Official Tide Gauges · Updated Every 15 Minutes
Live coastal water levels straight from the Environment Agency's official gauge network. Pick your nearest station, see exactly what the water's doing, and fish the right state of tide.
Finding the gauge stations…
Levels are measured against the gauge's local datum, so compare the shape of the curve and the trend rather than absolute heights between stations. This is open government data provided "as is" — always cross-check tide tables before fishing remote or cut-off marks. Your station choice is remembered on this device only; no cookies, no tracking.
Tide Craft
Tides move bait, and bait moves fish. Learn to read the gauge like a local and your catch rate follows.
A rising tide pushes fresh water, food and fish up the beach. On many British marks the two hours either side of high water are the golden window — watch the curve climb on the gauge and time your first cast for the push.
Big spring tides move more water — stronger current, more stirred-up bait, but heavier leads and harder fishing. Neaps are gentler and often kinder to light tactics. The height swing on the chart tells you which week you're in.
Some venues only fish over low water; some estuary marks switch on mid-flood. Keep your own notes against the gauge readings — a season of "caught at +1.8m and rising" beats any generic tide table.
Before Anything Else
Tides cut people off every year on British beaches and rock marks. The gauge is a planning tool — not a substitute for caution.
We Recommend
A short, honest list — no catalogue dumping. Kit we'd be happy to lug down a shingle bank ourselves.
Waterproofs and boots that survive a British winter on the shingle.
Coming soonHonesty first: when these links go live, some will be recommendation links and this site may earn a small commission on purchases — it never changes the price you pay, and we only list kit we'd genuinely use.
Straight Answers
Directly from the Environment Agency's public tide gauge network — official coastal monitoring stations reporting water levels roughly every 15 minutes, published as open data under the Open Government Licence v3.0. We display it; we don't alter it.
As a rule of thumb, the two hours either side of high water fish well on many British marks, and a flooding tide often beats an ebbing one — but every mark is different. That's the point of the live gauge: see what the water is actually doing at your nearest station, and build your own pattern for your own marks.
Each gauge measures against its own local datum, so the numbers aren't directly comparable station to station. Read the shape — rising or falling, fast or slow, big swing or small — rather than comparing absolute heights.
Free, no registration, no cookies, no tracking. The data is open government data. The site may earn small commissions on clearly marked tackle recommendations — that's the whole business model, declared in plain sight.