Starting to use Bing and Google maps more to scout new areas of the beach. Watching Rich Trox’s videos on YouTube help alot. Are these the types of identifiers I need to be looking for? Places or routes where fish will wait for the bait to be washed down and into the deeper water and ambush?
Yes Sir Mr. King pin. You have the trough parallel to the beach. Then you have the cut that you pointed out that moves water in and out. Fish will hang out at the end of the cuts and wait for the bait to get washed out to sea. It’s just like the conveyer belt at the grocery store transferring groceries from one place to the next. They will also use the cut to get from the ocean back to the trough next to the beach, as the tide rolls back in. Once they drop in- the shore line and the sand bar that run parallel together act as a natural barrier, kind of like a fence. At that point larger fish move in. Allot using the cut, and have a better chance of catching their prey. Just because you find these doesn’t mean your going to tear them up every time, but putting bait directly on the Highways they travel on, can improve your chances. It all adds up. When you go out to the beach and look at the surf you will see a line of waves that break in the same spot over and over again. This is usually because they are hitting the sand bar. Look along the break line and you can identify spots along that line that the waves just keep on rolling through and not breaking. They are rolling through the cut- no bar to stop them. You keep doing what your doing and it will only produce positive results, promise. Great Job. What’s the saying an ounce of effort will yield a pound of results:smiley: Fish will also use the currents ripping in and out the same way. Drop baits into the currents flowing out and allot of times something will be sitting waiting at the end, for a meal. Good luck Sir.
Yes and no. The look a little small to me but it looks right. Small is better than nothing!
Your biggest problem is what time the picture is taken. If you’re used to the area and keep a relatively close watch over construction near your fishing sites you can make an educated guess as to what time the picture was takes based on construction progress, besides that it’s kinda hard to tell… However I know for a fact that your image is very old and basically useless since the sand can shift quite quickly. If you go to that same location(5th Ave IOP) and switch to “Arial” view you’ll notice a pool is now in the middle house’s back yard, therefore the birdseye view is a few months older at best. There’s also very few people on the beach or cars parked on the road suggesting that it’s not summer time in the aerial picture, even this mid morning picture would likely have more peeps IMO.
This piqued my interest so I decided to look into this problem. It doesn’t appear Bing has and easy answer but it looks like google earth will timestamp images. It appears that pool was built in 2012.
Now google earth and google maps (satellite) don’t appear to match up perfectly. Google earth seems to show the left house burning down and getting rebuilt. Luckily google earth shows the same deep trough as google maps.
Anyway sorry about going pretty deep down the rabbit hole there. Google seems to be far more up to date. I would use it as a guide but you’ll need to do the scouting to get accurate info. I’m thinking of taking a bike ride on low tide with a few print outs and surveying the beach. If get around to it I’ll post it.
Good luck!
First, Most, Biggest
Thanks guys for the replies! Great info here. I went out to IOP on Friday after work, rising tide. Rods in the water around 3pm. After about an hour of no bites, I moved a little further north and caught a juvi 12" Black Drum on fresh shrimp. A storm started to roll in around 6 so I had to pack it up. Saturday I hit Folly and fished the corner of the county park. Theres a nice hole there but im not to sure if its accessible during high tide. Walked away empty handed at Folly after a few hours on the water. It was still a great day with clouds blocking the sun and a wind off the water!