North Carolina

Holden Beach

Southport-area sleeper. Less famous than Topsail, less crowded. Patient walkers find good Hemipristis and small megs.

⚠ Partial inputs

today

Good

4.6ft swing · neap tide · low 8:46 PM · post-storm · 4.8ft swell

Today at a glance

Updated 2026-07-21T08:44:05.827Z

Solid hunting day. Best window opens around the 8:46 PM low (0.7 ft). Brisk SW winds (16 mph) — expect chop; seas 5 ft+ — murky and choppy.

Heads up: 5 ft seas — visibility will be poor; consider another day.

Next 3 days: Next few days look steady — all good-range. Pick whatever fits your schedule.

Best Window Today

8:46 PM

Plan around the good low-tide window. 4.6ft swing · neap tide · low 8:46 PM · post-storm · 4.8ft swell.

Hunt score

Good

Astronomical low

0.7 ft

8:46 PM

Predicted real low

0.6 ft

Near NOAA prediction

Low-window wind

2 mph

Light — negligible effect

Tides: NOAA Bowen Point, Shallotte Inlet, NC (station 8659665)

Best window this week

Fri, Jul 24 · 10:22 AM

4.6ft swing · low 10:22 AM · post-storm · 0.44" recent rain

Score

Great

Confidence: Partial — on-site outcomes, dossier verification. Hover the badge above for the input-by-input breakdown.

Tonight's moon

First quarter

49% illuminated

Sunrise 10:18 AM · Sunset 12:23 AM

Wind right now

16 mph from SW

Gusts 22 mph · best from E

Wind is cross-shore — neutral effect on tide level.

Past 7 days

Compare model output to your actual visits.

Next 7 days

Plan a trip →

Tide times: NOAA CO-OPS station 8659665 (Bowen Point, Shallotte Inlet, NC) — local time, MLLW datum. Click to verify on NOAA. Cards show LOWS only (best for hunting); highs are visible on the tide curve below.

Tide curve · next 48h

🌤️ Weather & Wave Forecast

Impact on visibility and stir-up over the next 5 days.

Onshore Wind: Pushes water in (tide sits higher) and stirs up the bottom. Good for "new" teeth, bad for visibility.

Offshore Wind: Water blown out (tide sits lower). Maximum beach exposure for hunting the low tide line.

Why today scores 60

The Hunt Score blends tide range, lunar phase, daylight timing, recent stir, wind setup, and surf.

Wave height 4.8 ft

Best low

8:46 PM at 0.7 ft

Predicted real low

0.6 ft

Wind deviation

More beach by 0.1 ft

Explain this scoreShow breakdown ▾

💡

Analysis

Solid. Reliable productivity expected.

Tide range

38.3 / 50

Today's swing is 4.6 ft (saturates at 6 ft = 50 pts).

Spring tide

1.8 / 15

Within ±2 days of a new or full moon = wider swing.

Daylight timing

6.7 / 15

Low in daylight = you can actually hunt.

Recent stir

0.0 / 10

Past 72h onshore wind churn (only counts hours that already happened).

Wind setup at low

0.5 / 10

Forecast wind drains 0.1 ft of water around the low.

Surf bonus

5.0 / 5

1–4 ft of recent surf = clean sorting; >7 ft = unfishable.

Recent rainfall

0.0 / 3

No measurable rain in the past 48h — no runoff signal.

Storm multipliermultiplier

1.15×

Peak gust 35 mph triggers post-storm boost.

Event boostadded

No active events for this site today.

Why not higher? The biggest unused headroom today is spring tide (+13.2 pts available). A day with that maxed out would score around 73.

Show the math

components: 38.3 + 1.8 + 6.7 + 0.0 + 0.5 + 5.0 + 0.0 = 52.4 × storm multiplier 1.15 = 60.2 final = 60

What's NOT in this score

We are deliberate about which factors to include. These are not currently in the model:

Hunt pressure. A “hunts this week” chip is shown on each location page for transparency, but it does not change the score yet. We need more outcomes per site before a penalty would be statistically meaningful.
Wave period / swell direction. We use wave height only. Long-period groundswell sorts material differently than short wind chop, but Open-Meteo doesn't expose period reliably.
Barometric pressure trend. Falling pressure = approaching storm = building stir. Currently we wait for the wind to actually arrive.
Water temperature, clarity, salinity. Affects comfort but not (directly) what teeth wash up.
Weekday vs weekend. A 70 on Tuesday is often better in practice than a 70 on Saturday because of crowds, but we don't adjust for that.
Beach renourishment. Fresh sand buries everything. We capture this only when an admin logs a manual event — there's no auto-detection.

If you think we should add one of these, log a hunt with notes — every rated outcome helps us decide which signals actually predict tooth count.

Hunt Score

Sum of components × 1.15, clamped 0–100.

Score model 2026.04.29 · how this is calculated

Hunted here today?