Getting to the surf in the right migration season for the fish you’re after, picking the beach, and then working that beach for the best structure are all daunting tasks. It comes down to being in the right place at the right time. Most of us only get to surf fish a few times a year. We don’t have the luxury of friends who live near the beach, fish it often and share their spots. And let’s face it, most surf anglers are very shy about sharing their best spots. So what are we to do to improve our chances of landing on the right beach, and the right spot on that beach? Keep in mind that a great spot with plenty of structure is no guarantee of catching fish. Sometimes the fish are sitting somewhere with no real structure at all. There’s a lot of luck involved.
Years ago I started studying NOAA nautical charts, particularly the ENC viewer, looking for places where deep water came close to shore. I’d pull the GPS coordinates, then use Google Maps to work out how far each spot was from the nearest OSV access point. It gave me a handful of locations that seemed more likely to hold structure and draw big migrating fish. I’ve consolidated that effort and added a few other features to help research likely structure into a the tool bellow. This is an initial version so stay tuned for updates.
Depths come from NOAA NCEI coastal elevation models, built from surveys of different ages. Sandbars and sloughs move with every storm, so use this as a guide to the bottom, not its exact shape today. Not for navigation.
Instructions
How To Video
- Scroll wheel or the + – buttons on the top left to zoom. Hot spot indicators stop at 1 Mile zoom (shown on bottom left)
- Hot spot indicators show areas where structure could be. Click a hot spot circle to automatically drill to the locations.
- If structure locations don’t immediately appear, wait a few seconds for them to calculate.
- After selecting a hot spot and drilling to structure indicators, a box will appear in the bottom left with a “Clear” button. Hit the button to return to the overview.
- Click anywhere in the water to find the depth.
- If you scroll outside the calculated structure area, hit the “Find Structure” button in the top left to located structure in the new window.
- Watch the video!!!
Depths come from NOAA NCEI coastal elevation models, built from surveys of different ages. Sandbars and sloughs move with every storm, so use this as a guide to the bottom, not its exact shape today. Not for navigation.
Instructions
How To Video
- Scroll wheel or the + – buttons on the top left to zoom. Hot spot indicators stop at 1 Mile zoom (shown on bottom left)
- Hot spot indicators show areas where structure could be. Click a hot spot circle to automatically drill to the locations.
- If structure locations don’t immediately appear, wait a few seconds for them to calculate.
- After selecting a hot spot and drilling to structure indicators, a box will appear in the bottom left with a “Clear” button. Hit the button to return to the overview.
- Click anywhere in the water to find the depth.
- If you scroll outside the calculated structure area, hit the “Find Structure” button in the top left to located structure in the new window.
- Watch the video!!!
Depths come from NOAA NCEI coastal elevation models, built from surveys of different ages. Sandbars and sloughs move with every storm, so use this as a guide to the bottom, not its exact shape today. Not for navigation.
Instructions
How To Video
- Scroll wheel or the + – buttons on the top left to zoom. Hot spot indicators stop at 1 Mile zoom (shown on bottom left)
- Hot spot indicators show areas where structure could be. Click a hot spot circle to automatically drill to the locations.
- If structure locations don’t immediately appear, wait a few seconds for them to calculate.
- After selecting a hot spot and drilling to structure indicators, a box will appear in the bottom left with a “Clear” button. Hit the button to return to the overview.
- Click anywhere in the water to find the depth.
- If you scroll outside the calculated structure area, hit the “Find Structure” button in the top left to located structure in the new window.
- Watch the video!!!
Depths come from NOAA NCEI coastal elevation models, built from surveys of different ages. Sandbars and sloughs move with every storm, so use this as a guide to the bottom, not its exact shape today. Not for navigation.
Instructions
How To Video
- Scroll wheel or the + – buttons on the top left to zoom. Hot spot indicators stop at 1 Mile zoom (shown on bottom left)
- Hot spot indicators show areas where structure could be. Click a hot spot circle to automatically drill to the locations.
- If structure locations don’t immediately appear, wait a few seconds for them to calculate.
- After selecting a hot spot and drilling to structure indicators, a box will appear in the bottom left with a “Clear” button. Hit the button to return to the overview.
- Click anywhere in the water to find the depth.
- If you scroll outside the calculated structure area, hit the “Find Structure” button in the top left to located structure in the new window.
- Watch the video!!!
Plenty of fishing apps have popped up that layer charts, satellite imagery and fishing reports onto a map. Most of them cost money, and few focus on the thing that matters most to a surf angler: what the bottom looks like within casting distance of the beach. So I built these maps to do what I used to do by hand, only faster and for the whole coast.
What the maps show
- Depth: the water is colored by depth using NOAA’s coastal elevation models, which blend boat surveys and airborne lidar. Lighter blue is shallow and darker blue is deep.
- Structure hot spots: zoomed out, orange dots mark likely sloughs, holes, cuts in the bar and drop-offs along the Atlantic side of each beach. Bigger, brighter dots are stronger structure.
- Detail: tap a dot and the map zooms in and scans that stretch. You’ll see each spot’s depth, how much deeper it is than the bottom around it, how far it is from the waterline, and the distance along the beach to the nearest OSV access point.
A word of caution
The bottom shape comes from NOAA surveys that are several years old. Most of this coast was last modeled in 2019, and Cape Henlopen in 2014. Sandbars and sloughs shift with every storm, so treat these maps as a guide to where structure tends to form, not a picture of the beach today. The features that keep re-forming in the same places, near inlets, jetties and points, hold up best. Always confirm what you see on the map at low tide before you set up, and never use these maps for navigation.
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Proverbs 3:5
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