Surf Fishing- Carolina Specifically

[Bert]

So, as much time as I spend in the woods of PA my family and I really enjoy vacationing at the Coast in North Carolina. We go 3-4 weeks a year to the Brunswick Islands Primarily. We have 3 rentals we kind of rotate between due to rates and season going. Typical beach activities to us are 1. relax and swim 2. boogie board 3. bike ride 4. crab in the evenings on the waterways. 5. eat.

Both myself and my son have been taking more and more interest in the folks surf fishing and would like to try that late August this year just to pass a few hours in the early mornings and when the beach is not busy with swimmers.

Any recommendations on a basic set up to get started? Just really want to it to be recreation. Catch and release.

I am no stranger to lake, river, pond fishing at home but surf fishing is totally new to me. I've gone deep sea fishing a few times for sea bass but its basically the staff baits your hook and you reel it in if you feel a tug.

What would be a good entry level setup to purchase ahead of time? Rod/reel, rigging, bait? I really have no clue and appreciate any insight.

[SawyerTed]

For general surf fishing a 6000 series spinning reel on an 8' or 9' rod should be plenty.   The Penn Battle III combo is a reasonable quality and price.  You can spend less but will get less.  The Battle III is good enough you won't have to replace it every year if you'll wash and spray it after use (Reel Magic is my choice).  

You can spend way more.  Expect around $140 per outfit.  Yes, there are 10' and 12' rods and bigger reels - they are overkill unless you are after bid drum or bluefish in the surf.  They are heavy and tiresome to hold for long.  

Go to a real tackle shop, they'll put line on often for free.   15-17 pound test mono i start is also plenty.  Yes there's fish bigger but until you have more experience you won't need more.  

For surf fishing a two hook bottom rig with 1/0 or 2/0 hooks is pretty standard.  I like the rigs with as little hardware as possible.   Other rigs to know are a pompano rig and a fish finder.  Threading a finger mullet onto a fish finder rig is a very effective rig. 

To go on the rig you'll want some pyramid weights.  2 oz to 4 oz.  

You will want a sand spike/rod holder.  

For bait shrimp, mullet, fiddler crabs or sand fleas all should be commonly available.  

That's enough to get started.  

[Bert]

Really appreciate that. Knowing the time you spend on the coast I'll take your advice. Is this what I'm after for the rod- reel?

[Southside]

So my worm drowning Zebco 202 and collapsible rod that has slayed many a native Brookie won't cut the mustard is what you are saying Ted? 

[Bert]

Ha! I am pretty well equipped with Shakespeare Wal Mart specials myself but I dont think they are up to the task. 

[YellowHammer]

I've never fished off the Carolina beaches but I have been surf fishing since I could walk, growing up in Orlando, Fl.

Penn Battles are great reels, I've had them since the Battle 1 came out and the Battle 3 has landed some whoppers.

There are generally two kinds of fish in the surf, the "Bug Eaters" and the "fish that eat the bug eaters".  What I mean is that most surf and beaches have all kinds of little crawly critters for fish to eat, from sand fleas, crabs, shrimp, mussels, "bugs" stuff like that, and these fish generally don't get too big, a few pounds, and can be caught with shrimp, and bait like that.  In addition to the standard shrimp and sand flea baits to use, many times you can also add a little synthetic bait like a fishbite to the hook.  These fish include pompano (great tasting and fight well) and it's always good to have a rod set out just for them.  Double hook rigs, pompano rigs with the little floats, pyramid sinkers, stuff like that work well, it just depends what is running down the particular beach you are fishing.

I like to set up a second rod or the fish that eat the bug eaters.  These would be the bluefish, redfish, sharks, whatever eats meat.  Frozen northern mackerel, mullet, stuff like that works as long as the crabs don't get them, and if they do, crack the crab open and put him out as bait.  Or catch a little bream sized something with the bug rod and put that little guy out with a 5/0 circle hook and see what nails it.

Surf fishing is somewhat unpredictable, as the surf is an edge and depending on weather, wind, surf conditions, tides, and certainly time of day, big fish may be in the surf and sometimes not.  Look especially for rip tides where water is flowing directly off the beach, fish will stack up waiting for food to come to them.

Keep your fishing rod out of the sand, a couple sand spikes are necessary, otherwise known as a piece of 2" diameter PVC pipe jammed into the sand to put the rod butt into.

A great way to see what's biting is to do a "beach walk" the first day and talk to the other surf fishing guys, they are usually very friendly.

Here is a decent video of people putting little fishing cameras on their lines to see what's biting and the main thing is most surfs are pretty active with fish, just the angler doesn't realize how many fish are checking out there baits without getting hooked up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9suSJtNEDog



 

   

[SawyerTed]

Yes the Battle III as pictured is what I'm describing.  As Robert says, they are plenty of reel for bigger fish but won't break the bank.  And ditto on keeping the outfits out of the sand. Keep the sand spike/rod holder deep in the sand to keep it from falling over.   With the wave action, it doesn't take a real big fish to leave with your rod and reel!  

I wouldn't use braid for line starting out unless you have experience with braid and knots etc.  the advantage of braid in the surf is the reduced drag due to smaller diameter for equal pound test.  Mono works fine until you gain some experience in the surf or decide to get more serious. 

If you have a lighter spinning outfit (6.5 or 7' 4000 size) in your current collection, you might want to take one to cast Hopkins Spoons, lead jigs with plastic paddle tails (ZMan brand), Gotcha weighted plugs etc if the bluefish or Spanish mackerel come in close. Think of casting up to 1.5 or 2 oz lures.  Maybe as much as 50-75 yards.  Use a leader of 30-50# test fluorocarbon about 12 to 18" long to prevent bite offs by bluefish or Spanish.  I don't use  steel leaders often, I feel like fish see them more, same with snaps and swivels. 

There will always be a chance for those bigger fish Robert mentions.  My experience says those chances increase closer to the inlets on those specific beaches.  Typically, it takes a bigger outfit to cast beyond the breakers to reach them.  Think of casting 4-6 is of lead and an equal amount of bait or larger.  That's where those "heavers" of 10'-12' excel.  They are overkill on those particular beaches.  I've fished Oak Island, Holden Beach, Ocean Isle and Sunset beach since the late 1960s and Robert's "bug eaters" are common with a ray, skate or shark mixed in.  Bigger fish are sometimes caught, I just wouldn't expect them.  

Be prepared for handling sting rays, they ARE common up to 3-4' wingspan.   Even a small one can be dangerous- don't ask how I know.  

If you vacation near one of the piers, you might try a half day there too.  Same gear generally.  Go early or late to the piers.  

High tide is better for the surf than low - the couple of hours before, during and after high tide tend to be more productive.  The inlets can have some deep water close in worth trying but beware of strong currents if wading. 

[Stephen1]

The only thing I see missing in Teds description is the beer. 
Makes me want to go surf fishing!

[Bert]

Awesome information guys thank you. I do enjoy talking with the fishermen when I see them.

Ive got some gear on order from your suggestions and I know a lot more now than I did about the setups, expectations and cautions.

I've got a good handle on what beer to take along.

[SawyerTed]

Photos...or it didn't happen!  

Hope to see a few fish anyway!

[SawyerTed]

Try to be aware that the beach is a series of sand bars out to deeper water.   Think of an exaggerated washboard.  The beach undulates with bars and troughs out to deep water - 12 or 15 feet deep.  

So it's easy to cast too far out and have your bait on top of a bar, in shallow water.  There's lots of fish in the first trough and more in the second and so forth.  

Try to pay attention to the troughs.  Fish in them.  

As Robert mentioned, look for breaks on the inner bar also known as rips.  Where the water flows off the beach, predators are waiting for bait to be washed out.  

The old guts also look for shell beds.  "They" say the shell beds are where the fish are.

[Southside]

it just depends what is running down the particular beach you are fishing.

My mind suddenly went to an 80's TV show.....

[Bert]

Hopefully we can come through with something to take a pic of.  Still have a few weeks until this commences. Theres a local guy here that has a tackle shop. Hes basically retired but know he used to do some tournament fishing in Erie and Chesapeake Bay. Once i get the basic set up I'll go see him to get the reel wound.

[Bert]

Step 1 arrived today. Well actually steps 1 and two. Got the gear and printed the license.

[doc henderson]

looks like you got a lab tangled in your tackle.

[Bert]

Hes not a fan of anything UPS related. Especially the truck.

[YellowHammer]

Penn builds pretty tough spinning reels, the drags are incredibly smooth, and if you look close you"ll see a Battle 1 in the picture, as well as a classic Penn.  I've use lots of reels, both conventional and spinning, and I really like the Penn spinning reels best.  So you've got a good one.  

Most people have no real idea how much their outfit can take, so I always take a new rod and reel, tie a loop on the end of the line, drop the loop over the trailer ball on my truck.  Then I walk back 20 yards, tighten the drag about halfway and with a good bend in the rod, keep backing up slowly while slowly tightening the drag is as tight as it will go.  Saltwater reels, unlike freshwater reels, generally will only tighten down to their drag rating and not just "lock up" because in the saltwater, a locked up reel is going to go airborne when a big fish decides to leave the zip code.  So tighten everything up, and just keep slowly backing up with the rod in a fighting position, and get a feel for the full power of your outfit, and what it looks like and what it feels like with a real bend in the rod.  if you break the rod, it was the wrong one....get another.  You should be able to go full drag and not break the line, rod or reel, but if you break the line, spool on some stronger.  Battles can really put on the heat, so it's not uncommon to break mono line, simply because it's pretty weak for it's diameter, so most folks put braid on, it's stupid strong for it's diameter, but is a little more troublesome on use.  I prefer braid on some reel (you can see some in the photo) where I don't have lots of line capacity to stop a freight train and mono on the bigger reels.  Last year, I had a "Smoker King" fish take 350 yards of 40lb braid off the Battle reel at what looked like 100mph, (the reel in the photo) and break at the sacrificial knot on the reel spool.  It was at full drag, and my niece was skidding across the deck, and POW!  She was upset about the lost fish, I was too, but I was more upset that was $50 bucks of high performance super braid I had just spooled on before the trip.      

Then loosen the drag down to where you will like to fight fish, memorize what the rod bend looks like, and that's your routine "fighting drag."  But when you hook Moby Dick, (believe me, he does come to the beach to destroy people's days) and he's about to run to Cuba and spool you, you can crank the drag down and have confidence.  It doesn't mean you won't get spooled, but you'll do it at full drag which eases the pain a little if he gets away.

These are kings and amberjack that were whupped with "your" reel.  It's bad to the bone.  

     

[SawyerTed]

+1 on you got the right tool for the job.  

One great thing is the Penn Factory Service Center can service your reels for reasonable costs.  They come back renewed, clean and lubricated.  It's a good investment if the reel gets in the sand or immersed in the saltwater.  I have some 1986 Penn Spinfisher 750 reels that have been in for factory service a couple of times.  I don't hesitate to bring them out for heavy surf fishing.  Check the Penn website for specifics on the service center.  

Surf fishing is like any hobby, a beginner will grow into it. It takes putting in the time and deciding what you need next.  Surf fishing really is simple fishing gear-wise.  There's more to knowing where to fish than how to fish.

Use the freshest bait you can find - fresh shrimp over frozen for example.  Fresh caught bait is always a good bet so if you have a cast net, use it.   If you catch a pinfish or other small fish, cut bait works good too.  The fresher the better.  Frozen mullet tends to get mushy quickly.  

Fish Rules app is a great phone app to keep up with regulations on size and creel limits should you want to keep fish (even bait fish).  The NC Wildlife Commission recommends using Fish Rules.  

Looking forward to beach photos with some line stretchers!

[Bert]

Thats great advice tying onto an immovable object to get a feel for the gear. Ill do it. I can see my wife wondering why I am trying to reel in a pickup in the driveway though.

Anyhow thanks again for all the suggestions to get started. Regarding the gear, I just didnt want to go spend money on junk. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. I'll likely never be in the same ballpark as you guys on this type of thing. 

I'll get the app. Likely all catch and release for me but again you never know.

[SawyerTed]

Just to amp you up a little, here's a link to the NC Div. Of Marine Fisheries regional fishing reports:

https://www.deq.nc.gov/about/divisions/marine-fisheries/public-information-and-education/coastal-fishing-information/recreational-fishing-reports#SouthernPenderNewHanoverandBrunswickCounties-4287

[Bert]

Kind of slow it looks like. If we catch at least something I'll be happy on the maiden voyage.

I can imagine the hesitancy on surf fishing in crowds. Definity have seen the Karens with White Claws berate the anglers on shore. I don't want to deal with any of that and will stick to mornings and nights. 

[SawyerTed]

It's not been so long ago I had a man come 50 yards down the beach (3 houses down)  to complain about our group fishing in Emerald Isle.

He explained we could be attracting sharks.  I explained the sharks were already there and his kids were acting like bait.  Politely, I explained we were in front of our cottage, had paid a rental just like he had, we were there first and were legally fishing.

That didn't go over too well and he started telling us we were creating a dangerous situation again.

I told him I'd never met a man named Karen.  That didn't go over too well. .  

Later, a wildlife officer came by, talked to the guy and came to talk to me.  The LEO couldn't find anything wrong with what we were doing.  He checked licenses, coolers, looked at fish we had caught etc.  

The officer brought the guy down to talk with both of us.  The guy's face went kind of white when the officer explained that harassment of legal fishing or hunting could result in his arrest in NC and asked if I wanted to press charges.  I had already agreed not to but enjoyed a couple of moments hesitation before saying no.  

[Old Greenhorn]

Once again this forum dredges up memories that were all but forgotten to my mind, so forgive my foray into those early days, just reminiscing here a bit. I was raised on saltwater and could walk on a rolling boat before I could walk on dry flat ground. My Grandfather was a Norwegian seaman at 14 years old before he became a steam engineer running power and heating plants in NYC. We sold the family cabin boat to finance the purchase of a summer cottage near my Grandparents, but the fishing always called my dad so he took a turn at surf casting. At first we got the permits to be on the beach after 6pm and had to be off by (I think) 8am. Those beaches had tens of thousands of folks on them during the day, no way you could fish, but at night, it was us and some beach combers.
 My Pop got tired of carrying gear and I was just 6-10 years old, so a bit of a burden, but he had a solution. Now this is 1962-65 or so, so you have to realize that there were no real beach buggies or campers or any of the stuff available commercially. So he bought a 1950's International truck with a plumbers body (look it up if you must) and customized it a lot like a boat. He added a marine sink with a 5 gallon tank, a small stove for coffee, a fold out toilet (no tank, just a bag), A fold down bunk, and most importantly an air compressor and tank. He had the body sanded and painted a two tone baby blue and white. He had a bunch of 12v accessories like work lights, fridge, and other stuff. All of which was pretty hard to find and make fit, he improvised a lot. None of his rods had joints, they were all full length, so he built clamp in racks that held the rods up along the top of the roof.
 We wound up with a real nifty rig that drew a lot of attention on the beach. We could drive right to the high tide line and set up for the night and be comfortable regardless of weather or temps. He could put the little kid in the bunk when he ran out of steam or interest. I remember a lot of nights going out to fish and just waking up in my bed at home the next morning. I'd ask if we had a good time and what did we catch? 
 The only thing I didn't like about it was we used blood worms (sand worms?) for bait and those suckers would bite! I preferred squid.
 The last time I threw a surf rod up I was 12 years old. My son doesn't even know what that means. It was a long time ago in the cobwebs of my mind. Thanks for the memory.

[SawyerTed]

Driving on the beach on the Outer Banks has been a thing since cars were invented.  There's photos of cars on the beach from the 1920's and 30s.  There was even a bus that would run the beach from Hatteras Inlet to Ocracoke in the 1940s.   

I recall many 2 wheel drive vehicles navigating the sand well before 4x4 was a common thing.  Reducing the air pressure in the tires to 12-15 psi was and still is the key in addition to wide tires.  My dad drove a 1961 Chevrolet station wagon on the beach when I was a kid and I don't remember ever being stuck.

Someday when we can gather round a campfire, I'll tell the story of "finding" the nude beach on Ocracoke and getting stuck!  It was hilarious!    And being stuck on a deserted beach and a man appeared with a shovel, we never figured out where he came from or how he got where we were.  There wasn't another vehicle or house for miles. 

Now there are times when the beach looks like a parking lot.  Even with the beach driving permits costing $50 per week or more! 

There's a section of the northern most NC Outer Banks called Carova, it's only accessible by 4x4.  There's no paved roads and beach driving is required to get to the houses there!  Some of the houses are mansions - 8 and 10 bedrooms, pools, tennis courts etc.  We have vacationed there in one of the more modest houses, of course.

Because Highway 12 ends at the beginning of Carova's 4x4 beaches, people drive all kinds of road vehicles out on that beach and promptly get stuck.  Check Carova Beach Idiots on Facebook sometime when you are bored.  There's everything from sedans to sports cars to mini vans all stuck on the beach. They are stuck even though there are warning signs galore before the pavement ends.

What people don't get about our beaches are the various kinds of sand, much of it will not get firm, ever.  There's "red sand" which is as bad as the white sugary sand for getting stuck.  Red sand is primarily a deposit of crushed seashells and is coarse and loose.  Sugary sand is that pretty fluffy sand. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Spot on Ted, I forgot about the differences. The long island beaches I grew up on you would never ever consider taking a 2wd road vehicle on. It was all sugar sand and you might make it 20' if you were moving at 45mph when you left the blacktop.  You needed low pressure tires, good flotation, and 4wd at least and still could get stuck pretty easily. Happened all the time with well set up vehicles. Routine, and you'd better have a plan.
 In contrast I was shocked on my first visit to t Texas beach 40 years ago when my cousins suggested we make a picnic dinner for our 2 families and the kids and go park on the beach and watch the sunset and the shrimp boats come in (Gulf Coast). Sure enough, you could drive right up to the tide line with any vehicle you had. It was like concrete. Wow, what a difference! I had never experienced anything like that. Heck, they even had driving lanes on the beach, curb cuts to get on the beach, and some sort of agreed upon rules that escaped me. The only people that got stuck were too drunk to drive.
 On Long Island, only a drunk would try to drive on the beach with a street car.  (and they did, just didn't go very far.)