Why does a proven fall spot produce one morning and go quiet the next, when the tide chart looks the same both days? A tide chart marks water height, the times the water sits highest and lowest. What moves bait and turns fish on is current, the horizontal flow as the tide floods in and ebbs back out. Flood is the incoming current, ebb the outgoing, and slack is the short pause when the flow stops before it reverses. Height and current are related, but each keeps its own timing.

The tide chart isn’t the current chart

The current goes slack near high and low water and runs hardest near mid-tide. In a narrow inlet, a pass, or a channel between two basins, the relationship shifts. The current can keep running well after the water has stopped rising or falling, and in some passes the strongest flow comes near high and low. NOAA treats the height-to-current relationship as specific to each location, something you learn spot by spot.