Ideal Conditions?

[BoMan]

An experienced buddy gave me some advice I wanted to pass along.

If conditions look amazing at your break one day, look and keep note the conditions that were reported online (swell direction, period, height, and tide level...not wind, since it's often misreported on most sites.) If those golden conditions line up and Surfline/MSW is calling the morning/afternoon blown out crap, 100% make the drive and give it a look anyway. You could stumble upon uncrowded perfection.

During my best session at BO the swell came from the south at 18 seconds with 3-6 foot waves about 1 hour after high tide. With zero wind the waves were glassy! What are the ideal condition at your break?

[oldmansurfer]

Ideal for me would have to be a hurricane nearby to the northeast but not close enough to bring wind. Unfortunately I am not free to go surf when it's ideal so I don't concern myself with such things

[pmcaero]

I don't know anymore, the sandbars shifted a year ago and now there are deep sections everywhere, so unless it's big and breaks far out it sucks. I have a longboard but now I feel like I need a bigger board just so I can catch the wave before it closes out.
And when it's big, being a beach break, takes forever getting out.

[ConcreteVitamin]

Look back at good conditions I took notes for @ Taco Bell Beach:

5.3ft@14s WNW, 2.2ft@14s S, 2.4ft@9s W, 2 hours past low tide.
2.5ft@9s NW, 1.4ft@12s S, 0.8ft@14s SW, half an hour past high tide.
9ft@16s WNW 284, 6.2ft@6s SSE 165, 0.9ft@15s SW 217, mid tide.

Mixture of patterns...

[oldmansurfer]

OMG! Whatever the conditions are now are ideal. On my way home I saw surfers at Horners in the dark because it was so good. Even better there was a good sized (1.5 to 2 times overhead) fast breaking right breaking in the middle sandbar area. I sure wish I could have seen what I could do on that wave

[Tudeo]

For me often the ideal conditions are the not so ideal conditions for the crowd