[4Fox Hake]

If some dodgy geezer comes up to you in a pub and offers you a load of sand, cheap, watch out: I went to fish Coombesgate Beach last night and ... it wasn't there!
It's gawn, every last grain of it!

The whole area from the foot of the steps, out through the rocky sides and up to the main Morte Bay beach is now just jagged rocks, and it's now impossible to reach the main beach and sea without chest waders because the whole lower end of the beach, from one wall to the other, is one giant, way-over-yer-wellies rockpool.

I had to backtrack and climb up to the private steps down to Grunta Beach next door .... and this was also nothing but rocks! Passable rocks, though, so I finally got to the shore. Very windy, offshore, and a good surf, but very slow fishing. I caught a 1lb bass in the surf on lug, which got no other bites. The only excitement came from the distance bait of sandeel, two real rod-wrenchers about an hour apart ... but both just one huge bite then nothing more.

Anyway, where's it all bleeding gone? Coombesgate was a fine storm beach and Grunta rocks was a good spring high mark, fishing onto sand that's not there any more.
I've seen shifting sand levels before but haven't seen a change on this scale since Teignmouth Beach / Sea Wall in the late 70s/early 80s ... anyone remember that?

If anyone on this forum is responsible, please return the beach, or at least check your tackle boxes in case you picked it up accidentally.

Thank you.

 

[donkeydawe]

If some dodgy geezer comes up to you in a pub and offers you a load of sand, cheap, watch out: I went to fish Coombesgate Beach last night and ... it wasn't there!
It's gawn, every last grain of it!

The whole area from the foot of the steps, out through the rocky sides and up to the main Morte Bay beach is now just jagged rocks, and it's now impossible to reach the main beach and sea without chest waders because the whole lower end of the beach, from one wall to the other, is one giant, way-over-yer-wellies rockpool.

I had to backtrack and climb up to the private steps down to Grunta Beach next door .... and this was also nothing but rocks! Passable rocks, though, so I finally got to the shore. Very windy, offshore, and a good surf, but very slow fishing. I caught a 1lb bass in the surf on lug, which got no other bites. The only excitement came from the distance bait of sandeel, two real rod-wrenchers about an hour apart ... but both just one huge bite then nothing more.

Anyway, where's it all bleeding gone? Coombesgate was a fine storm beach and Grunta rocks was a good spring high mark, fishing onto sand that's not there any more.
I've seen shifting sand levels before but haven't seen a change on this scale since Teignmouth Beach / Sea Wall in the late 70s/early 80s ... anyone remember that?

If anyone on this forum is responsible, please return the beach, or at least check your tackle boxes in case you picked it up accidentally.

Thank you.

well if some guy has walked back to his car with the beach n his box and not noticed then i sure as hell aint gonna tell him to put it back!

on another note do you think it could be a shift in the tidal flow?

 

[Brauntonian]

The same thing happend down Lee one year, all the shingle went and all that was left was flat rocks.
It gradually built back up over the next few weeks till it was back to normal.
The same thing should happen there.
Down Lee we got the metal detectors out and had a couple of hundred coins and a silver pocket watch between three of us, may have a look down there with it next weekend before the sand comes back.

 

[Tyn]

I reckon the same person has had the beach away at Towan! Surely there must be some EU directive that controls this sort of thing - probably find that there's a pile of discarded beach somewhere useless beause someone has exceeded their quota and been forced to dump it!

 

[dabcatcher]

i am not from your area but up here in hartlepool on the northeast coast we get a similar problem that happens regularly. we have a few different beaches in the bay and beaches open directly to the sea. to the south we have the river tees which goes north across the bay.

if we get lots of strong southeasterly winds over a prolonged period it actually sucks sand from all the beaches. a few years ago we had them all winter and most of out beaches lost most of there sand which was many feet deep.

as soon as we get winds from the north again the sand all comes back.

at the moment our onshore winds have all been from the north. the result is we have more sand than we have had for a while with lots of holes on our rock marks filled in with sand.

if you watch the weather in your area you should see a change in the weather from a particular direction that will actually bring your sand back.

 

[friendlyfisherman]

at the moment our onshore winds have all been from the north. the result is we have more sand than we have had for a while with lots of holes on our rock marks filled in with sand.

There you go Foxy the culprit has owned up :busted_co :busted_co




IT'S DABCATCHER.

 

[wilkybarkid]

oops, foxy i just remembered..

i was going to tell you on friday but forgot

the water gypsy next door told me last week that all the sand had disappeared down combesgate.a deep pool is now where the gap in the rock once was :blink:

 

[Angling]

The shingle at Porthleven was taken as well. Although its being returned slowly!

We discovered that the average stone size did not satisfy the EU shingle beach directive so it was a case of get new regulation sized shingle or close the beach

 

[crazyplums]

our local sandy bay (pevensey) varies along it's length from week to week, anything from silt, to 6 to 36" of sand depth, never the same !

Port eynon bay on the gower, wales, used to be a massive beautiful sandy beach, then about 10yrs or so back, it just vanished, not come back as far as i know, something to do with dredgers working off shore according to my uncle.

 

[Tipper]

Probably nothing to do with "CoombesgateGate" but a lot of the beaches on the Bristol channel are dissappearing because of the amount of sand that's being dredged from the middle of the channel for building work. There was a program on it a couple of month's ago.

 

[Ginge]

The other week they were moving sand from the Uphill end of Weston Beach and moving it towards Knightstone Island. Apparantly the beach moves and reveals loads of mud, so they cover it all up once a year!

Ben

 

[Big Bones jones the fish]

This is happening in the bristol channel!

They have done studies in the area and stated that it was ok to remove the sand from the banks!

Dont think this will help the superb beaches down west in the future!

 

[4Fox Hake]

There really has been a massive movement of sand. Those of you who know Saunton Sands know how flat and shallow it is ... think again!

Went down the rocks with WBK today and looking back onto the beach the whole left hand end has hollowed out, so that a good cast near the top of the tide will now put you into fairly deep water. The rocks themselves are far more exposed and what was patchy sand to cast onto is now an instant tackle graveyard.

It will be interesting to see if it all washes back in one big storm but to me the funny thing is that I don't remember any particularly rough weather in the last few weeks that would account for it vanishing so fast.

Not sure, but WBK may have pictures of all this.
(Just don't ask him for any pictures of fish today)

 

[whitemark]

A ground sea with an offshore wind, will shift the sand overnight and, vice versa.

 

[wilkybarkid]

A ground sea with an offshore wind, will shift the sand overnight and, vice versa.

i dont know the dynamics involved :blink: ..but
there has been some decent waves over the last couple of months with perfect offshore winds.it will be interesting to see if/when the wind comes from the west again in force wether the sand returns.?

 

[solehunter]

well if some guy has walked back to his car with the beach n his box and not noticed then i sure as hell aint gonna tell him to put it back!

on another note do you think it could be a shift in the tidal flow?

This happens at my fave sole mark. The huge tides normally bring it back though. Dredging doesn't help, there is a lot of it going on around the IOW. The [email protected] have licence for 15 million tons, i kid you not!
What happens when you dig a hole in the sand?....it takes it from around the hole you just dug!

 

[dabcatcher]

it doesnt nessesarily need heavy sees to move the sea bed. the estuary where i have my crab traps is undergoing a move right now. areas of mud and silt are dissapearing from one area and forming in another. run offs and gullies are also moving position carving out huge areas of mud and again depositing it in others.

this is a natural occurence that changes from year to year in flat calm conditions.

we have had a sand extaction works on the mouth of the tees for longer than i can remember. it make no difference to the sand or dune levels around it. the same goes for the dredging into our dock and marinas it doesnt effect the mud flats. if anything it actually raises silt levels.

 

[DoZZa]

It was me, I own up to it, my lad wanted a sand pit.

So I visited the builders merchants, saw the prices, thought b0ll0ck$ to that and then remembered that theres plenty of FREE sand to be had from the beaches. I will return it in a few weeks.

Sorry about that Colin, LOL

 

[4Fox Hake]

we have had a sand extaction works on the mouth of the tees for longer than i can remember. it make no difference to the sand or dune levels around it.

Could this be because the Tees is a huge active estuary, depositing millions of tons of sand and silt every year, whereas if you're simply dredging sand from the sea floor, then you'd get the in-filling problems?

 

[wilba]

have you looked on ebay for it????????