4 slickers in a row just chimed in with damn good advice. Yeah, tides matter, but the way the bite is at a particular spot at a particular tide is what really matters. I've got many spots that I can predict to the quarter hour when I will catch a fish just by looking at the tide, and it's not necessarily right around DRs "Magic 3". Fish the spots the right way and learn the water and the honey holes. What is way cool about blackmouth fishing is that you are fishing such a stable and predictable environment that it will always be the same, given of course the varagies of run size of both bait and salmon (that being the most important variable ) Now I happen to have a few more spots that work on the outgo in the AM, so I like the way the tides are for the upcoming weekend. And a bit less voilence in the tide, again like this weekend, is better in most places. But not all - some are killer in big runouts, and some work a lot better on the flood. I've been fishing the Sound for over 45 years and I am still a long ways from having it figured out, but I watch and learn. Do the same and you'll be toasting the fish gods often too