Fishing while tides out.

[Moody]

My local beaches are vast exspances of sand.

When the tide comes inn its unbeleivably shallow but you still get people fishing it.

The thing is theres more water depth when the tides out and the first hour as the tide rises due to sand banks way off the beach.

Would there still be a chance of catching if i follow the tide out and fish off the sand banks after the ebb has stopped upto an hough after the tide starts to come back inn again ???

[Guest jay_con]

My favorite time is low tide. Yes you should still be able to catch at low tide.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Cefn Sidan is like wise a very shallow surf beach with a fast flood tide, most people fish the flood and I have found around half flood to top water the best. These recent storms will colour the water and the fishing should be good. You are seldom casting into more than 3' of water and most of the time only 2'.

[Andy MacBog]

Ken,

 

What sort of fish are you catching in water that shallow? And just out of interest, how far do you need to cast?

 

I'm used to "the deeper the better" along the rocky Aberdeenshire and north-west of Scotland coasts .... mostly after cod though (rather than bass and flatties?). Often wonder about the shallower beaches N of Inverness though, the seals seem to like 'em so there must be fish!

 

Andy

[Cranfield]

The main thing to remember when fishing low tides and walking back with the tide, is not to get cut off.

 

A bad experience 20 years ago taught me this.

[spanner]

Hi Andy and welcome to AN.

 

You must pass my house at Dunecht on your way to the Aberdeenshire rock marks, puts my little 25min drive to shame!

 

Where abouts do you usually fish?

[Andy MacBog]

Hi Spanner!

 

I usually fish Portlethen, Crawton (my fave) and Usan during the winter and onto the sandier marks like Red Rocks for dabs and mackerel in the summer.

 

Having just moved from Aberdeen to the middle of the Scottish Highlands I am hoping to get to know the West Coast now too. And aye, its usually two hours from door to mark now.

 

Tried the Moray Firth ..... that'll be a new thread!

 

Andy

[spanner]

Andy,

 

Never had much luck at Crawton myself, I much prefer Portlethen, Findon, etc....just one of those things I guess. Must get down to Usan/Arbroath sometime, but thats over an hour!!

 

I used to live over in Wester Ross, and I've fished quite a lot over there with generally pretty poor results. A lot of places have never recovered yet from the scallop dredging, as if the trawling wasn't bad enough. There are some marks around Ullapool that you could reach in under 2hrs.

 

I find it much better to head further south around Ardnamurchan, Loch Sunart, Sound of Mull, Loch Leven, Loch Etive etc. You should be able to get to Corran/Ballachuilish in a little under 2hrs and I reckon that'd be your best bet.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Hi Andy

Catches vary through the season, not worth fishing Febuary to end of March, then the bass, golden mullet, flounders, dabs, woofers move in. In May the schoolies move in with a vengence and getting a bait to a decent fish is almost impossible some days. I have fouled up on a cast been 20yrds out whilst sorting out the mess on more than one occasion and caught bass in 15" of water and flounders in less. Its true what they say a long cast is not always the way. In the summer I wade out waist deep but it is b****y hard work and in truth does not always bring home the goods. I find the fish follow the flood in looking for food so I choose a mark that is showing a lot of worm and shell life and move backwards over this area, back flow gullies work well but you need a good surf with a rising tide during the afternoon like this Friday, it should be good after this blow.

[Andy MacBog]

Hi Spanner,

 

Yeah, Argyll is definitely tugging at me! I have sailed all around that area and went to university in Glasgow (from NI) so that I could climb all the hills that I saw! So to go and fish in that backdrop is quite tempting! Loch Creran especially has caught my eye but then I am a sadist who likes to fish rough ground.

 

Thanks for all those pointers Ken. I shall try your tips on into the summer. It may not be great in the Moray Firth but an evening spent catching the odd decent fish is better than nothng at all I suppose!

 

Thanks again,

 

Andy