Over the half a century plus I have been drawn to the beach I have received many tried and tested tips. It has become obvious there are many who joined this site to pick up on a few helpful hints to improve on their success rate.

I hope there are others who will enter into the spirit of this thread and offer a few suggestions or tips they find useful, especially to newcomers and older hands alike.

I will start the ball rolling, hopefully you will join in.

Break out sinkers. The standard BOS sinker works well but can it be improved? I believe yes. Tip one: on the top of my rod rest, secured with a piece of line, I keep an ordinary tooth brush. This proves extremely useful when the grooves the wires sit in become clogged with sand. Also the brush is good for removing any bait from the hooks at the end of a session. Tip 2: take an pair of pliers, straighten the wires and add a lumo bead, then re-curve the wire to its original shape. This has a twofold effect, First it helps secure the wires in place, secondly, the sinker will not be too far away from the baited hook and at night, if the beads are 'charged with light', they act as an attractor. Here you can see before and after.



I mentioned quite recently I like to use fine wire hooks. I managed to get a few packets of the Alan Yates hooks from the UK, these are quite deadly on gurnard, Kahawhai and pan sized snapper. I like these for their sharpness and the way they hold the point, I also like them for the long shank and the extra width in the gape. This enables a long bait such as an anchovy to be held securely whilst the bait remains in a natural shape. Also, being a wire gape hook, there is plenty of point and barb showing, frequently fish hook themselves. Finally the bait does not bunch up and crowd the gape, this can be a cause of missed takes. The picture shows two fine wire hooks alongside two Black Magic hooks. the difference in material thickness it surprising and this makes a big difference to bait presentation.



Finally, I don't like a snap off any more than the next man, tying a fresh rig on a cold evening holds little appeal. I carry several pre-made traces with me, plus the other parts required for a pulley rig. The only work required is to slide a bead and small piece of soft tube on the shock leader to protect the knot, and attach a small stainless split ring. Everything else just clips into place with the use of Tackle Tactics clips.

I keep the ready made traces, complete with bead attractors on a piece of flat, soft plastic, I think this came from an ice cream lid, then it is slipped into a polythene bag. This keeps moisture at bay and the hooks free of any oxidation, it also holds the traces nice and flat.