That river mouth and beach consistently strike me as quite beautiful on the few times a year that I pass-by.
iirc the fence holds "Private Property" signs -- is there no beach access there at all?
Yes, there is no trespassing over the fence to the beach, courtesy of the Uber-aholes at the El Sur Ranch.
They even posted guards there when I was in high school (I grew up in/around Big Sur) to stop folks from getting down to the beach at Little Sur River mouth. There's a rock on the northern side (it's huge, you can't miss it) past which there are fantastic beaches.
We used to get down to them by parking above them, approaching Hurricane Point, but the new fence they've put up makes that really hard now.
They aren't exactly popular in the Sur, those El Sur Ranch folks.