Articles & Resources

Longer-form guides from the Tides & Tails editorial desk: choosing an inshore boat, rigging a saltwater kayak, fishing the first mile off the beach, and the seasonal playbook that runs the inshore year. Written for the same waters the site covers — the Gulf marsh, the Florida flats, the Southeast sounds and the California surf.

Latest guides

• Choosing an Inshore Boat: Bay Boats, Flats Skiffs and Everything Between — Boats · updated Aug 2026. Draft, deadrise and honesty about where you actually fish — a plain-English guide to the inshore hull spectrum.
• The Complete Inshore Kayak Setup: Rigging for Salt Without Sinking Your Wallet — Kayak · updated Jul 2026. From hull choice to anchor trolleys to the safety kit that isn’t optional — rigging a saltwater fishing kayak the right way.
• Nearshore Techniques: Fishing the First Mile Off the Beach — Techniques · updated Jun 2026. Cobia runs, Spanish blitzes, tarpon strings and bottom fish — how to fish the strip of water between the surf and the horizon.
• Seasonal Strategies: A Year on the Inshore Calendar — Strategy · updated May 2026. Water temperature — not the calendar — runs the inshore year. Here’s the four-season playbook from 55°F to 85°F.

Where the guides fit

The journal is the slow half of the site. The fast half is live: tide, water temperature, wind and a bite outlook for all 38 inshore fisheries in the location guide, read one water at a time in the My Waters Console. Species behaviour, size and seasons live in thespecies guides; the guides here cover the boat, the rigging and the calendar around them.

Sponsored articles and banner placements run in the journal, written with our editors and clearly labeled — rates are on the rates & founding offers page.