fishsong Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Hi all, Thought I did enough research online on gutters and went out on Sunday for a beach fishing session. Tried looking for a gutter but had no idea what I was doing. It all looks the same to me. Can anyone give me some good tips to spot beach gutters. Thanks all. Keep fishin! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spooooled Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Hi all, Thought I did enough research online on gutters and went out on Sunday for a beach fishing session. Tried looking for a gutter but had no idea what I was doing. It all looks the same to me. Can anyone give me some good tips to spot beach gutters. Thanks all. Keep fishin! hi fish nice to see u bring up this topic im actually in the same boat lol clueless Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wriggler1 Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 (edited) Look for darker water where the waves don't break Edited April 29, 2012 by Wriggler1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevefish Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 first thing, ask a surfer to point them out to you. there may be places the waves are hitting hard all the time, this will be shallow water and this water will need to go somewhere, ie a gutter/rip. there will be places the waves dont really break well if at all, this will be deepwater, most likely moving out to sea. usually there will be a channel hard in the corner of at least one end of the beach. some beaches are easier to read than others, look at a few at different times with different swell direction sand you will pick it up. a bit of height will help. then if you still dont get it ask some more surfers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stealthmission Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Ditto with Wrigglers comments... the other thing to be aware of is that gutters can run both parallel and at right angles from the beach... As they are constantly changing you may be best to check out the fishing spot at low tide there the gutters will be more obvious.. Hope this helps Stealth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kaktis Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Depending on the conditions, you may need to stop and watch for some time for the picture to come together. As the other guys have said, darker/deeper-coloured water than the surrounds indicates deeper water, best to be up higher, say from a headland, or sand dunes to see this. On certain days, at certain vantage points, and/or at higher tides you may not be able to determine these differences in water depth from degrees of darkness of the water, then you'll need to rely almost solely on how the waves break... Where waves fall over, (form white foam at their crest that spills down as it rolls to the beach), indicates the wave is travelling through SHALLOWER water... where the waves do not fall over as effectively indicates the wave is travelling through DEEPER water... Also bear in mind that you have to have a reasonable expectation as to how far you can cast, or how far you do cast... i.e. there's no point spotting and heading for a (parallel) gutter 50m out if you can only cast 25m... conversely, if you see a decent gutter in close and proceed to cast and leave your offering on a sand bar miles beyond it, you're not doing yourself any favours. The best gutters are those that are open to the ocean... holes in close can hold fish, but bear in mind there'll be fewer fish willing to scoot across a sand bar to get to these than there will be those who'll prefer their chances remaining in deeper water. All that said though, my success rate of late has been abysmal, so I'm beginning to doubt my theories somewhat. Good luck with it anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishsong Posted February 22, 2012 Author Share Posted February 22, 2012 Thanks for all the replies. Does the area where the gutters are usually formed adjacent to where the surfers are? I'll go try my luck again this weekend if the weather holds up. Didn't know beach fishing was so hard! haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennoz Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 can be confusing, but once you know what to look for they are easy to spot. All the things said before are correct but it can be hard to visualise. heres a google maps of my fav beach - catherine hill bay. notice the gutters spaced along the beach leading to the ocean Heres a gutter running parallel to the beach (easy to see from above). notice how close to the sand it is heres a gutter running out to sea (a typical RIP) heres what it looks like from the beach level. quite a bit harder to spot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishsong Posted February 23, 2012 Author Share Posted February 23, 2012 Thanks Bennoz, Those pictures were really helpful. I guess I need to get up on a high point and sus out where the gutters are beforing head down to the beach. Thanks for your help! Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCOTTYB Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 Awesome level of detail and great pics. Worth Pinning, or adding to the articles/how to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stricko4 Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 G'day mate, Often there is no high spot to view a beach so here is how it was explained to me. You need to be looking for waves that break over a sand bar (light coloured water) some way out off the beach. That break then runs in through a darker (deeper) section of water & then breaks on the shore. The section of darker water where the waves seem to flatten out after breaking over the sand bar is the gutter. Gutters have a flow to them so will have an entrance & exit from the beach & these are often very productive places to fish too. The exit, where the water is moving out to sea is what people call a rip. Fishraider member Gary Brown has produced a pretty informative & inexpensive book on beach & rock fishing & I highly recommend it. Also there is a very experienced guy who does beach fishing charters in Sydney & an afternoon or morning spent with him is good investment if you ask me Kingys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mondo Rock Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 The other good tip is to check the beach at dead low tide. Gutters are very easy to see at low tide - they're the parts of the beach that are still underwater! There's no rhyme or reason to them - you won't be able to pick them by looking at surfers or swimmers - you just have to learn how to distinguish deeper water from shallower water. Actually at the end of the day you don't really need to know what a 'gutter' is, all you need to be able to do is estimate the water depth in front of you. Whiting like water around 1m deep or less, bream 1 - 3m, and tailor like the deeper stuff. It doesn't really matter whether your bait is in a gutter or not as long as the water is deep enough for the species you are targeting. And that's 1,000 posts for me. Hooray - only took me about 10 years! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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