Nick, you were real warm. Right like I said best for a sandy beach with a large intertidal zone. At low tide ya head out as far as you go. Taking with you a stake, preferably steel. Doesn't have to be that long
as you really only want the top portion sticking out of the sand. I used galvanised three quarter inch pipe and slide a bit of alkathene hose over it, as a safety measure. Just in case somebody walked on it. Tied to the pipe is a split ring, fairly small. Back up on the beach above high water mark is your rod. Reel is filled with light guage cheap mono. Drag is set at minimium and as you walked down the beach you took the line with you. Thread it through the ring or swivel and walk back up the beach but on a slight angle so the lines don't get twisted together. Cut the mono of the reel. So now you have two ends. Tie them to seperate pieces of no 8 wire or whatever and plug in the sand. Mark spot somehow. If the beach is used by vehicles, make up a few little u s out of the wire and use them to hold line down.
Return when the tide suits you. Attach one end to your reel, the working reel. Remember the reel must have sufficent line on it to go at least as far as the deadman. On your fishing reel trace, attach a length of say 10 feet of mono, tie a split ring larger than the one on the deadman. Tie other line end to that Bait up as many hooks as you want. Put rod in rod holder, release drag on fishing reel. 25 yards down the beach is your working rod. Go back to that and start winding. When the larger ring hits the smaller ring you will know your gear is out as far as it is going to go.
Set light drag on working reel and head back to the fishing reel. Obviously when you catch a fish or want to check the bait, well you wind in. And as you do the working reel feeds off line. To reset, back to step one.
If you get a cock up the lighter line on the working reel will snap off.
End of fishing you can wind both lines back in on their respective reels. Just remove the larger split ring. The deadman will remain for future use or you can retrieve it the following day at low tide. Or if it is a nice remote beach, leave it in with the line ends back on the no 8 wire clips and buried in the sand so it is there next time you return.
Sounds complicated but it aint, quite simple.
And you can send out as big a bait you like. You Hawks Bay guys with those nice steep shelving beaches could have a go for a real big shark, with a whole kahawai for bait, try casting one of those lol.
Cheers Trev