coast, a strong south
wind will keep the tide high and push
water in, while a north wind will flush
water out into the Gulf.
“Last year, when we were fishing
the Potomac [Toyota Series event], the
wind switched from practice to the
tournament,” adds Vaughan. “The
water was really high in practice, and it
dropped way out during the tourna-
ment. When the water was up, if you
could find a mat, you could get a bite
under that sucker. Then, when the
wind switched, it pulled all that water
out from under them, and they just
weren’t the same. When the water was
supposed to be high, it wasn’t even
halfway up.”
BE AFRAID
7. DON’T
TO RUN
34
N
Tidal waters can be truly gigantic
playing fields. As such, tournament
anglers have made some huge runs in
tidewater events. According to Dortch,
the best reason to crank up and run is
to find the conditions you want.
Running the tide (following the high
or low water in or out) is common
practice on a river like the James, but
Dortch will sometimes run out of the
tides altogether.
“When you get a neap tide [see
sidebar] the fish usually don’t feed very
good at all,” says Dortch. “That’s a time
you pack your boat full of gas, run until
you get away from the tide and get into
the river where there’s steady current.”
The other scenario in which Dortch
runs a long way is when he wants to
find better seasonal conditions.
“In the summer, when it gets really
hot on the Delta, we’ll run up the river
WHAT’S A NEAP TIDE?
A neap tide occurs when the moon is at a right angle to the sun. Then, the bulge of the
ocean is pulled in two directions by the sun and moon’s gravity, resulting in a tide with an
abnormally small swing. Neap tides occur twice in each lunar month (the amount of time it
takes the moon to orbit Earth, or a little more than 29 days) during the first and third quarter
moon phases, or when the moon appears to be half full.
The opposite of a neap tide is a spring tide, when the moon is directly in line with the sun,
either between the Earth and sun (new moon) or on the backside of the Earth (full moon).
During a spring tide, the tidal swings are exaggerated because of the combined gravitational
pull of the sun and moon on the oceans’ waters.
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