We didn't fish during the king tides but
@Nick Clayton and I fished this week with a big nearly 16ft high tide in the morning. Lots of stuff in the water, variable visibility from ok to downright muddy. We did best in the slowest moving water we found. Like
@Northern witnessed, when we found fish, the fish were
right up on the shore in most places. Seriously. Bounce a fly off a bulkhead or someone's front lawn, and "fish on" on first or second strip. If I were fishing from shore I'd be doing a lot of casting parallel to shore.
Yeah we caught a lot of fish RIGHT on the edge of the shore. Many times I'd throw a cast an inch from the beach and get bit before I even took my first strip. Those fish can be a real pain to hook!
I definitely believe these king tides have an impact on fish behavior and the quality of fishing, but I won't profess to know exactly what the effect is or that I have it all figured out. I've had some great fishing on abnormally big tide days, and I've had some skunkings. As with most things you just gotta get out there to know for sure.
I remember one of my first trips as a guide we fished on one of the biggest tides in many years. I cant remember the high but it dropped down to almost minus 4. Water was MOVING. We didn't catch shit. Saw a lot of fish, but they wouldn't touch anything we threw at them.
When Jon and I fished the other day we had to leave some areas where the current was just too much. I definitely believe too much current can be bad. It's hard to fish and we didn't see any sign of fish in these areas. As he mentioned we ended up catching a lot of fish in areas that was total frog water. This happened when the tide was way way up, but also when it had dropped some. These areas were totally flat and lacked any real features, and several of them were basically just muddy/sandy bottom. The fish didn't seem to be holding but rather cruising around the areas. It almost seemed to me like they were in these areas precisely because the current was so strong elsewhere. But I've also caught fish at these areas many times before so who knows.
I really like
@Northern idea that the fish would naturally check out this water that would be typically dry most days. I'd have to think that this newly wetted beach would be coughing up food morsels as well, but who knows. Only thing I can say for sure is they were definitely way up in there.
As mentioned above muddy/dirty water can definitely be a result of these big tides. I would always rather fish clean water if I have a choice, but as Jon mentioned the water we found the bulk of our fish in the other day was pretty stagnant, not always the best visibility, and had a ton of debris, big and small, just kinda sitting around. Fish certainly didn't care.
I do remember one day, and if I recall Jon you may have been with me that day as well, where we fished a section of beach that had a lot of muddy water up close to shore then a distinct line where it cleaned up. We caught a lot of really nice fish casting into the muddy water that would eat flies right where it transitioned to clean water. Not sure if they were hanging on that edge, moving in and out, or what but that transition zone was money that day. I've experienced that a few other times as well. Of course this is when fishing from a boat so its a lot easier to fish those transition zones and move around looking at other water. If you're fishing a beach and everything within casting range is straight mud, things can be difficult
No doubt it's fun to think about this stuff and try to figure it all out, but as humans I dont think we ever really will. Best thing to do is just get out there and see for yourself. There's very few black and white rules when fishing after all.