Beach Fishing Spots You Can Camp Right Behind

Nothing beats rolling the swag out behind a foredune, casting into the gutter at first light, and having the first tailor on the sand before the billy has boiled. Beach fishing where you can camp within a stone's throw of the water is my idea of a good week, and this country is spoilt for it. A few of these need permits and a bit of respect for the tides, and none of them forgive a driver who charges onto soft sand at highway pressures. Here is where we camp, what we catch, and what you want to know before you point the bonnet at the beach.

K'gari (Fraser Island), Queensland

Seventy-Five Mile Beach on K'gari is the most famous surf-fishing beach in the country, and in the tailor season through winter the gutters can run red hot. You need a Queensland Parks vehicle access permit and a camping permit, both booked online before you arrive, and rangers do check them. Drive the beach on a falling to low tide, roughly two to three hours either side of low, and keep to the 80 kilometre per hour beach limit and the lower limits near the camps. Two things people forget and regret: the wongari, the island's dingoes, are wild animals and all food and bait must be locked away out of reach, and dogs are not allowed on the island at all. Learn to read a gutter, that darker deeper water between the banks, and you will find the fish. It is a standout stop on an east coast run.

The tide rules on K'gari are not a suggestion, they are the whole plan for the day. You want to be driving the beach in the two to three hours either side of low tide, because a high tide pushes you up into the soft dry sand against the dunes where the boggings and the washouts hide. I check the tide chart the night before and plan the day's runs around it, not the other way around. Get caught by a rising tide against a rocky headland like Indian Head and you can be stuck waiting hours for it to drop again, so always give yourself a decent margin.

Stockton Beach, New South Wales

The Worimi Conservation Lands at Stockton near Anna Bay give you the biggest coastal sand dunes in the southern hemisphere and long stretches of beach to fish for salmon, bream and whiting off the back gutters. You need a permit, which is easy to get online, and the sand is genuinely soft, so let your tyres down properly before you commit or you will be digging. It is close to Newcastle, so it gets busy on weekends, but midweek you can find your own patch of sand. Watch the soft entry points and never park below the high tide mark.

The Coorong, South Australia

Along the Younghusband Peninsula, the Coorong is remote, wild and famous for its mulloway off the ocean beach, a fish worth working for. A 4WD permit applies in the national park sections, and you need to be properly self-sufficient because there is nothing out there but you, the pelicans and the surf. It is a special place, a Ramsar-listed wetland, so tread lightly, stick to the marked access tracks and carry everything out. This is beach fishing for people who want solitude more than a crowd, and it delivers it in spades.

Self-sufficiency in a place like the Coorong means everything, because there is no shop, no tap and no bin waiting for you. Carry all your own water, take a proper portable toilet setup, and pack every scrap of rubbish back out, because this is a fragile Ramsar wetland that thousands of birds depend on. Stick to the marked vehicle tracks rather than carving new ones through the dunes, keep to the beach where you are permitted, and leave it exactly as you found it. Do it right and it is one of the most peaceful stretches of coast in the country.

Inskip Point, Queensland

Just up from Rainbow Beach, Inskip Point lets you camp in the foreshore reserves right behind the dunes and fish the point, and it is where the barge crosses to K'gari. The sand near the tip has been known to slump into the water without warning, so camp back from the edge and read the current advice from the rangers. It is an easy, friendly spot to cut your teeth on beach camping before you tackle the island proper, with facilities close by in Rainbow Beach. Whiting, dart and the odd flathead keep the pan full.

Robe and the Limestone Coast, South Australia

Down on the Limestone Coast, Long Beach at Robe is gentle, accessible beach driving with mullet, salmon and the odd mulloway on offer, and a town with a good bakery for when the fish are not playing along. It suits families and first-timers who want the beach-camp experience without the remoteness of the Coorong, and the firm sand is forgiving of a nervous first go at driving on a beach. Robe itself is a proper little holiday town, so there is plenty to do on a blown-out day.

Rigging up for the gutters

Surf fishing off a beach is simpler than a lot of people make it out to be. A surf rod around 10 to 12 foot lets you cast past the shore break and out into the gutter, that darker, deeper channel of water running between the sand banks where the fish patrol looking for a feed. A running sinker rig, with the sinker sliding on the main line above a swivel and a leader down to the hook, lets a fish pick up the bait without feeling the weight, and it is the rig I tie on nine times out of ten. Fresh bait beats frozen every time, so pump a few pipis out of the wet sand at your feet where it is legal, or grab fresh mullet or beach worms. Dawn and dusk on a rising tide are the prime times, so that is when I am on the sand with a coffee in hand, not still snoring in the swag.

Reading the beach is the skill that separates a feed from a blank. Walk it at low tide and look for the gutters, the darker water and the spots where the waves are not breaking, because that is where the depth and the fish are. On K'gari there is one more thing to manage carefully: the wongari, the island's wild dingoes, will pinch bait and food in a heartbeat and can be bold around camps, so never feed them, keep the kids close, and lock everything away in the vehicle. A solid understanding of the tides is half the game on any beach, and a good tide and travel app saves you working it out with a pencil each morning.

Getting onto the sand without getting stuck

Most beach boggings I have watched over the years came down to one thing: people running highway pressures to save five minutes and a bit of pumping later. Drop to around 18 psi, lower again if it is soft and sugary, and carry a compressor to air back up before you hit the bitumen. Watch the tides like your trip depends on it, because an incoming tide against a soft exit will ruin your day and possibly write off your vehicle in the salt water. Wash the salt off the underbody at the first fresh water you find, or it will eat your chassis. There are no crocs down south, but if you head to 80 Mile Beach in the west or the Gulf beaches up north, salties are a real risk, so read the signs and stay out of the water. Get your pressures dialled with our guide to tyre pressures for corrugations and sand, line up camps in the parks directory, and check the free camping rules by state before you plan the run.