Proving the Tide Tables Wrong

July 15, 2011

As everyone should know, before you come to fish in the fishing capital of the planet you must check out the Tide Tables chart, found conveniently in an ubiquitous little book that costs a buck and is in every gas station/convenience store/fly shop in the great state of Alaska, of which were are many.  This little book fits right in to the pocket of your fishing vest.  (And please you lower-48ers, though finding one may be difficult, undoubtedly your fingers can, and should, Google its data.  Do it before booking your flight.)   

The little pages are filled with little numbers and little letters showing the date of month and day of the week, AM/PM High Tides and Low Tides, and the feet of difference between the two. (It reminds me of the mind-blowing,  goobly- gook of info found in European train schedules.)  Most importantly, perhaps, the little book has little symbols of little fish next to each little line. A little fish about the size of the tab key arrow northwest of your pinky finger means the fishing is good.  There may be three or four Tab Arrow Fishies in a row, then on the next line the fishy size will begin to diminish to a Sideways $ Sign Fish size say, then to a <> Fish size, and on down to the lowly Hyphen-Fish.   We arrived on an Ampersand-sized Fish day, and yesterday was Tilde Fish day.

So here we are here on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula on one of the worse days to be fishing in the best fishing spots in the world.  Our plan--outsmart the darn natives who put this farmer’s almanac of fishing together.   

First thing we did was send out the big guns--Trice and Jim.  They launched-off, out-to-sea with the ‘We wack em, stack em , pak em, and vak em’  Irish Halibut Warriors from Nilnilchit Beach at O900 hours.  The girls, armed with clam suckers, shovels, buckets, rubber gloves and ignorance marched down to said beach water’s edge as the tide was receding—round 9:32 according to the table.  (Note:  when the fish punctuation is little bitty the clammin’s supposed to be pretty good cuz the negative tide exposes more of hideouts of the oblong, mouse pad-sized bi-values.) 

In case you don’t know:  to clam you scan for thumbprints in the sand.  And, you watch what the Eskimo lady is doing: see divot, gently shovel like mad (and this takes finesse) a hole six to eight inches deep;  reach in; dig, dig, dig; grab the “neck” AQAP (Q=quickly) before it squirts its way into deeper sand; don’t crush shell ( and don’t slice your finger on it as Leah did if you choose not to use the rubber gloves as Leah did, cuz these aren’t called Razor Clams for nothin’);  toss in bucket; straighten up, unkink your sore back; look for next tiny clam dot for next victim.  Take bucket-full (turns out to be 87 clams) home for cleaning…when the real fun begins!

Low Tide in Ninilchik