slack water

noun

: the period at the turn of the tide when there is little or no horizontal motion of tidal water

called also slack tide

Examples of slack water in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Traditional fly fishing for steelhead is more common in the spring, while long-distance spey casting can be effective during fall when fish congregate in hard-to-reach slack water or deep holes on the far end of a run. —Travis Hall, Field & Stream, 2 Nov. 2023

The juveniles had trouble reaching the net, getting lost in the reservoir’s slack waters without a strong current to pull them. —Sammy Roth, Los Angeles Times, 26 Sep. 2023

Among golden aspens with bull elk bugling down the canyon, my Orvis Encounter rod and reel combo worked Adams dry flies past slack water to fish lying in wait, flawlessly. —Rob McDonald, Field & Stream, 13 Sep. 2023

These nutrient-rich fish, a wintertime staple for the Yurok people, lost 400 miles of their historical spawning habitat to four dams that transformed the churning upper reaches of the Klamath River into slack water, threatening the lamprey and other native species. —oregonlive, 17 June 2023

Instead these particles are piling up where the Green, San Juan, Escalante, aptly named Dirty Devil and smaller Colorado tributaries hit Lake Powell’s slack water. —Brian Maffly, The Salt Lake Tribune, 22 Mar. 2022

The river in the slack water above the Thiensville dam drops off to between 8 and 11 feet in depth and is about 270 feet wide. —Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 29 June 2021

These trees are remnants of ecosystems that flourished along these canyon bottoms before the dam gates closed and turned the wild Colorado River into a 186-mile-long stretch of slack water in the heart of Utah’s redrock desert. —Brian Maffly, The Salt Lake Tribune, 20 June 2021

From Pickwick Lake, high water has made many areas unfishable, but some anglers are connecting with catfish by drifting cut shad or skipjack just off the channels in slack water areas. —Frank Sargeant, al, 21 Feb. 2020

Word History

First Known Use

1764, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for slack water

• backwater
• bathwater
• blackwater
• breakwater
• deepwater
• edgewater
• feedwater
• floodwater
• freshwater
• granddaughter
• groundwater
• headwater