Catching Massive Fish From the Shore: Is it Possible?

I’ve been fishing the surf for a while now and I mean it when I say, “no other style of fishing comes close, nor compares”. Just recently, my eyes have been opened and now locked on a new target/style of fishing from the surf. I want to try to catch yellowtail and white seabass from the shore. More so, I want to do it relatively regularly. So far, I’ve caught one fish in maybe eight different outings for this style of fishing and I’m absolutely loving it. So, catching massive fish from the shore… is it possible?

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To simmer your excitement, the one fish I caught was just a short halibut. But, my heart was pounding as I had no idea what it might be. There really is something special about trying out a new style of fishing in the ocean and having literally endless possibilities as to what you might catch. I can’t illustrate my thoughts well enough when I say that I had little-to-no idea what I was doing when I began this new endeavor, though I’m enjoying it more than anything, and I’m learning quickly. Recently, I went into detail about how I’m trying a new style of surf fishing; you can read about it in the linked article.

Hooked on Huge Fish

I think it’s every angler’s dream to hook the biggest, craziest fish out there. As a surf fisherman, catching massive fish from the shore is my goal. It’s simply in the nature of a fisherman to set audacious goals, or at least dream about the possibilities. What’s the reason I’m set on this idea?

Last year, I was fortunate enough to be part of a historic catch when my client reeled in a land-based record yellowtail at 57-inches and 53.5-pounds! That’s what sparked my interest in whether or not it was possible to target that caliber of fish from the surf. This past year, I’ve started to pay more attention to some of my peers in the fishing community. I’ve realized it’s possible.

Yellowtail caught from shore
57-inch | 53.5-pound Yellowtail Caught from the Surf

Yellowtail has not been figured out by anyone at this point (at least anyone that I’m aware of). Huge halibut, white seabass, and calico bass on the other hand, that’s been figured out by a handful of people. I’m certainly interested in that and I have my hopes and dreams set on that for the coming year. More interestingly, I have a side goal of figuring out yellowtail from the surf. Could take forever… but one must try to find out, right?

Targeting and Catching Massive Fish From Shore

On this new endeavor, I’ve been trying a few different baits so far. I’ll overview the three of them quickly, but I can’t testify too much on their success as I’ve had very little of that thus far. To be clear, I’m not talking about catching sharks. We already know that big sharks are very targetable from the surf and a lot of fun to catch.

  1. Keitech Fat Impact Swing (4.8″) Swim Bait paired with a half-ounce weedless swim bait head from WarBaits
  2. Keitech Easy Shiner (5″) Swim Bait paired with the same weedless head
  3. Daiwa SP Minnow

Option number one was what got me the short halibut, but option number three is what has me pondering possibilities. I’m also working out a rod and reel setup that fits the style to my preferences but I’ve yet to figure that out just yet.

  • Rod Options: I’m looking at either the St. Croix Mojo Surf Rod 10′ Med, Mod-Fast, the Okuma Rockaway 10′ Med (10-20lb) or a couple others. I don’t think I’ll go any longer than a 10-footer, but I may go down to a 9’6″ of sorts.
  • Reel: I’ve just about settled on the Penn Spinfisher VI 4500 with maybe 20 or 30lb braid.

My First Fish On a Swimbait

As I mentioned earlier, in terms of productivity, it’s been a pretty rough go throwing swimbaits. But, it’s been a pleasure. Here’s how that story goes:

I was back at a spot I’ve skunked out on five times already. The surf was down nicely and the sun was on it’s way down too. I fished from 4 pm through 7 pm and my lure choice was the Keitech referenced in option number 1, above.

I’ve wandered the beach for sometime now and I come across a spot I’d hit a few sessions back. I like the way it looks, so I make my way over to it. As I begin throwing my lure, I notice another spot that I hadn’t tried before today. So, after 20 minutes of fruitless casts, I make my way a few yards north. I find my footing and begin casting. A couple to the left, a couple to the right, and a few straight ahead.

Thump…

The longer I go without success, my confidence slips away little-by-little. Just as I’m losing hope for this session, I feel my lure come to a stop. As I get it to move my way a little more, I realize I’ve got a fish on! At first, just a subtle headshake here and there. Then, as it gets closer, it darts down and out deeper. A few seconds later, I catch a glimpse and it’s a decent halibut! Nothing crazy, but that’s success!

I work it in and we’ve got our first fish on the swimbait! That’s a day well spent and some confidence built. It was something like 17-inches long, but I’ll take anything to get going and to gain some confidence. So far, I’m extremely satisfied with figuring this out little-by-little.

Last year, I was also fortunate enough to catch a personal best halibut from the surf at just over 31-inches using a lure. Going into the winter halibut bite, I’m looking forward to having more perspective and options.

Biggest California Halibut Caught From Surf
31.5-inch Halibut from the Surf

I Hooked Something Big

Alright, so that’s the gist of my progress/where I’m currently at in my journey here. But, about three weeks ago, I tried something I’ve been meaning to try for about a year now. I bought a heavy jerkbait and tied it onto my sharking setup. Only, I had just spooled up my 8000 series Penn Battle III with some fresh 50-pound braid and had yet to put on my mono top-shot. So, we had a 13-footer with straight braid on the reel and a 1 and 1/9-oz lure.

The surf was about as flat as it’d been all year long. With a combination of flat surf and a gradual incline in terms of the shore, I was able to wade out about 30-40 yards. That wasn’t expected, but what happened next was even less expected. I figured I’d get a good 75-yards or so with the long rod and heavy lure. I was wrong.

After getting a feel for the length of the rod and the lighter weight (in comparison to sharking tackle), I was consistently getting 100+ yard casts and sometimes landing my lure some 160 yards from the sand. It was then that I realized that I was casting to distances in which I’ve caught yellowtail from a kayak.

A Hook-Up?

It didn’t take long for me to be absolutely exhausted, casting a 13-foot rod constantly. But, it took less than 20-minutes to get some action. My buddy, Kyle had just gone up to the sand to take a phone call and I’d thrown a good one. Maybe a cumulative 150-yards out there. I start retrieving and it’s probably 100-110-yards out from me when I feel a jolt and then headshakes.

Naturally, rather than focusing on the fish, I turn to Kyle, behind me and try to get hiss attention. I fight the fish with terrible technique and little finesse on my 13-footer, but I’m on a fricken fish! I’m using a huge lure, casting crazy distances, and this thing is making my shark rod bend over pretty well!

Man, should I have focused a little better… maybe a lot better. After about 10-seconds of fighting the fish, I feel the line go slack and regain a light wobble as the lure returns to a swimming motion. In the moment, I’m pretty content. I had no expectations. I looked like a kook from the east coast with this massive “surf rod” aimlessly hucking a fat lure until, my perspective changed.

It’s doable. Whatever was on my lure was big enough to bend a 13-foot rod that regularly handles 50+ pound sharks and up to 100-pound rays. It wasn’t until later that I started beating myself up for not staying focused on the fight, but oh well.

I can’t guarantee that I’ll ever figure out this style of fishing, but I can guarantee I won’t regret any of it. Look for much more to come… but don’t bet on it being soon. This will take a while.

Surf Fishing Report and Forecast 10-03-2021

It’s October now and the bite has slowed as we enter into fall. The story of the seasonal shift though? Spotfin croaker are still biting consistently. It’s been an odd and slow all-around year, but there have been some bright spots. At the moment, you can’t rely on a good bite with constant action, but you can arrive with decent hopes of landing a solid spotfin even as we’re into October (at least in SD County).

Report

This week, that theme rang true in a big way. We had okay morning success and evening success regardless of tides. Firstly, I ran into a fellow angler (once again) by the name of Dave. I was able to catch up with him after I saw him reel in a nice spotfin croaker on blood worms (I think). Earlier that day, a client of mine had hooked a massive spotfin that ended up popping off before it was shallow enough to beach. I’d label it easily above 20-inches.

Later that day, I made my way to another beach with a client and his sons. The bite wasn’t the most active of bites but we caught a few fish. More than that, one of the sons caught an absolute tank of a spotfin croaker right around 22-inches. I’m unable to share the photo as it was requested that I didn’t. But, it was a tank!

My Light Tackle Set-Up

Forecast

The weather is beginning to cool off as we see the nights get chillier. The water temp, although it never really peaked, is tapering and will stay down for the rest of the year, through winter.

What will this week bring? Well, the conditions look very favorable. Surf should be down all week with the mellowest of the bunch being Wednesday. I’d expect Tuesday and Thursday to be terrific as well. It’s almost time to start thinking about perch and halibut as we switch from sand crabs to a combination of mussel meat and lucky craft lures.

As we approach the middle of the week, the early morning session looks quite appealing with a high rising tide allowing for very good water movement even with extremely low surf. the combination of those two factors results in a great set of conditions in my opinion. especially if you’re just fishing sandy beaches.

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