4m is a pretty standard spring tide up that way. If you're fishing on small lumps or near the islands you may need heavy sinkers and someone on the sticks slowing the drift down, the current really rips through some of those channels. If you can target the slack on the ebb or flood tides you'll find the inshore shallow water fishing much easier.

Further offshore it won't be too much of an issue... however the sharks are. Just lock those drags, fish heavy, and pump + wind as fast as you can.

If you're looking for ground, back of Legendre Island is a good spot to sound around as is Bare Rock (though the latter very sharky). Both around ~15-30m deep. 

 Thank you for the tips and ground.

see how we go.

 lot of blokes just tie of to the shipping channel markers in 12m or so- not supposed to 

drop a livie down - hold on

ive fished around them couple times when wind was up did better this  way than heading out

 Hey mate, just had a look at the tides in Dampier for when you are here. Be careful of the low tide getting back in around Sams island(guessing you'll be using the public ramp?). Low tide on the 25th is at 18:03 and is 0.5m. Safe till 16:00ish or wait till 20:00. Make sure you get back with at least 1.6m to be on the safe side. Some locals on here will say, and they'll be right, that you can come back in with less water but until you suss it out you don't want to get caught out. As far as fishing spots go, can't help you there, the fish don't even know about my spots:)

Been many years, but used to fish the archipelago from a small centre console at least once a week, mainly just short runs of a couple of hours to grab a feed. The spring tides you'll have  in the last week of July means water clarity will likely be reduced, so in some places bait will do better than lures. Plan for both. Plenty of tidal flow means you can still target trout  siting in the current in front of structure, but I found it best to troll with deep divers or using a downrigger, or anchor and let a carefully weighted bait bounce back along the bottom, in the current towards the target zone. July-August often was also a good time for cobia around the outer channel markers, as well as small spotted mackerel, with either a jig or weighted mulie dropped into a show of bait at the base of a pylon.  It is likely you'll have moderate to strong easterly winds, driven by the winter high pressure systems down in the Bight. If you need to shelter from the wind then fish along the Burrup, including inside Flying Foam passage, but watch the water depths in the Passage as the tide drops. Good small rocky headlands there for bluebone and also in places plenty of mangrove jacks. The latter can be targetted on the spring low tides around those rocky headlands and small ledges, especially if adjacent to a bit of a bay. I found that many small bays would almost dry out on the bigger tides, so the bait and jacks would get concentrated and accumulate in small rocky pockets and channels until the flood began. Given you'll have low tides around sunset, the last hour of the day would be prime time. If you happen to still be there after dark you can also find painted crays in knee deep water along the edges, but will need a torch and glove.

 Great advice keen to give it a crack myself when I come back west

 If you feel like poking along the very nearshore then an interesting alternative  to heading out into the archielago, if leaving from the Dampier ramp, is to head out between East Intercourse and Sam's Island then run south until past the Dampier Salt loading wharf. Head a little further south and you can then turn west  into the mahgrove-lined passage behind West Intercourse Island. Different scenery and you can work your way along chucking shallow lures and poppers towards the intake wall for Dampier Salt. At the start of the run in tide, if you get out of the boat and walk around a little, you can often sight cast to smaller (2kg) golden trevally, feeding with head down on the bottom and their fins sticking out of the water as the tide rises. Plenty of other estuarine species in there as well, including occasional barra. It was always very quiet and a relaxing place to flick a few lures around the edges. Recommend insect repellent.

If you watch the tide and have a smaller, shallow draft boat you can manage to go further along and sometimes all the way through that channel, but I only had a shallow draft 4.3m boat and even then a few times had to wait for the tide and walk it to get in there. Never saw a croc by day or night and they weren't a feature at all back in the day, but it has the right sort of feel and I used to get nervous wading on my own. Not sure if they are ever encountered in Dampier these days, so best to ask the locals.

 Sorry, was thinking island names when typing the general directions and wrote it wrong. Should have said, once past the Dampier Salt wharf , keep heading south-soutwest then swing around heading southeast into the channel behind West Intercourse Island. You can see it all clearly on Google Earth or check chart AUS741.