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?
If you haven’t heard about the recent oil spill off Huntington Beach, here is some info on that.
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 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.
- Keitech Fat Impact Swing (4.8″) Swim Bait paired with a half-ounce weedless swim bait head from WarBaits
- Keitech Easy Shiner (5″) Swim Bait paired with the same weedless head
- 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.
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
- Rod: Okuma Celilo (8’6″ MA) or the Okuma SST (8’6″ MA)
- Reel: Penn Battle II or III 4000 series
- Mainline: 15-pound monofilament
- For Bait: Carolina Rig:
- Leader Line: 15-pound fluorocarbon
- Swivels: 15-19mm barrel swivels
- Hooks: size #2 or #4 owner mosquito hooks
- Weights: 1-oz egg weight
- Beads: 8mm fishing beads
- For Lures: Lucky Craft FM 110 and Shimano WM 115 SP
- Other best surf fishing rods and best surf fishing reels
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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Yellowtail from shore, consistently, would be a great skill to attain. I look forward to watching you document your journey.
You are spot on about the spotfins. This morning, I was fortunate to land one measuring 18.5 inches, caught on a sand crab.
Heck ya! Waita go Ed. And I look forward to documenting it all.
Great read. Reminds me of an accidental 19” white sea bass catch (released) from HB pier on mussel ( was targeting YFC). I’ve had no success on WSB from the surf. I’m not sure how long I’ll be out of commission on HB due to the oil spill, but can’t wait to learn more from your experiments. Thanks for the insightful articles. – Dharma
Yes, the oil spill is a major bummer for the entire surf fishing community (not to mention the ecosystem). Awesome job on the WSB! I’m still waiting for my day but I know it’ll come.
Anything is possible!
That’s my attitude!
I have been using a 12Ft rod with a casting reel trying to target the big boys as well
Heck yah!
Thanks for another great article! This summer I began to target bigger fish too and switched some of my equipment to accommodate new size lures, rod action, reel etc..
What are your thoughts about St Croix Mojo 10″ ft. rod weigh being an issue? it is 12.5oz St Croix rod plus reel etc.. ?? I was thinking of buying this one because everyone is saying its feather light but Okuma Rockaway is a little bit lighter.. Thanks
Awesome, man! Keep me posted. As for the Mojo, I don’t think the weight would be an issue (for me), I’ve never been particularly picky about rod weights. I think the rods we’re talking about here are going to be relatively light by most standards. It certainly depends on your preferences and abilities, but as for the difference in weight between the two rods we’re referring to, you’ll be fine either way.
Thanks for your great article, Nick. I’m a beginner of surf fishing and I’m reading every single of your articles for weeks. ( too many stuffs to learn lol). One question bothers me a lot is when I’m using your set-up to cast, I feel it’s really hard for me to cast long enough to my preferred area, especially when I cast the LC 110 with the 15 lb. mono line, the longest distance I can cast is just about 10 yds. or even less. Am I doing anything wrong?
how far can you cast the carolina rig with it? I can usually get a good 40-50 yards with the LC.
Hi Nick, how does anyone ever measure or know their casting distance? You say 40-50 yards but standing on the shore wide open shore space things may look deceiving. To be honest I can’t put a number on my casting distance unless we generalize and approximate what we thing it is.. Just to clarify, im only asking how to measure, certainly not questioning your or anyone cast ability. Thanks!
Good question. I think distance judgement is something that can be acquired but a lot of people either have it or they don’t. I think playing a lot of sports that involved distance markings or yard markings helped me to really solidify my judgement so I’m pretty confident in my judgment there. I’d say my most common method of judging a distance is imagining a football field in front of me. If you’re used to the size of a field you can pretty easily judge a distance (up to a point).
As for getting more distance, I think a lot of it is getting used to your rod. For instance, when I first got the celilo, I wasn’t used to such a sensitive and “bendy” rod. But, now that I’ve used it for over a year, I don’t think I could go back to what I previously used. I’ve now gotten used to it and have regained full distance with both LC and C rig but I will say that a lot of the time, when I’m throwing LC, I use a stiffer rod in my old Penn Pursuit as it has fantastically fast action and I can whip the heck out my lure with as much power as I want. If I’m throwing LC on my Celilo (which I for the most part only use C-rig on), I have to be slower on the cast as the action along with the power is slower and lesser meaning you have to wait for the rod tip to catch up and rely on it loading properly.
Thank you! I appreciated your response and advice.
One other questions re: rod and lure weight ratings.. Hope you don’t mind me asking the following.
I just received my new rod few days ago and took it to the beach this evening: Okuma Connoisseur – 8’6″ , Medium Heavy, Lure Weight: 1/2 ~ 4oz.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075NN1MRM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
My very first lure to use was 1oz jighead with 4.5″ peddle tail bait.. This rod was absolutely unable to balance 1oz jighead. Not sure to explain it properly but I couldn’t load 1oz because of rod tip unbalance. It felt like I was using 10oz lure… I switched to LC (5/8oz) and it was perfect casts after..
So, I don’t understand why such rod with this lure rating unable to perform to specifications? Was this a user error? I’m also expecting delivery of St. Croix Rod, Mojo Surf Spinning Rod 9’0″ Medium/Moderate, 3/4 – 4oz. I just hope this rod able to handle easy 1oz lures.. Thanks!
That’s really interesting. Given the rating on the rod you’re referring to, I would expect the 1 oz lure to be a much better balance than the Lucky Craft. I would imagine the rod wouldn’t load up properly with the LC. I took a look at the link you sent and I did see a comment that said it casts one oz very far, but 2 oz is too much (even though 2 ox should be well within it’s range). I can’t say I’ve ever used that specific rod so I can’t speak on whgether it’d be user error or not, but given the specs, I would assume it should be able to handle a 1 oz lure just fine and even better than the LC.
Great write up Nick, enjoyed reading it. And yes………..there are some beasts to be caught off the beach
there’s always a bigger beast than has been caught.
In hopes of going for bigger fish, I just picked up a 10 1/2′ Med. Mojo surf rod this summer (B grade but can’t see why and great price). Used it for the 1st time at Jalama Beach 2 weeks ago. I only had Carolina rig stuff at the time so I was targeting surf perch for the test. The 1.5 oz rig with Gulp sand worms casted really well and caught a few small Bared Surf perch. Okuma Razores 55S reel with 40#ish braid. I was guessing around 75 yd casts but it is difficult to tell.
I had a decent hit that broke off (?) about 1/4″ below the egg sinker and swivel, and yeah my 8# leader had been twisted and should’ve been changed. Would something toothy pick up an egg sinker thinking it’s a sand crab and then cut the line when it’s pulled out of their mouth? This happened before at Guadalupe Dunes two casts in a row.
as FYI, The sand crabs were tiny at about 1/8″.
I would lean toward the twist being the reason it broke. I doubt a fish would take a weight after feeling how heavy it might be but I guess anything is possible. But either way, a good fight is always fun!
Hey wonderful catch what a tanker yellowtail! Not wanting to blow up your spot you certainly put in the work to deserve that fish, but was that fish caught in north county SD? Or south? Just wondering in terms of generalities because I’ve been forming my own hypothesis on the yellows and sea bass and I know of one beach in particular that produces. Big halibut too
Haha, I understand your curiosity as I have asked plenty of anglers about certain locations hoping for intel, but I will have to decline to answer this one. It was SD County and I’ve decided to leave it at that. People will guess left and right, but at the end of the day, it was a beach that isn’t very high on my list for where I would have thought… just a lucky catch on that one. Go with your gut because with fishing, that’s your best bet.
Nice! I’ve seen a kayak guy come in with a tanker like that from a spot more known for surfing, and definitely in gray light. Looks like your fish was caught in the middle of the day or afternoon?
It was around 6:45ish just before sunset on I think August 30th.
All this is really exciting to read , has anyone tried ,
Air Cannon bait Launchers for bigger fish beyond the breakers ???
I have never. Don’t know anyone who has either. Personally, don’t think I ever will. But I could see the potential for something decent but it’d be geared more toward sharks.
57 “ I believe
535 lbs ? I’m not believing that those two guys are are hoisting 267 lbs each , call me doubtful
I can’t tell if you’re joking. It says 53.5-pounds.
Nick, have you considered shore jigging with those iron jig baits?
I have. And I’ve tried it a couple times. I never like the way it feels, but I’ve never been a big fan of them even out in open water. It’s purely because I’m not used to how they feel on the retrieve though. That is one of the lures that I think is worth trying.
That’s why they call it fishing 🤣
yessir!
Chiming in here Nick, If you want to go after the YT and BIG fish from shore, do what the kiwis do, they catch monsters from shore using long medium heavy surf rods, casting out a big spider weight first you can usually cast those further than a lure with the right weight/rod setup.
Then they have a special trolley/slide rig that they bounce and slide all the way to the weight with a constant “up and down setting the hook motion” which gives slack and tension to the line causing your dead or live bait to go all the way out. I’ve never seen this technique in the US but meaning to try it.
Watch a Youtube video about it and let me know what you think.
I have heard of that method! I’ll have to add that to the list of things to try. I don’t see myself doing it anytime soon, but if I do, I’ll reach back out to ya right here.