Surf Fishing: How To Read The Beach To Catch More Fish

what's up salt strong nation it's courtney and today i want to talk to you about one of the most important things that you can do if you want to be more successful at surf fishing and that's learning how to read the beach so we're going to dive into what you're going to be looking for when you go out to scout the beach at a low tide then we'll jump to some on the water footage so that when you're standing on the beach you know exactly what you're looking for and then we'll come back here to the board and we'll take a deeper dive into what that structure means and why it's so important let's get to those low tide photos so that you know exactly what you should be looking for try to identify the points the holes the deep troughs the runouts and the high tide water line and that high tide water line is going to be so crucial because you are going to know exactly how far you're going to have to cast in order to get to that structure that you just found when you're there at a higher tide let's get on the water so that you can see that footage and know exactly what you're looking for so if you look over here to my left and you see all of these breaking waves here they're all coming together they're breaking really really close together that's actually a point and points are great for holding bait points are also great for creating part of the fish highway and i'm going to i'm going to show you a specific example of that that's over to my right but you want to look for that so you see these crashing waves here those are on a point and then if you look directly in front of me there are no crashing waves here they're forming but they're not crashing these are your deep troughs okay that's what you want to look for if you want to find deeper water the shades of the color of the water will also help you determine how deep the water is the deeper the color the deeper the water the lighter the color the shallower the water so if you start looking over to my right you can start to see the waves break again out here that's a sand bar when you see those waves breaking right there is a sand bar and if you see the foamy water just in front of it a lot of times fish will feed right where those waves are breaking on the sandbar because it's stirring up the bait so that's a great place to have a rod casted out and i'm going to show you another point here so you see this right there that's a point those waves are breaking right on the shore break and then just past that it's a little bit deeper water and so that point is helping to pin the fish into that deep trough before the next sandbar so this is the fish highway right here right here in front so that's another place that you want to have your rod casted out there's a point here's the deep water see how it's not quite breaking right here you come back over here to the sandbar and to the point now that you've seen the on the water footage let's take a deeper dive into that structure that we were just talking about and talk about why it's so important first let's go through high and low impact beaches two very different beaches will be fished two very different ways so your high impact beach is going to be that beach that when you go and you walk down to the water you actually are walking down a steep slope to get to that water's edge so you know at a higher tide that first shore break is going to be a nice deep piece of water your lower impact beaches are going to be more of a gradually sloped beach so these beaches that are a little less featureless are going to probably be better to fish at a lower tide because remember when you see that higher tide mark at a low impact beach you're going to have to cast really far to get to any kind of deeper water let's now take a quick look at the anatomy of a sandbar a trough and then what it looks like when it breaks on the shore so wave energy starts building and it creates that momentum and as the waves are building when they crash they're crashing because of that sandbar structure so as they crash and you see all that foamy turbulent water you know that there's going to be a sandbar there as that foamy turbulent water starts to get smoother and kind of even out a little more that's running over what we're going to call a trough that's going to be your deeper water and then when you see that wave energy building up again and then crash right there at the beach that's your shore break so now that we have those basics down let's go through what these beaches are going to look like at high tide versus low tide if we have this same structure scenario here so at a higher tide if i'm standing on the beach and i see that first set of breaking waves that's going to be my first sandbar so the waves are going to break you're going to see that foamy turbulent water that's your first sandbar and then as it smooths out before the surf the shore break so it's going to hit the first sand bar smooth out in that deeper trough and then break it the shore if you're looking and let's say to your left you see some breaking waves and then in the middle you've got some smoother less turbulent water and then to the right you've got some breaking waves again you know that there's going to be a run out in between those two sandbars and again at a higher tight scenario you could have the first deep trough that first sand bar the second deep trough and then outer bars you may not be able to see that outer bar at a higher tide but just know that once you see those waves start to build and break as the tide is getting lower that's going to be your outer bar so let's talk about what this feature look like at low tide so at low tide if you're standing on the edge of this beach you may be able to walk straight through that first deep trough all the way up onto the first sandbar so this may be all sand where it was watered before you may have a couple of inches of water here maybe up to a foot in your first deep trough or maybe in a hole but you're not going to have enough water to hold fish so at low tide when you see this structure you may be standing technically on that first sand bar so then this is going to be your second deep trough and then your outer bar that you're going to be able to see very distinctly at this point so let's say i want to know where to put my baits on this particular beach at high tide versus low tide so at a high tide on this beach very quickly i'm going to set my rods up in a spread because i'm going to want to have rods out at different distances depending on how many rods you're taking make sure that they're up out at different distances so that you can find those fish my first rod i would put right at the shore break because i know that that water is getting stirred up the bait's getting stirred up at higher tide this is going to be a deeper trough i would also put one right in the middle of that deep trough then i would put one at the edge of the sandbar because as the water and the waves are hitting on that sandbar stirring up the bait the bait's rolling off the edge of that sandbar right into the fish highway would also have one in the run out and then i may have one just past the run out think of run outs as almost like a bait buffet because all of that wave energy that's flowing in has got to go somewhere and it's going to run right back out to sea so think of that as as kind of your your bait buffet that's connected to your fish highway if there is enough water on top of this sandbar i might put one right on top of the sandbar as well but that's only if there's enough water for fish to be able to get up on that sandbar so let's go through this same scenario at low tide so at low tide remember you may be able to walk straight out from the beach to that first sandbar so you're going to walk through that deep trough that maybe has a couple of inches of water in it up onto that that first sandbar and you're going to set your rods up on that sandbar and then you're going to follow the same situation with the high tide so you're going to put one right at that shore break just off into the first drop you're going to put one in the middle of that trough if there's enough water on this what we're going to call the outer bar it's now the first one if there's enough water i'm going to put one right on that sandbar i'm going to put one right on the edge of the sandbar and if you can cast really good and put one past that outer bar so that's where i would have my baits at different distances and spread along the beach so really quick if you're scouting at low tide and you're seeing some sand that's jutting out um there may be uh some water right around it you're going to identify that as a point so a point is almost like a sandbar that's going out from the beach um it's it's creating an extra piece of structure that is right off of the beach sometimes you will see holes where the sand it looks like it's curving in and that's going to hold some deeper water in there so especially at a higher tide i'm going to have baits all around that point and in the middle of that hole and it may not look as distinct as this but if you can find that that's a great place to put some dates now keep in mind this is just giving you the best case and the best chance at finding your fish by having your baits at different distances you may not find fish here you may have to move down the beach never be afraid to move if you are not catching fish there will be more structure down the beach you just have to go find it keep in mind that fish need two things they need to be able to eat and they need to be able to not be eaten and finding that structure that's going to hold a lot of the food for fish and a lot of protection is going to be key for you being successful so i hope that this was helpful for you if you have any questions or feedback definitely drop those in the comments below and if you're new to saltstrong just know that we're the best online fishing club in america because you actually guarantee that you will catch more fish while saving time and money we do this by providing with our premium education an exclusive online community and huge discounts on the best tackle for saltwater anglers to learn more go to saltstrong.com and we hope to see you in the insider family soon

Channel: Salt Strong

Views: 361,436

Keywords: reading the beach, salt strong, saltwater fishing, surf fishing, beach fishing, how to read the beach, inshore fishing, surf fishing tips, how to catch fish from the beach, scouting the beach, how to find beach structure for fishing, shore fishing

Id: 3C-BXJnS6X8

Length: 11min 58sec (718 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 07 2021