When first arriving on a beach the first thing I look at doing is isolating an area or section of the beach that I think will be holding the fish. Below is an example of a beach that is reasonably small but jam packed with character. 

 1) At the top end is a good reef structure, full of shellfish, crayfish and has good potential for fish habitat. 

2) Through the mid section of the beach is channels, gutters and lots of holes

3) At the southern end is a river mouth where fresh water flows

So when I am planning a trip, I break a beach down like this before I even head to there. Using google maps, wams.org and marine map. I could write a novel on each of these section and why and when to fish them, but I will try to make it brief. On different beaches you break it down for different reasons, there may be structures or an old wreak, there may be rocky ledges which alter current, you just have to judge it as you come across it.

I am sure at some stage or another you guys have seen certain parts of a beach that is just jam packed with weeds on a particular part of the beach. This will depend on the swell direction and tides as to where it ends up. If you think what has washed up, and why it has washed up, you will realise that after onshores and heavy swells weed, mussels, pipis, tuatua's, scollops ect.... are all in amongst the masses of sea weed, just remember, you can only see a fraction of the tucker. You should also realise that after big conditions fish feed up. Well where better to fish than an area that has already got natural burley in the water! By watching the conditions, swell direction and winds you can pin point where this is likely to occur before you even arrive. If the swell direction is north east on the map above, there is going to be a hole lot of stirred up shellfish down that southern end of the beach. You may not sea the evidence on the beach, but the tuatua beads under the water would have had a good scour from strong currents down that bottom end of the beach and the fish will know this.

Other indicators on where you fish depends on the target. If a kahawai contest is on this beach, the most productive area is going to be around the fresh water. This is where all the bait fish are, so it is only natural the kahawai are going to be there too. With this being said, if you are planning on spending the evening chasing a kingfish, again, you will know the kahawai are going to be around the fresh water and the kingfish are not going to be far behind so this makes section 3 the best location.

On the other hand, if the whole beach is flat, and it is November and the crayfish are shelling and you want to catch big snapper, where do you think they are likely to be found? Crayfish are all over the reefs, so putting a fresh bait beside a reef is going to be your best option in this situation, so section 1 is going to be the pick of the spots.

Late in spring when the Gurnard run, you can be sure you are not going to find them over the reef, they are a sand scavenger. They don't mind fresh water but are very rarely caught on the edge of a river because it is to shallow and to much turbulence. So you will look to the middle of the beach where the penny crabs are, and try and find a hole with little current where a gurnard can sit in relative calm water, section 2.

I always believe when you head to a beach, you should pick a species and target it, know a bit about that species like spawning, what they feed on at certain times of the year, and this will make selection of an area on the beach much easier. From this you may now understand why just rocking up to the beach, parking up the truck and flicking a bait out is not very productive sometimes. Just by giving it a little bit of thought, you will soon lift your catch rate and you wont have to think about these things, it will become second nature.

Thats part one, identifying how to break down the beach into area's to increase your chances of catching your target. Part two is breaking down each section on where to fish.  Here is an example of a river mouth in section 3.

Snapper can be caught in section 3, infact it can be a great spot. The water is deepest here, there is less current and fresh water hitting this area which snapper prefer, but it is in a good position to catch any food washing out the bar, like baby eel migrations, anchovies, flounder and all the other goodies that wash out. The trick is identifying this on the beach, these usually sit within 400m of any major bar on the coast.

Trevally is marked on the end of the spit. This is a common spot to target trevs, just on the edge of the spit, good currents pushing tucker out and they love turbulence. Very simular spots to the kahawai, only difference is the water is a little deeper. This is also a feature of most bars around the country, keep an eye out for it, trevs make a massive raw fish.

The area I have marked the great place to catch a live bait. This goes for all bars, fresh water, harbours our what ever, they will sit just out of the current, in a back wash in a deep area and hide, drop some sabikis in, and you have fresh live baits on tap!!  These baitfish will include, piper, yellow eyed mullet, kahawai ( small ) trevs ( small ). They will travel within 2-3 spots through different parts of the tide.

Kahawai, well it is well known they like the white wash and turbulence. This is identified as the shallow area the waves break in. Usually waste deep water. No need to cast far, short casts are the answer of the day.

Kingfish, and my favorite to chase in this area. Uusally ( not shown in this pic ) you will find a still water eddie, this is created when the tide pushes hard in one direction, its like a pressure release and it forms a natural back wash close to the shore line, this is the prime area to put a slide bait. The second area is to use the rips ( current ) to take you live bait out to the back of surf. There is an art to this and I wont go into it, but once you have a good understanding of the tide, current and formation this will become easy. These king fish sit back in the slightly deeper water just of the edge of the shallows where there is good current and pick off the weak and unsuspected baitfish and kahawai.

This is simple stuff and comes with time spent on the beach. Its not that you wont know this information, its more that often you wont stop to think about these things. This layout works all around the country, species and structure changes, and seasons come into play, but this is a good guide to use when planning a fishing trip. 

Hopefully you get something out of this.

Next I will post on identifying holes, gutters, bars and rips in the surf. More on identifying different structures and where fish sit in these structures.

Reading the surf, CONTINUED

This part is based more around section two of the diagram, large open areas of various structures under water that all look the same. I guess this is the part where most who have no idea on where to fish will get a better understanding of what they are looking for and why. 

This is not always possible, but if I can drive the entire beach in the truck I will, failing that, I will use the quad bike. When driving the beach you are not looking at the sea so much, your looking for concentrated areas of shellfish beds like tuatua. Low tide is best for this. Sometimes this will come in the form of an area with a large build up of shells, other times, much like being out in the boat, you are looking for birds, like oyster-catchers. They are the big fat black birds, with long beaks. They survive off shellfish, so when you find them, the shellfish are not to far away. You will find these birds mainly in the areas with high numbers of pipi/tuatua and you will see their holes from them digging in the sand. 

The reason the shellfish is such a big thing is because this is the bottom of the food chain, this is where the feeding cycle begins, these beds are usually thick in waste deep water on low. From this point, large amounts of penny crabs ( Baby paddle crabs ) nestle and so it continues.

Once you have located the shellfish the next thing you need to do is find a vantage point, like up on a sand dune. When you look from the water level it can be very difficult to actually see what is really happening. Getting a few extra metres in height to look down on the surf will give you a much better indication of channels, rips and holes. I can't stress enough, taking your time to do this right will be the difference between the 10% that catch fish and the 90% who go fishing. Getting up nice and high to look at the surf is great, but it does you no favours at all if you don't know what you are looking for.

Staying within the general area of the concentrated shellfish beds, here are a few examples of what you may see. I'll break down each picture and explain what you are looking at. Most will know this stuff, but for the guys who just see walls of white wash, this may explain a few things.

Fishing inside sand bars

Sandbar: This is an area where sand builds up and forms small sand hills under water, these are identified on the surface by whitewash.

Whitewash: This is the white aerated water you sea when a wave breaks, when you see whitewash, this indicates the water is shallow.

Channel: This is defined as a long stretch of clear water that runs along the beach inside of an outer bar. It is identified when the waves break further out, then reform, when the waves are reforming, there is no white wash, this is an indicator of the depth of water

Rip: This is a release point for inside channels, all the water that pours over the sand bars can not go back over the sand hills, it creates inner channels for water to run allong the beach, as it builds up it forces breaks in the outer bars, these are commonly known as rips.

Holes: When the water clams right down, on settled days with little current, the breaks in the outer bars created by rips settle as holes. Over long spells of fine weather, the sea natrually starts to full these up, that is why after a big blow, when new structure is made and new feeding areas for fish form, they come in and pounce.

Take note of this diagram, its a typical layout over all channels amongst the surf zone. Regardless of where in the country you are, these exist, they can be more defined in rougher waters but most surf type beaches have them. I have placed a white line in the diagram, this is like a road for fish, a highway the fish use through various times and stages throughout the tidal phase. Every time you see a gutter/channel in close along a beach it will have two points to take note of. The place where the water runs in from, and a point of release ( also know as a rip ) where water flow from the inner channel runs back into the sea. Basically over the two tides the rip will alternate between the two inlets points as it changes from an incoming and outgoing tide. These inlet and release points are like intersections on the fish highway, this is where you are more likely to find most of the traffic ( fish ).  The channels cover vast areas under water, in side these channels there is allot of baitfish, crabs, shellfish for fish to feed on. Fish like snapper come in through the inlet and sweep in with the tide and eventually pop out the rips which push then back to sea. When the current is running, a fair amount of debris and crustaceans gets forced out the rips, so fish wait at the back of these and feed. Channels will vary in size from beach to beach, but they all have the same principal. 

Dropping a bait anywhere along this white line will work well, although I always like to fish on the inlets as this is where the fish enter and leave so it would only make sense. There is a spot along the white line to suit pretty much everyone, guys n gals who are short casters and the bigger boys with a a few pies in the belly who can cast out into the deeper water of the inlets.

Fishing out the back

This diagram shows that there is no spots inshore to fish, so we need to find an area we can wade and punch the baits out the back of the wash. The whitewash shown in this picture indicates good water to wade in, there is a small outlet  ( rip ) pumping food out the back and lower in the diagram is a good sized sand spit which are fantastic to wade and cast from. In an area like this, that has allot of shellfish, as the tide comes in, the fish push behind the waves sucking up the shellfish as it is slowly revealed as the waves push forward. The area circled in the white line, is the best area to get your bait in this situation. As long as your bait is clearing the whitewash and hitting blue water, you are in for a shot at the snapper. 

Near perfect conditions. This photo illustrates one of those magic days where it doesn't really matter to much what the surf is doing, as it is not going to effect the fishing at all. Fishing over a large bed of shellfish, wading out and casting into undefined calm water. Fishing the day time in conditions like this is not ideal. Because the water is so clean there is very few fish that will venture into the shallows and feed, the main species in day time fishing in these conditions are primarily bottom dwellers like gurnard. At night its a much different story and it can be a complete contrast. Due to the calm conditions, over the high tide at night, fish can feed on areas they can't usually get to due to weather, and under the cover of darkness it can be dynamic. Snapper smashing the shellfish and the frenzy begins. This is a common site in areas south of Hohora, Kerikeri, Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay. Make the most of these flat conditions during the day by wading out to where you feel comfortable and unleash a big cast to hit the deeper darker water, where snapper are waiting for shelter to come in closer and feed. At night though, these snapper will be very close and in shallow, short casts will work a treat.

This photo here shows no inner channel at all, however there is a good break in the bar. This is the best spot to fish on this beach. My left rod is positioned in the hole itself, the bait has been dropped short on the edge of the bar where the fish will be feeding over the incoming tide. My right side rod is going long, here I am wading out as far as possible, wading through the shallow whitewash and unleashing a cast as far as I can into the deep water out the back. So I was using two different methods on this occasion covering my bases to see if the fish where in close inside the hole, or out wide behind the far bar. When driving along the beach, it looked like a wall of whitewash, but by getting up high, it identified a fantastic spot.

This photo shows the top of the 90 mile beach on a calm day. You can see that in this photo, near the centre, the deep water comes right into the beach. Where you can see white wash inclose is shallow and would be comfitable to wade in, this would allow you to hit the deep water. If you stood on the sand dune just up from the beach, you will see this huge area. It certainly had some fish this day! Being able to identify where you can wade is a really good tool, it is very simple, its just a case of keeping an eye on the whitewash which gives you the depth. Standing back with show you where all the spits are and where you will be able to wade and get right out onto the deep water.

Section 1

The final part in reading the surf is in identifying foul ground and building an understanding of how to attack it. I should have saved this topic for my book as it is quite a large and popular subject, but I guess its good to be able to share a little info from time to time and give something back for all the years of sitting at the waters edge.

It doesn't matter where you are fishing around the country, foul ground and structure attracts fish. In the south island, that may be moki, blue cod and elephant fish, through wellington, its more moki, trevally and snapper. As we head north through Hawkes Bay, this is where we find moki, snapper and kingfish. Taranaki, channels between rocks are amazing for snapper. Auckland again snapper is a hot topic and fish like john dory. To the far north, reefs attract large trevally, snapper and so on. So having a good understanding of what species are on offer from your local fishery and the time of year they are caught is a massive advantage when you go fishing. 

So far covering off the other sections, we have looked at river mouths, covering off kingfish, kahawai, trevally and snapper. Then moved into the open sand aspect looking at gurnard and open beach snapper fishing. Now its all about structure which opens up new species depending where you are in the country and different tactics to catch them. What I mean by tactics is having a basic understanding of fish habits. Moki for example, they will not feed on oily baits like pilchard and bonito, they primarily feed on crustaceans and shellfish like mussels, crab and crayfish. So knowing something little like that and going to the beach with green lip mussels will already improve your chances of success. Other little things that are notable is the distances you catch moki. They are in close only a few meters behind the wave break quite often, so ledger rigs and a short cast is a much better option than a long cast and a dirty great big thump on the rod casting to the horizon. So having a good understanding of the species you are trying to catch is as important as being able to read the surf. No point in fishing the most amazing spots in NZ if you have no idea on what to expect and how to catch them, take the time to do a little reading and understand why fish do what they do and things become much clearer. 

Most structures like reef and wreaks all have shellfish. Mussels, sea weeds, paua's and kina's all make up a healthy reef system. It is these natrual attractants that bring in the fish on a regular basis. You will usually find after heavy onshore conditions in places like the 90 mile, Matata ect, all have build ups of seaweed. Bits of bullkelp that has been shared off the rocks in heavy swells with mussels attached, and kina's that have dislodged, this is all great stuff and will attract fish on those open beaches when the weather settles. Unfortunitly, these reef systems are to far to cast to, but other spots around the country where the reefs are much closer are absolutly gold when this occurs.

Small inshore reef

The photo below demonstrates a very small reef system in close to shore. Two smaller rocks the size of a vehicle over a clean stretch of beach. These two rocks over the low tide will force a little bit of swell to break over them, and this usually puts fisherman off the area as they see it and think, bugger that im not going to lose any gear. However, over this barron stretch of beach, these two rocks provide a substantial amount of tucker. There is a large amount of mussels spread over them, the white wash dislodges particles from the mussels, much like a mussel farm, but on a smaller scale and this attracts snapper.

I have roughly drawn in white around the rocks the areas where I would look to land a bait. Far enough away from the rock itself to not get snagged up, but close enough for the scent of a good bait to lure the fish off the reef. You will find little things like cross winds and onshore conditions will place the fish in a concerntrated area and make it easy to catch the fish. These are little things to keep an eye on. Because these particular rocks are is very close to shore, if it was dead flat, and bright conditions, you would look to hit this on dark and through the night. In cloudy water conditions like the image shows, the fishing would be fine through the day as the fish have a little coverage to merge into.

Large reef structures

This image shows a much larger reef system which runs a reasonable distance to sea. At low tide this is seen by white wash breaking on the surface. Towards high tide, this is seen as darker water, much like clouds shadowing the water.

SPOT

#1 Shows a deep channel over sand down the edge of the reef. This is seen as being deep due to the lack of swell peaking through the area and the colour of the water. This spot would be my choice during the day for snapper. The reason for that is distance is not restricted, and during the bright conditions, I want to be able to hit the deeper water.

2# This is a great spot for moki at night cruzing the inner channel just behind the waves. At night they frequently move off the deeper reefs and cruise the open coasts and this is the kind of areas to look for. Close inner channels inside reef systems.

#3 This spot is simular to 2, however your not fishing over sand, your casting a heavier line directly onto the reef like 15kg mono. Spots like this can be a hassle with congas and typical reef fish, but on the other side it will yield blue cod, blue moki, snapper, trevally ect. It is a risky place to fish as it can cost allot of gear, but if you get it right, it can be very productive. It pays to use a sacrificial sinker when fishing areas like this

#4 Is very simular to spot #1 however it is quite a bit shallower.( Often you can find one side of a large reef is deeper than the other side. This is created through prevailing currents and prolonged winds from any given direction. It tends to sweep the sand from the sheltered side of the reef.)  It is close enough to the structure to catch the reef fish without being at risk of snags. Because it is shallow, it is better suited to twilight and night fishing. You would expect snapper and all sorts to venture as the sun sets on the horizon.

Its the same principle with fishing near a rocky point, ether use heavy gear and cast over it, or stick to the lighter stuff and hit the open sand near it. The catch 22 is the closer you get to the reef, the less room you have for error, in other words, the fish don't have very far to hit safety. Decent snapper, moki, trevally will all power 15 meters on a good first run, sometimes more.

The diagrams are very basic and broad, but they give a very general impression of how to fish structure. Everyone of the spots over any given reef like that or similar will hold many different species. Anyone can go to a beach and catch a fish, thats easy, but catching fish consistently off the beaches you need to think about things and carefully decide where to fish, take your time and weigh up all your options. An extra 15 minutes is not a bad price to pay for 5 or 6 hours of fantastic fishing, rushing there, flicking a rod and catching bugger all is not much fun, especially when it gets to the point where your wife thinks your not even going fishing !! 

A few key points

kingfish, you want current and baitfish. So river mouths and bars are the best option to find them

Kahawai feed in very shallow water, in most cases using the white wash to pounce on there prey ( sprats )

Snapper mainly feed morning and night, but can be caught during the day in deeper water, or in shallow water that is murky, so they have cover to feed in.

Gurnard prefer sheltered calm clear water, there not usually in decent numbers when the water is dirty

If you want any additional info added, just ask. I will add a brief part on a few rigs for fishing different locations. Again. this topic has been brief, I have to save some things for my book or it won't be worth bloody reading lol. There are allot of variances like wind and weather but those are the things you gain in time, I hope this has shed some light on the walls of wash that grace our beautiful shore lines here in NZ.

Chur