Where is here? I understand MD still has a few dredgers with sail, but they are unknown in other American and Canadian oyster areas. Tides are used in different ways. In Washington, boats come in at high tide and pick up the mesh containers that are filled at low tide (these cages are 30 bushel in Connecticut, I don't know if the size is set in Washington).
Night oystering is prohibited off much of the Gulf Coast. The beds are far from shore; transport to shore may take hours. The reefs are too deep to be worked by anything but dredges on fairly large motorized vessels.

The Gulf Coast provides more than 50% of the oysters consumed in the U. S. The area Conn. through Maine provides about 15%, the west coast some 25%, and other areas less than 10%. This is a great shift from the 19th century harvests, when the Chesapeake area contributed to national sales. Delaware has strict regulations for natural reefs, but most harvesting is from private leased beds. Aquaculture is important in Connecticut, but I don't know details.

Some of the Washington area is farmed, but many are harvested off beaches at low tide. Many triploid (genetically altered) oysters are being harvested. The beds are seeded (hatchery produced), because reproduction is slow in the genetically altered oysters. Oysters are harvested directly into steel mesh containers which are later retrieved by vessels at high tide and transported to processing plants. Oysters for half shell consumption may be directly sold bagged to buyers at the beach. The Japanese oyster, gigas, fairly large, greatly increased production from this region, but others have been seeded and are being harvested. Some 5 different kinds are now available from Washington, and over 8 million pounds are harvested yearly and sold coast to coast.
Washington to California (and British Columbia) provide about 25 % of the total oyster harvest.
Methods used in Washington, and in the Gulf, are quite different from the old methods described for the east coast The old tongs are long gone from commercial harvesting, and new dredging tools have been developed.

Here in Western Canada, most of the East Coast oysters sold are from Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, plus the salty Belon from Newfoundland. U. S. Atlantic coast oysters are seldom seen. Malpeques have been seeded on the west coast but most are from PEI and are sold under the name Stanley Bridge. Varietal names, as genetic modification takes over, are being used that have little reference to either species or old marketing names, and I keep a menu from a local oyster bar so that I can identify what I am getting. Names like Kumamoto (a small Japanese raised in Washington), Emerald Cove, Totten Inlet, are among the 30 sold at my favorite oyster bar (of course, only about half that available on any given day).