where to cast?

I know to any seasoned sea angler this may round stupid but here goes . If your fishing a beach should you cast at an angle or dead ahead ? Only reason I ask is my last few sessions I have been getting knocks and the baits gone but no hook ups until this evening

In general belt it uptide. The tide run will bed your lead in and keep all baits nailed to the bottom.

Thats great , i thought if i was casting straight ahead my rig would be coming back on my mainline once the lead set on the bottom so i was always casting at a slight angle to compensate !

i try to cast to where the fish are also if you are fishing with someone who can cast futher than you set up on the side opposite of the tidal run ,they will cast over your line but the tide will drag their gear futher over and when they reel in you wont get tangled i learnt this from fishing with eric and broc infact on one occasion in a comp i witnessed someone tangle up with an angler 5 pegs away and every peg inbetween needless to say he wasnt a popular man and no it wasnt me

personally never worried about it and just whack it out, i find trying to keep it in the same area time after time helps build up some sort of scent trail esp for dogfish

Thanks lads I'm going to give it another bash Wednesday so hopefully I'll have somethin sizeable to show for my efforts