An entertainer's job is never done. You get a 15 minute break for a cig or a beer, and then it's back to work with the quips.:D
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re: catch and release
I always use circle hooks when bait fishing, it's easy to release a fish from a circle hook without even touching them. i'll wade in a bit and grad the shank with the pliers; a quick flick of the wrist and she's off and running!
plugs, i always replace the trebles with singles. sooooo much easier to release, and less chance of me becoming "one" with the fish...but that's another story from my round valley days. rapalas got some seriously sharp trebles!
After your cast sweep the rod back to pull the slack from the line, instead of reeling it in. This will help reduce the wind knots.
Carry a good set of pliers with you that you can cut hooks with. They are great to cut hooks which get stuck in our hands if necessary.
This article covers lots of ground:
How to Find Fish
So, you've decided to give surf fishing a try. You pack up your gear in your 4x4 and drive to the beach. As you drive along the beach, the water looks pretty much the same to you. How do you find the most likely spot to produce fish?
First of all, schools of gamefish are usually in motion, roaming up and down the surf. Don't expect to find a static "honey hole" that will always produce for you. Look at the surf and you will see two or three sets of breakers moving shoreward, with green water separating them. The places where the waves are breaking are sandbars, and the green water represents channels, or "guts" between them. Fish use the guts as highways to cruise up and down the beach. The guts and bars get progressively deeper as you move offshore, and fishing deeper water increases your chances of catching larger fish. Usually you can wade the first gut, stand on the first sandbar, and cast into the second gut.
The surf is a dynamic environment where constant change is the rule. Wading conditions will change from day to day. You will probably find wading conditions a couple of hundred yards down the beach to be different from where you are. Depending on conditions, sometimes you can wade the second gut and make it to the second bar. The tide and wind conditions are also a factor. Many fishermen believe that the fish are more comfortable in the deeper water of a high tide.
Beach Layout
As you drive down Padre Island, you will notice distinct changes in both the beach and surf profile. The upper end is characterized by flat, fine sand beaches. In the water, the troughs and bars are less pronounced. At Little Shell (14-30 miles), the texture of the sand is coarse, comprised mainly of small shells. The main beach is a berm several feet higher than the surf line. Troughs and bars will be well defined. Continuing down to Big Shell (30+ miles), the guts tend to run deeper, which is why those fisherman seeking bigger game (sharks and tarpon) favor this spot. Remember that the fish may be anywhere, and I can recall trips where I never ventured more than 8 to 12 miles in, and caught all the fish I could handle. Don't pass up good water if you see evidence of fish activity.
Finding Good Water
Look for deep guts, characterized by smooth water and a deeper green color.
Look for breaks in the surf line. These signify a cut or deeper water at the sand bar where the tidal currents can move in and out. Both baitfish and gamefish will use these breaks in the sandbar to travel between the guts.
Last time out, I found a nice washout that produced for me. A washout is a long, flat sandbar, about knee deep at high tide, that extends from the beach 50 or 60 feet before dropping off into the first gut. This particular one was swarming with baitfish as long as it had water on it. As the tide went out and the baitfish were forced into the deeper water of the first gut, the trout were waiting at the dropoff to ambush them (and I was bushwacking the trout with a gold spoon!).
Watch for Baitfish Activity
When a school of hungry gamefish tears into a school of baitfish, the intended prey often cause quite a commotion in their attempt to escape. Watch the water for signs of baitfish flashing in the water or breaking the surface.
Watch the Birds
Birds are always looking for a quick meal, and will take advantage of the opportunity to snatch injured baitfish from the surface. A flock of birds hovering over the surf are a telltale sign of fish activity. Working birds can be spotted a considerable distance down the beach, especially if you have a pair of binoculars.
Surf Fishing Techniques
There are two general surf fishing techniques I employ. You can pick out a likely spot of water, rig up your lines, and set up camp while you wait for the fish to come to you. Or, you can cruise the beach looking for signs of active fish. I've had good luck with both.
Bait Fishing
This is the way I learned to surf fish, and it's still a productive way to catch fish in the surf. My personal best 44 pound redfish (1980) was caught in this manner. You'll need a medium heavy surf rod 8 1/2 to 14 feet long, and a reel that will hold 150-200 yards of 15-20 pound test. To rig up, attach a three way wire leader to your line. Open the snap swivel at the far end of the leader and put on a spider weight. To the snap swivel in the middle, attach your hook and monofilament leader. Bait up the hook, bend out the prongs on the spider weight, then wade out and cast into the gut. The spider weight will anchor itself in the sand and prevent the currents from dragging your bait shoreward. Put your rod in a rod holder, take up the slack line, pop open a beer, and wait for the action to begin. I find this kind of fishing a little more laid back than constantly casting artificials. The down side is you'll often have to deal with bait-stealing hardhead catfish. For bait, you can buy shrimp or fingerling mullet at most bait shops. A better idea is to bring along a cast net and catch fresh baitfish from the surf.
Artificials
Over the last few years, I've been leaning toward using artificials. In fact, last year I never even broke out my heavy surf rod. We threw 3/4 oz. gold spoons almost exclusively, and caught fish steadily the entire week. The rod I use is still long (10 foot), but is not as heavy as a traditional surf rod. In fact it's more like an extra long bass rod (a medium action steelhead rod works great). I like the new graphite composites that are light enough to throw all day without wearing you out.
Advantages are:
1. I don't catch many hardhead catfish on artificials.
2. You don't have to mess with catching and rigging up bait before you can start fishing.
3. If you are cruising the beach and see some activity, it doesn't take much effort to try a few quick casts. All you have to do is stop, grab your rod out of the holder on the front of your truck, and start casting.
4. You can catch a variety of gamefish with them.
5. Spoons are heavy enough to cast into the wind.
Shark Fishing
The serious shark fishermen down at Big Shell use heavier rods and large capacity reels. A recent trend is the use of sea kayaks to paddle their bait out past the surf and into deeper water. I've never tried this particular style of fishing and therefore know little about it. I recommend you seek out one of the experts if this style of fishing appeals to you. (there are several who regularly post to the Surf Fishing section of the Saltwater Fishing Home Page.)
When to Go?
I don't live near the coast anymore, and I can only take one week out of the year to go surf fishing. Usually, since some kind of advance planning is required to coordinate vacations with fishing buddies, you have to pick a week and hope for the best. If you are this kind of surf fisherman too, there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of success.
There are a number of web pages that post current fishing information and beach conditions. Better yet, find a page that the regulars use to share information. Most of them are willing to answer questions and pass on information to less experienced anglers. I prefer to try for a trip in late summer/early fall. The summer weather patterns are the most constant. It doesn't guarantee green water, but the odds are better. The kids are back in school, families are done with summer vacation, so beach traffic is less. And the fish are (hopefully) actively cruising the surf. I also try to plan for a week with a full moon.
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/roddyk/tactics.html
When fishing for flounder I move the rod slowly back and forth or I twitch the tip of the rod.
Every ten or twenty casts reel the line through your fingers to tighten the spool. You can still work the plug while doing this.
Know the Regulations, and carry a tape measure, and don't keep anything thats not legal even if border line. 1/8th of an short is still short.
To get better action swap the back hook of your plug with a siwash bucktail.
If you wear pants under your waders make sure you leave your fly unzipped when you put your waders on. It is one less thing to do if you have to take a leak and you gotta go bad.
:thumbsup: That's a great tip especially for old farts like me who gotta go every hour. But ya can't do that at one place in NJ, or you'll be "advertising" to the cruisers there. And don't talk to any of the guys there who ain't fishin. :eek: I can think of one or 2 other areas in the Northeastern shoreline where that might not be a great idea either.
I don't mind sharing beach space with all lifestyles out there, but they are a manipulative bunch at times. I have found they'll use any excuse to initiate a conversation. One word grunts and psychotic stares while talking to yourself work best in these situations. ;)
To pull bass out of a bluefish blitz I use a metal lipped swimmer worked slowly.
To do well in bass fishing, study the basses habits. You should know where it lives which includes the environment and water temperatures they like to be in. Take time to do some reading on them.
Surf Fishing Tips
By Joe Malat
At right: Spinner blade hooks, fished on two-drop bottom rigs are great for prospecting the beach with a variety of different baits. Pancake weights allow the rig to move slowly across the bottom. Photo by Joe Malat
http://www.chesapeake-angler.com/JMa...innerhooks.jpgMost of the time when I hit the beach, I'll have a predetermined game plan. If puppy drum have been biting on mullet, I'll have drum rigs and the freshest mullet I can find. Or, if jumbo stripers are eating live eels at Oregon Inlet, that's what will be in my bait box. But there are many days when I'll fish for whatever comes along, and the tackle I use will be simple, but proven and effective.
One of my favorite rigs for "prospecting" with bait is a standard, two-hook bottom rig, sold everywhere along the Outer Banks. They are made of lightweight materials and are best suited for smaller fish, but surprisingly large fish have been caught with these rigs.
I finish these rigs with #2 or #3, long shank, spinner blade hooks, either bronze or gold finish. The spinners offer color and movement that might give me an edge and the long shank style is easy to remove from a fish. I might try a different bait; anything from small pieces of mullet to strips of squid, on each hook.
Generally, pyramid sinkers are my first choice for surf fishing, because they do a good job of holding bottom. However, if I had a choice between fishing a rig that stayed in one place, or moved slightly with the current or waves, I'll opt for the moving rig every time. Fish are always moving, and sometimes I want my rig to move, too, as long as the currents aren't strong enough to whisk it up or down the beach like tumbleweeds blowing in the wind.
I always use the lightest sinker I can and still grab the bottom. If a four-ounce is holding like an anchor, I might drop back to a three. If conditions are slick calm with minimal wind and currents, I frequently abandon the pyramids and snap a flat pancake sinker to the rig. Pancakes allow the rig to slide across the bottom, pushed either by the current and waves, or pulled by me.
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http://www.chesapeake-angler.com/JMalat_bottomrig.jpg
Lightweight, two-hook bottom rigs are perfect for bottom feeders, such as this spot. Photo by Joe Malat
When flounder fishing I move the bait, either with slow, steady sweeps of the rod, or by twitching the rod tip. This is an effective technique to catch those flounder that stay in one place and ambush prey as it cruises by.
Long strips of squid, hooked at one end so they flutter in the current, are deadly for flounder when presented with a rig that allows the bait to "swim."
Flounder are not the only fish that like to hit a moving target. Sea mullet often feed in the breaking, white water or along the deeper water drop-off at the edges of sandbars. They may congregate in schools and once you find one, you can catch several by returning to the exact location of that last bite.
With a pancake weight I can cast to the top of the bar and fish the white water for a while, and if nothing takes my bait, ease the rig toward me, off the edge of the bar. The pancake weight doesn't dig in like a pyramid or roll and twist my line like a rounded weight. It moves and lies flat, and allows me to work the rig a bit. If I'm lucky enough to find some sea mullet I can recast and slide my bottom rig back to the same location.
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Bait is great, but I also enjoy casting lures, and one of my favorites is a small Shorty Hopkins in either one-half or three-quarter ounce. I'll fish this small lure with a light rod in moderate surf conditions with an 8-foot spinning rod and reel filled with 8-pound test monofilament.
The Hopkins lure will sail a country mile with the light line, so I can cover a lot of territory from the outer bar to the drop-off at my feet. If I'm fishing an empty beach I'll make a cast then take a couple steps up or down the beach, just so I can cover more water.
A lot of anglers think shiny metal lures are just for bluefish, but I've fooled puppy drum, flounder, speckled trout, Spanish mackerel, striped bass, gray trout and even an albacore or two with these artificials. Silver is my favorite color, but I've also had luck with gold, especially for puppy drum when the water was discolored. The silver or gold lure can be deadly during September and October when the finger mullet are running in the surf.
For some extra protection from the occasional toothy critter, I usually rig these lures with a 20-inch leader of 20-pound test monofilament or fluorocarbon. Some anglers discourage the use of any type of extra hardware when fishing with lures, and that makes sense when the water is crystal clear and the fish are being very picky.
A tiny, black #10 or #12 swivel connects my line and leader, and I attach the lure with a small # 2 black finish snap. The swivel eliminates line twist, the snap allows me to change lure sizes and colors without having to cut lines and re-tie knots, and I don't believe the size of the hardware is significant enough to discourage interested fish.
Of the two prospecting methods I prefer to work a lure. I enjoy casting and retrieving more than holding a rod and waiting for a fish to bite, but the trade-off is that some fish will rarely hit a lure. Sea mullet, spot, and croakers almost always are caught on bait.
In the surf, I'll use reels filled with mono or the "super-braid" lines, but I see the greatest advantage to the no-stretch braids when I'm fishing with bait and the line allows me to feel even the slightest nibble. Sea mullet will typically slam a bait when they bite, but there are times when they ever so gently pick up a bait and swim toward the beach, causing the line to suddenly go slack.
After forty years of fishing the surf, I've found that most of the time I use only a handful of rigs and lures. The reason is simple. They catch fish and I couldn't do without my simple two-hook bottom rigs and small Hopkins lures.
http://www.chesapeake-angler.com/sto...ishingtips.htm
Fill your reel, full reels cast better, both conventional and spinning.
Important detail there that can save you a lot of grief.:thumbsup:
My tip-- I like to plug and use artificials, but there are times when weeds prevent me from being near the bottom. So I try to make sure whatever I'm throwing has a hook that will interfere less with the weeds. Goes back to my freshwater bass fishing days and the weedless frogs and hook guard setups we used to throw. If you can't do that, throw topwater plugs that move slowly at first light. fish won't always take poppers, so you have to think creatively.