All,

The family will be heading to Ormond Beach, FL for a weeks vacation 4/23 - 4/30 staying at Plantation Island.

My son is an "aspiring" angler who has already spent a TON of money on stuff, but hasn't caught much to show for it.

Anyway, on a limited budget and with no boat ... can you please give us some tips on surf fishing? How big of a rod do we need ? What line test ? Any hot spots you can recommend !!!

I do not live around that area but I love surf fishing.

rod

light surf tackle : 7ft, 12-15lb class recommanded with a reel that can hold at least 150yd of 20lb(equal to 6lb mono) or 30lb(equal to 8lb mono) powerpro. Use powerpro braided line. Its much better, stronger, and smoother than monofilament lines. If you are going to use monofilament which I do not recommend, go with at least, at least 10lb mono.

Leader- 20-30lb flurocarbon or monofilament leader about 3ft long. Try to attach line to line without using swievel. There is specific knot for that. (won't be hard to learn to tie it). Less tackle you use such as sinker and swievel, less chance you are going to spook the fish.

Use #2-3 size hook for permit, ladyfish, small or even decent size snook, snapper, sheepshead, and others.\

Hopefully it helped

Great instructions. Fishing the beach is a lot of fun. Other than not loving PP the instructions you just received are perfect. The information on these forums is excellent.

I would use a smaller hook. #1 or 1/0. You can catch big fish on small hooks but not vice versa.

Another thing to consider is that there's a 'ditch' running along the shore line. It's normally only 20-50 feet from where the water's breaking. it's easy to cast PAST the ditch. Fish run the beach in the ditch.

There are two ways to fish a beach. One is to walk it, one is to sit and stick the rod in a pipe. Walking the beach will produce ten times the fish that sitting will produce. The fish run that ditch all day.

The reason that you'll produce more walking seems obvious -- you're covering more ground. But in reality, it's because if you cast in front of yourself -- alongside the beach you're GOING to walk to, the you can cast the lure/bait so it's only ten-20 feet off the breaker. As you work the lure back to you, it's spending 90% of it's time in that strike zone.

If you notice, when there are people on the beach fishing, and boats in the water nearby, the people in the boat are casting towards the shoreline, while the people on the shore of often casting as far away from the beach as they can. The boats produce more fish as a result.

So cast close even if you ARE sitting -- cast sideways along the beach and try fishing that ditch. You'll catch more fish.

gary