It really interests me how you approach strong rip currents on a beach

When I really started to actively target “proper” surf conditions on beaches with lures, I was mainly fishing with the Savage Gear Seeker metal lures - yes, other metals obviously exist!, and it was before I pushed for the Surf Seekers - and when the conditions were pretty strong and onshore with those really lovely, lively, short seas, I was sure that I kept on picking up weed because my lure would sometimes and somewhat inexplicably feel a bit heavier……………

On numerous occasions I would wind my Seeker in because I thought I had weed on the end, but I didn’t. The lure would come back clean, and for a while I just presumed that whatever weed I had hooked had come off before the lure came to hand. I would cast out in the same direction, get the same feeling, wind in again because we all know that any weed on a lure stops fish hitting it, but once again there would be no weed around the hooks or leader. Or a fish would grab it.

From a few years ago, but the rip current is very visible and moving in the direction of the red arrow

So I got to thinking about it. As I said at the top, lots of metal lures work well in the surf, but I know Seekers the best, and I know how for a metal lure they swim shallow on a straight retrieve and grip really well into rough conditions. I reckon that in all that turbulence out there the lure was feeling heavier because I had unknowingly wound it into a rip current and the Seeker was literally gripping into that extra bit of cross-current and feeling heavier as a result. Weed aside I now know not to crank my Seeker in when I am fishing in the surf and it suddenly feels a bit heavier. I want my lure in the rips and the Seeker - could be another lure of course! - helps me know where the good stuff is when I did not see the rip current amidst all that turbulence but my lure is actually right in it.

I don’t know if I am allowed to copy and paste from Wikipedia, but I grabbed this information about rip currents from their page here: “A rip current (also rip) is a specific type of water current that can occur near beaches where waves break. A rip is a strong, localized, and narrow current of water that moves directly away from the shore by cutting through the lines of breaking waves, like a river flowing out to sea. The force of the current in a rip is strongest and fastest next to the surface of the water (which makes a lot of sense if you know how shallow a Seeker swims on the retrieve and what you can feel when you hit a rip). Causes and occurrence - a rip current forms because wind and breaking waves push surface water towards the land. This causes a slight rise in the water level along the shore. This excess water will tend to flow back to the open water via the route of least resistance. When there is a local area which is slightly deeper, such as a break in an offshore sand bar or reef, this can allow water to flow offshore more easily, and this will initiate a rip current through that gap”.

I will always try to get whatever lures I am using into a rip current. Sometimes you can see them very easily and sometimes you can’t, but when you fish heavy surf conditions there often seems to be all manner of localised currents running in various directions. I am sure that any of you who surf can tell me a lot more about this, but I distinctly remember a session on a local beach when I was on my own and the rip current running from east to west was so strong that I didn’t dare wade out at all for fear of losing my footing and floating off in a pair of BCWs which wouldn’t exactly be ideal. I also remember banging out a few bass because I could literally dead-drift what I would imagine were DoLive Sticks in the localised current that was running more like a river. Why was the rip so strong on that particular day when in fact the surf wasn’t really big? I have no idea, but I would sure like to know more about it all.

And then we had a situation only last weekend where thanks to this rather good bass angler Leigh we ended up fishing a very strong east to west running rip which I didn’t know could be there on what was a pretty big tide. Because there was a bit of surf running I naturally started fishing with a 30g Surf Seeker, but about ten minutes later I wasn’t feeling it at all. Maybe it was the combination of wave strength - not that much - and depth and rip, but the lure just didn’t feel right to me. Andy was fishing to the right of me and persisted with a Seeker because why wouldn’t you when we have done so well in the surf with these lures………….

I did a bit of thinking and changed lures. On many occasions I’d have turned to a soft plastic rigged on a weedless hook and slowly swum it across the rip while it swung around - it wasn’t strong enough to dead-drift stuff - but with the makeup of the location the rip I wanted to fish was a bit further out and I needed a bit more distance. I don’t have one of those vertical-slotted washable lure boxes without at least a couple of Seekers and a couple of Savage Gear Sandeel Pencil 90 and 125 lures in there, so I clipped on the Sandeel Pencil 125 because of what it can do for me in a situation like this. We didn’t have long on the mark for various reasons, and you also know that I don’t give a stuff about who catches the most or the biggest or anything pointless like that, but via my lure change to the Sandeel Pencil 125 I went and pulled a couple of bass out whereas Andy didn’t on the Seeker. I have no idea if the colour of my lure made any difference at all, but a really nice angler I know over in Ireland recently commented on one of my Facebook posts and advised me to try the Motor Oil colour Sandeel Pencil 125. I went rooting around here at home and finally found one, and that was the colour which worked the other day. Amazing how many Sandeel Pencils you can fit into those vertical slots in the washable lure boxes if you’re clever!

Two fish might not prove a hell of a lot, but in a short space of time and with how differently my Sandeel Pencil 125 felt when it was coming through and across that rip compared to a Seeker, I am convinced it made all the difference in that moment in time. I was able to fish it a bit slower and still keep it nice and shallow as I very deliberately cast a bit east to allow for it tracking into and across the rip, and that’s exactly where the fish hit me. I know it’s 1st December and we can’t ask for too much at this time of year, but I seriously fancy the open coast stuff at the moment if I can get the right conditions. Anybody have a hotline to the weather gods? You all have a good weekend, catch you next week…………

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