Beach Fishing

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Date: December 26, 2002 at 23:14:27
From: ken, [pool-64-223-38-62.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: Beach Fishing

Re: Beach Fishing

Summer 2001

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Re: Beach Fishing

From: Ken
Date: 17 Aug 2001
Time: 01:20:15
Remote Name: 207.180.0.8

Comments

The first thing I would do after reading the piece on beach fishing in the archives on this site would be to realize that all sand beaches are subject to the same forces that are generated by the water that the waves bring in to the shore. The key to understanding these forces is to realize that all that water in a wave has to flow back out to the ocean because of gravity. This is the energy behind all beach dynamics and this is what is the operating system on all sand beaches from one end of the earth to the other, no exceptions. The first thing to search out and watch are rip currents and then the circulation cells. These currents are what you are describing in your observation of the movements of the bass you have seen on your beaches. The bass are moving into these currents and that is how they feed. Learn how to recognize and fish them is surf fishing 101. After you learn to recognize these currents and how the fish use them then get a seine net and go to the beach with it on a calm day. One December my friend Mark was along a sand shoreline looking for baitfish to photograph for a book I am writing. He had a seine net and could not see anything at all to try and catch. The water was shallow and extremly clear with a white sand bottom. He and his wife Carol decided to make a try and see if they could catch some small crustations because it was obvious that there were no fin fish there. They ran out their seine and hauled it back never expecting what they found. They had 16 large mullet each of them over over a foot long. They took their pictures and let them go and they did it again never seeing the fish at all in extremely shallow clear water on a white sand bottom. Do not assume that your beaches do not harbor large quantities of baitfish even if you do not see them. Those bass you do see have to eat and they will not remain in a place where there is no food. I would guess that one of those schools of bass that you describe as having 15 fish in them must consume ten to twenty pounds of food a day and multiply that by all the other schools that are on your beaches and it becomes obvious that the bass are eating something and there must be a lot of it. The "Surf" is not the deep water that abuts it: so concentrate your efforts on the zone that the waves activate and neglect the outside water for this year. Learn more about that outside water a couple of years from now. If you want to learn how to fish beaches with some consistancy then you must learn the dynamics of the water in waves and the effects the currents from those breaking waves have on the beach environment, the small bars, the rip currents, the circulation cells, the inside and outer bars and how the currents join them, and how the fish use all these forces not only to survive but to flourish and thrive. A good way to learn how to spot rip currents is to watch older surfers use them to ride their surf boards out through the waves on rough days. They are rivers that flow back out to the open sea.

Last changed: November 05, 2001

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