Where to fish on the beach (Narrabeen)

[Evos]

Hi All, 

I'm new to the community and had a questions about beach fishing. 

I'm very new to beach fishing and I'm trying to get a lot more into it. last weekend I was fishing Narabeen Beach, and was trying to find the right spot to set up. I couldn't seem to find a proper rip or gutter and could barley see sandbanks. Can you help me identify these spots and what to look for in future. 

[Houdini]

The rip is where the water is flowing out to sea or sometimes along the beach. Gutters are where the water is deeper than normal and sand banks are the shallow parts of the beach. 

[noelm]

Not much on that beach, it’s pretty flat from what I can see. The best option is to look for a high Headland at the end of the beach, gutters and so on are easy to see when up higher. On a flat beach like that, I would fish the ends beside the rocks, that said, in a couple of days, the whole thing can change.

Edited March 8 by noelm

[Steve0]

I never fished Narrabeen but can give you a general lesson.

Gutters change all the time. There may be nothing there one day. A massive low will create a big swell and resulting waves scour away sand. In calmer weather, sand slowly takes a return journey. Initially banks may be very wide but sand gradually gets pushed across the bank, creeping the bank closer to shore.  Park a deck chair on the beach, you may get lucky but go the the same location some time later when the sand structure changes you'll be fishing a desert. Hence, there is no X spot along any beach, except where water movement is channeled by rocks. 

At times it can be difficult to read a beach. The best way to start learning is to look down from a high observation point at low tide. You need to be looking for changes in white water and colour variations that indicate deeper water. The part @Houdini is calling the rip is named a drain below. We say 'rip' but drain is a good way to think about happening. Water comes across banks and the lack of depth and following waves prevent the water delivered returning the same way. A current forms that moves along until it finds a weak point in the bank and water drains back to sea that way (hence, dangerous for swimming). Fish may enter almost anywhere hunting for a feed (some come across the bank and some swim against the rip).  As water is driving across the bank it disturbs microorganisms. These are the start of the food chain. Fish may patrol the bank looking for a feed, but not always. My motto was 'no fish in nine casts (3 straight, 3 left and 3 right), keep moving.  Fish may also hang about outside the rip. If you walk out on  a bank, you sometimes catch fish that way. 

Having looked and learnt at low tide, gradually it becomes easier to read the water as you walk a beach near high tide.  However, early in your learning, make a mental not of potential locations and fish them around dusk (IMO more productive than dawn). 

BTW If you burley (I don't), you need to understand the path it takes.  

 

.

[noelm]

I found this old thread.

[XD351]

Narrabeen tends to be more small holes rather than gutters - sometimes there is a decent gutter at the north end of the beach near the lake entrance , depends in how much swell has been around and what direction it is coming from . 
All the pictures below are screenshots from an app I subscribed to and are from  live footage taken at midday today. 

Below is Avalon showing a typical horse shoe gutter - this is close to low tide and would be worth a fish it high tide - even better if high tide is after dark .

Below is Mona vale showing a hole or pocket gutter - similar to what you will get on Narrabeen beach .

 

Below is south Deewhy showing a closed end gutter , which is really just an incomplete horseshoe gutter - sometimes you will get two ( one either side of a sandbar)that don’t quite join in the middle to for a horseshoe.

Below is mid and south curl curl - this beach always seems to have a gutter of some sort on it and the bottom photo just shows the end of the gutter where it runs out to sea . 

 

Palm beach also has some reasonable gutters most of the time but like any beach- prolonged periods of low or no swell will fill the gutters in and turn it into a fishing desert or a haven for sand crabs and stingrays!

[Evos]

Un-real thanks everyone ! I'm still trying to work out a good spot if anyone has any suggestions for beach fishing and would like to give away any fun locations that would be great. So far I've just fished Stanwell Park Beach (I found it very turbulent the two times I went) and Narrabeen 

[Green Hornet]

17 minutes ago, Evos said:

Un-real thanks everyone ! I'm still trying to work out a good spot if anyone has any suggestions for beach fishing and would like to give away any fun locations that would be great. So far I've just fished Stanwell Park Beach (I found it very turbulent the two times I went) and Narrabeen 

Swell size is the all important factor when beach fishing. Find a good weather app or website you like and ideally try and fish a day when the waves are 0.8 - 1.2 metres, a little bit extra either side is okay depending on the beach.

Stanwell Park would have been very turbulent only because the swell was too big for that beach to cope with it.

If the swell is say from the south and a little too big, take a look at the southern end of the beach, where it could be protected from the waves by a headland. Either that, or find a beach that faces north and is protected from the swell altogether.

[XD351]

2 hours ago, Evos said:

Un-real thanks everyone ! I'm still trying to work out a good spot if anyone has any suggestions for beach fishing and would like to give away any fun locations that would be great. So far I've just fished Stanwell Park Beach (I found it very turbulent the two times I went) and Narrabeen 

It is a bit more complex than that ! I can tell you to fish a certain beach but there is no guarantee that the fish I caught today will be there tomorrow - beach formations can change overnight and the fish move out .

You can try Wanda beach near Cronulla, all of the beaches from palm to manly produce fish like bream , whiting, flathead salmon , tailor and the odd mulloway but unfortunately because the of the way the sand moves on beaches - literally here today gone tomorrow and back again the next it is impossible to predict where the fish will be. You will just have to do it the same way we do - look at the beach , identify the structure , give it a go and if one gutter doesn’t produce after maybe half an hour  move to another . 
BTW if you want to learn one on one how to fish the beach and rocks there is an excellent guide operating on the northern beaches - he is the only one doing so over there so just type in beach fishing guide northern beaches into your favourite search engine and he should come up. 

Edited March 8 by XD351