I haven't got a very positive reaction to tidal rivers, but I might be missing out, I accept. The tidal Dee below Chester was only a mile away as a kid, and I fished there a lot. With a big rise and fall and deep, deep mud ( the silting up of the Dee estuary killed Chester as a port centuries ago) getting covered in mud and whatever was coming out of the sewage outfall was normal. One you'd got down the steep high bank, you fished with one foot slipping on slimy rocks and the other sinking in the mud between them. You had to keep an eye out for the tide coming in - the Dee tides had a bore at times, and I once looked up from messing about with tangled line to see the "step" in the river 50m away and coming upstream fast, and had to throw what I could up the bank and scramble up in a panic. The river filled up frighteningly quickly. The tidal river had that bleak look that estuaries often have, with blank featureless banks. Even close to town it had an empty and remote feel. The fishing wasn't up to much, either, although it was reputedly better back in the day. Skilled anglers caught dace on the float; beginners like me caught eels, flounders and the odd dace that hooked itself on legered maggot or worm. It may have picked up now - the non-tidal river certainly has - but last time I lived in the area, it was at a low point, in terms of fish stocks, and the cormorants drying their wings perched on rotted posts gave it a grotesque twist. When someone mentions tidal rivers now, I can smell that mud again.