I'm ashamed to say I don't fish here as much as I probably should. It's only 2 minutes drive from my house, 10 minutes if I walk, though I'd much rather drive on to Mundesley or Trimingham or head off south to Cart Gap or deepest,darkest Suffolk.

The beach itself is a standard type of gulley beach, with the bank varying depending on prevailing conditions. I would say on average the bank is around 150 yards off and the gulley from around 100 yards. The stretch behind the gas site is a little different and some parts of the beach here are flatter, possibly due to the varying lengths of the groins.

I think it fishes best on the ebb and probably 2 or 3 hours into the ebb, when the flow starts right to left. It's an anomaly with our beaches, you'd think a tide flows one way for 6 hours then another for 6 hours depending whether it's flooding or ebbing. On our beaches the flow is left to right during the flood and continues left to right for probably 2 hours of the ebb before turning and flowing right to left for the remainder of the ebb. Long shore drift is a science in itself and I don't claim to understand it fully, but it's probably why the reefs at Sea Palling have built up beaches like Waxham etc.

EMAIL ME if you've anything to add.

Here's an extract from Gillespie's excellent 1969 book with regard to Bacton:

"SANDBANKS. South of Mundesley, there are extensive offshore sandbanks which have a considerable effect upon sea anglers. From now onwards, visiting anglers will be well advised to bear these in mind, and to remember carefully the information given in the following notes."

What Gillespie is getting at here is the effect of sand being on or off the beach. When the beach is heavily built up, the gulley is generally deeper and you're able to fish further out into deeper water at high water. Many people wrongly think that when the beach is scoured that its deeper, its actually the opposite. When the beach is scoured the sand is lifted from the beach and deposited on the bank and in the gulley, creating a shallow gulley and a steep bank with little water above the top of the bank. An old local fisherman did once tell me that he reckoned the tide needed to be at least ?m, less than that and fish wouldn't come over the bank. This feckwit (me) can't remember the height he gave me! Either way, unless the beach is built up or you can locate a gap in the bank, neaps might be a struggle.

"There is sometimes a good run of thornbacks in spring and again in late summer, and some of the fish taken are very big indeed. A Norwich angler took one of 231/2lb here in 1961, and several good bags of smaller fish are taken by those who know the beach."