If you fish in Kuwait, the tide controls almost everything: when fish feed, where the water is deep enough for your boat, and how hard the current runs. You don't need to be a scientist, but you do need the basic words. Here is the tide vocabulary every fisherman should know.
The tide is the daily rise and fall of sea level, driven mainly by the moon and the sun, with the Gulf's shallow depth amplifying the effect. In Kuwait the pattern is usually two highs and two lows a day. Understand the words that describe it and you can read a tide table in seconds. Misread one and you plan for exactly the wrong moment.
Start with these. They cover most of what you will see on any tide chart:
Spring tides move more water and stir up more food, so fish feed more aggressively on a strong range. The cost is a faster current that makes it harder to hold bottom. Neap tides bring weaker movement and clearer, calmer water: good for light tackle, but the bite can be slower.
The most common mistake is mixing up spring tide with wave height. They are different things: a spring tide follows the moon, while wave height follows the wind. You can get a spring tide with flat calm water, or a neap tide with a strong chop, so plan for the two separately.
Slack water, meanwhile, does not mean the sea is completely still. It means the current is at its weakest as the tide turns: the worst moment to work a lure, but the best to hold your boat steady over a mark.
From the shore, the best window is usually the two hours either side of high water, as the rising water brings fish in close. From a boat, working a moving current around a reef often beats fishing the slack. High water shifts by roughly 50 minutes each day, so yesterday's table will not match today. Check tide times for Shuaiba and Shuwaikh in the B7R app before every trip, along with sea state, so you are not guessing.
Local fishermen sometimes say "big water" for a spring tide and "small water" for a neap. Whatever the label, the meaning is the same: know when the water stops moving and you know when the current will start again.
Learn these terms once and every tide table becomes a simple tool. Use the B7R app for tide times at Shuaiba and Shuwaikh, sea state, and your catch log, free on Google Play. Download it free from Google Play and read the tides like a local.