Sometimes cutts will be highly concentrated in one small hot spot within a beach that all looks the same. I’m not sure why, likely tides and structure but once you get out of that area, your success will decline or can go totally dead. That hot spot can also move move up or down the beach, depending on what the tide is doing.
As an example, I fished my favorite beach a few years ago. The beach has similar structure for its length, with various points and lots of oysters. I generally start at one end and work my way to the other end. I caught nothing until I hit about a 100’ wide section that was mid beach, which yielded a lot of fish. I caught nothing after that stretch. After I got to the end of the beach, I went back up and started at the top of where I had caught the fish. Guess what, they were gone.
So I went back up to the very top and encountered them again but in a different area.
That eventually dried up fish wise as well, but I found them again about an hour later on a different section of beach. Over about a six hour period, I walked about 4 miles that day on the same beach and finally called it a day after the tide petered out. I think I saw maybe three fish jump that entire day, which compared to the number of fish caught was nothing.
On this same beach, fellow board member @DimeBrite and myself caught what I’d estimate to be nearly 35-40 fish out of a depression you’d never know was there. We would not have been able to reach it with casts on a higher tidal phase. Had we left earlier, we wouldn’t have experienced that. Just insanely great fishing.
I tend not to relocate a lot when I know I’m on a good beach. It results in skunking sometimes which is part of the game. Other times, staying and being stubborn has paid off.
No two days are alike. Patterns will develop on which beaches fish best on certain tidal phases. Have fun out there and it will come together.
SF
As an example, I fished my favorite beach a few years ago. The beach has similar structure for its length, with various points and lots of oysters. I generally start at one end and work my way to the other end. I caught nothing until I hit about a 100’ wide section that was mid beach, which yielded a lot of fish. I caught nothing after that stretch. After I got to the end of the beach, I went back up and started at the top of where I had caught the fish. Guess what, they were gone.
So I went back up to the very top and encountered them again but in a different area.
That eventually dried up fish wise as well, but I found them again about an hour later on a different section of beach. Over about a six hour period, I walked about 4 miles that day on the same beach and finally called it a day after the tide petered out. I think I saw maybe three fish jump that entire day, which compared to the number of fish caught was nothing.
On this same beach, fellow board member @DimeBrite and myself caught what I’d estimate to be nearly 35-40 fish out of a depression you’d never know was there. We would not have been able to reach it with casts on a higher tidal phase. Had we left earlier, we wouldn’t have experienced that. Just insanely great fishing.
I tend not to relocate a lot when I know I’m on a good beach. It results in skunking sometimes which is part of the game. Other times, staying and being stubborn has paid off.
No two days are alike. Patterns will develop on which beaches fish best on certain tidal phases. Have fun out there and it will come together.
SF
)
