Editor’s Notes
The Wells Daily Fishing Forecast, as
it appears today in Gulf Coast Fisherman
magazine, dates back to 1957. However,
the research for the Forecast conducted
by Harold Wells started in the late 40’s.
Frequently visiting Galveston Bay
area bait camps and fishing destinations,
Harold determined there was an advance
predictor of the best times to fish, and it
was more than just the time of high or
low tide, as commonly thought. It was
the movement of tidal currents, he found
to be the controlling factor of baitfish
movement and therefore an advance
predictor of when fish would feed. Here’s
an insight into use of the Forecast readers
may find helpful, first published by
Harold Wells in 1962:
Of all the various tidal actions that
have a profound effect on fishing action
in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, one
in particular seldom gets much attention.
Standing tides, both high or low just do not
get the attention they deserve.
These standing highs or lows are not
predicted for any other coast in the western
Atlantic. The Gulf and parts of the
Caribbean Sea are the only areas to
experience this sort of tidal action. The
official Tidal Current Tables give this
explanatory paragraph in the Glossary of
Terms: “Stand of Tide - Sometimes called
a platform tide; an interval at high or low
water when there is no sensible change in
the height of the tide. The water level is
stationary at high or low water for only an
instant, but the change in level near these
times is so small that it is not usually
perceptible. In general, the duration of the
apparent stand will depend upon the range
of tide, being longer for a small range than
for a large range. But where there is a
tendency for a double tide, the stand may
last for several hours even with a large range
of tides.”
While for navigation purposes this
is not very important, except on extreme
low winter tides, it is a big factor to
fishermen. When a flooding tide begins to
stand at high, the forcing power of a current
stops moving fish food. Most fishing
action then becomes scattered over wide
areas of a bay, with reefs and sand bars no
longer holding schools of feeding fish.
For the stationary pier or bank
fisherman this usually ends all fishing
action until the next tidal current movement
takes place. Sometimes the occasional
straggler fish that wanders past will make
the long waits bearable. For the boat and
wade fisherman, moving becomes
essential during these standing tides.
When tide waters become high as
result of double tides, that is two highs
without a low tide between them, then the
best fishing action will be in the back bays
and shorelines. There is usually a gradual
movement toward the bay passes as the
supply of food thins out on hard bottoms.
Fishing just inside the bay entrances or even
the pass will usually be productive and have
you in good position for the start of the
next ebbing tide.
On a low standing tide, almost
everywhere in a bay system fishing will be
poor until the waters from the Gulf start
moving into the passes. The first hours of
the flood tide will have good fishing in and
near the bay entrances.
The Wells Fishing Forecast show these
standing tides as they occur. Whenever a
tidal movement time ends and the start of
the next movement time is over three
hours, this tide has been standing for most
of this time period. Here’s an example from
the Forecast: IN 12:30am to 04:30am
GOOD. (Next line) OUT 12:00pm to
05:00 pm STRONG. This indicates that the
tidal flooding ended at approximately
05:00 am and likely began to ebb around
11:15 am. These time periods can often last
as much as seven hours or more.
These long standing tides are the rule
on the North Gulf coast, rather than just
two periods each month as on the Florida
and Texas Gulf coast. This standard of only
two tides each day, one high and one low,
is due to a combination of direction of tidal
flow and the east to west pull of the
moons gravitational attraction conflicting
with the Earth’s spinning motion. There is
almost no south to north constant factor.
Whe