Imagine a mouth of a river (estuary) at the time of the full moon when the tide is lowering. There would be tons of water moving rapidly from the estuary spilling into the sea. With all this water movement the river and sea floor is disturbed considerably. Food organism that live in or near the bottom then become part of this mass exodus of water that is moving out to sea. Small fish will feed on these organisms, bigger fish will feed on these fish, even bigger fish will feed on these fish......and BINGO!!!! you have a healthy food chain.
The feeding habits of the ocean roaming pelagic fish species also vary depending on the phase of the moon. If you asked ten different marlin or tuna fishermen "when's the best time?" there's a good chance you would receive ten different answers but from catch records of professionals, recreational anglers and scientific studies these fish are more active for 4 days leading up to the full moon and for 4 days after the new moon. There are many other variables to take into consideration as well, not just the moon phases. Things such as water temperature/color, the presence of baitfish/food items, cloud cover, bird activity, ocean current speed/direction and how you scratched your nose last week, but one thing you can be 100% sure about
"YOU WONT CATCH FISH IF YOU'RE NOT FISHING!!"
One way of finding the feeding habits of a species in a certain area is to keep a diary of your fishing outings. This diary should include date, time, moon phase, tide, method used, catch rate and other information (such as bird activity and current speed). After several entries about a location a pattern may form which will be invaluable for future outings. It may take a long time (perhaps years) to discover what the best fishing conditions are for a location but that's the beauty of fishing. Good anglers don't rely on luck alone.
The incoming tide floods for roughly 5 and a half hours and the ebb tide for six and half hours. The same volume of water has to move on both flood and ebb, but because the flood tide travels from low to high in less time this is generally when the tide is strongest. Having said that, some local conditions such as protruding headlands, estuary channels, bottlenecks between islands etc, can all cause the ebb tide to flow stronger than a flood tide.
If you break the tide down into three segments of roughly two hours to compare how much water is flowing during each part of the tide, you�ll find that during the first segment the tide will rise 25% of it�s height. In the second segment the tide rises 50% of it�s height, and obviously rises a further 25% in the final period.
On shallow open beaches, you�ll notice that on neaps the flood tide pushes you back along the sand slowly, but on big spring tides, you�ll be moving your tackle back every few minutes.
The slack water periods are also affected by the size of the tide. The actual low water period of a small neap tide sees no noticeable in or out tidal movement for maybe well over an hour. But on the biggest spring tides, actual slack water hardly occurs at all with the water changing direction and showing movement of the new flood all within 15 minutes, or so. It�s the same at high water.
Tides "flood" when they come in and "ebb" when they go out. A tide flooding into an estuary increases fish feeding activity because it carries new forage from the ocean. As tides surge over flats they provide more water for fish to move in and feed where they couldn't at low water. Conversely, the ebb draws fish from the shallows as the water thins, but it stimulates feeding at estuary mouths because it sweeps baitfish down to waiting predators.