ah you worded the question ive been wanting to ask so well haha! i dont know to much but what ive gathered so far is bream like structure like jettys, boardwalks or fallen trees best bet is to cast around those dont have to worry about casting to far out either they dont mind the shallows

I believe for a few species you have named here there are certin times of the year when to target them the most, Salmon usually pass the metro coast around march - july. obviously try to get a good view from up high and look for the schools, fish clean deep gutters or channels in the surf for stray salmon, they usually bite well.

As for tuna, Im not in the metro and would of thought they would be out deeper and hard to catch from shore perhaps better during the warmer water months.

Whiting i have always fished in clean water sandy flats for sand and broked weed areas for KG's

Little info Hope it helps

Cammo

Here is an OK link to give some idea of what tolook for at the beaches.

http://www.ausfish.com.au/beach.html

Firstly I suggest you get some decent polorised sunnies as they help identify differing depths of water. I usually scan the beach from high up before deciding where is the best place to fish.

The pic below was taken on my last Salmon expedition. You can see (hopefully) two adjacent "blue holes" in the distance. This is what I look for and on that day it payed dividends.

Gutters will move around with the tide and wind so it's best to keep checking.

Some fish prefer the holes next to the reef. It all depends on what you are after. It pays to study the fish then look for likely spots to target the species you are after.

have some choice photos on the work computer at work.......

basically there are two types of wave formations on the beach;

waves breaking and the waves not breaking. waves occur as the swell is forced to rise due to the topography of the sea/ocean floor (ie waves form as the water is forced up over shallow water causing them to uplift and roll over into a break).

what you look for is formations such as gutter and holes. holes are genaraly roundish holes in the sea floor within the wave breaking zone while gutters are genarally longish gutters generally heading parallel to beaches (as opposed to rips which are gutters perpendicular to the beach). these are basically the areas of the beach that are deeper and thus provide calmer water as the water is not forced up and to roll over and break.

white water is the wave breaking and thus is shallow while blue represents deeper water and thus is calmer.

so fish genarally feed in the holes, gutters as opposed to the white water, but white water adjacent to  a good deep gutter/hole will provide camoflague for fish such as tailer so you can fish the edges.

don't be too worried about casting out far as often the close gutters/holes will hold the fish as the waves in close stir up food such as worm,mussels, pipies etc. oftern mulloway will come in close at night chasing baitfish etc.

you will catch bream, tarwhine, whiting, flathead in close.

schools of salmon will show up as purple so watch out for these.

plent yof guys have good photos and may post up.

best bet is to stand on the high point and look down on the beach...much easier to read   

thanks uncut, nice link!

and great infor damo, cheers.

if anyone can be bothered posting photos of these formations for me to checkout please do so, im just starting to understand with the help of photos posted thus far!

the two blue holes are just in front of your arrow heads, right on the beach between to two rock clumps on the beach

you can see a gutter on the left of the photo running parallel but it's not to deep

In fact I think did.

What I look for is blue water (which normally means deeper water) next to white water. Vince's pic is ideal, and when you go to fish a place like that (which I think is a place called Salmon Beach) it is always a good idea to take your time and look at what is happening in the water. 10 minutes watching which way the waves are moving and which way the currents are flowing may make the whole difference in whether you catch fish or not.

If you look at Vince's picture you will notice two rocks close together on the beach. Slightly to the right of that you will see a clear patch of blue water in between the two lines I have drawn. To me that says that there is a rip heading out to from the beach there - and that is another good spot to try.

Damo is spot on in that in a lot of cases you don't have to throw your line a mile to catch a fish. In fact if you look in the shore break at the beach, quite often you can see the fish in there - and that might be 10 metres form shore.

big seas made it hard to keep your line in that spot, but I can imagine it would go off Vince.

This is some awesome info guys, Ive fished for a while now and always just cruized up the beach and hoped for the best. I never new how to read the surf but this should help alot, much appreciated. Thanks

yer same here cheers

As the gutters and holes are where the bigger fish will be waiting to snare the little fish. If you can find blue water next to white water, then you should be on the money.

But I can't stress how important burleying up is. It is not such a big thing when the sea is wild like it is at the moment, as the waves and currents will be creating plenty of natural burley, but it can be critical when the sea is pretty quiet.

just like Fords_ and kempy ive been fishing the beaches for ages and usually had a quick look for holes and gutters but never really botherd. thanks again guys this info will be put into practice and hopefully will improve catches.