⚓ Choosing Sinkers

The right sinker keeps your bait where the fish are. The wrong one drags out of the zone or anchors you into a snag.

Grapnel (spike) sinkers: the surf angler's workhorse. The wire spikes grip the sand and hold your bait in a strong side-wash. Use breakout grapnels (spikes that release on the strike) in heavy current, fixed grapnels for maximum hold.

Ball and bank sinkers: round sinkers roll with the current — useful in estuaries and off rocks where you want the bait to move naturally and search, but useless on a beach with side-drift.

Pyramid sinkers: hold moderately in sand and are cheap, but grapnels out-hold them in strong wash.

Weight: use the lightest sinker that holds. Over-weighting kills bite detection and casting distance. As a rough guide, 60–100 g in calm water, 100–150 g in moderate surf, and heavier breakout grapnels when it's really pushing.

Off the rocks, use just enough weight to hold in the gulley — often a small ball sinker or none at all when fishing baits into the wash for galjoen and bream.