Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum School Me on Surf Fishing...

My son, Angler Up with Brant has a bunch of surf fishing videos that would help you out. You probably need to invest in a sandflea rake as well and have one set up with a spoon for reaching Spanish and blues.

If you have a dock, set a pinfish trap and a crab trap. Check regs on what size crabs you can keep, but a crab cut in half on Fort Morgan gulf side can get your string stretched!

Live bait is King if you can get it.

Enjoy, lots to learn!

I want first Dibs on Little Ridge! 😂😂😂

Make your own sand spikes, I do mine.
Take a length of metal pipe( 3/4” or so) and attach a couple feet of pvc to it with a couple of stainless fasteners)
The metal pipe goes into the sand a lot easier than the pvc ones.
I like the heavier pipe for mine.

And yes, fish bites( or gulp baits) will save your day many times.

Like have been said, get a 7-8’ spinning outfit with 10-20# braid and use it to cast the goofy jigs while waiting for the bait rods to produce. You’ll catch a lot of variety on those goofy jigs. I opt for 1/8 and 1/4 oz ones.

Do you have anything specific you’re targeting?

You can catch some good red fish, black drum and all that with just a simple 3-4oz weight, and a circle hook at the end of a 3ft leader with 1/2 a crab or mullet on the end.

If you’re near any structure like rocks, pier, or something along those lines, just put a small hook in the back of a live shrimp and let it live-line. You’ll get just about anything from spec’s to permit, to flounder, to reds with it. It feels stupid but it’s probably the most effective set up there is.

A 3000-4000 series is all you really need. I am a huge fan of the penn battle’s (reel is awesome, but rod’s not as high of an action as I like). Diawa makes a similar combo that’s also really good for the same price point but has a stiffer rod ($200 ish).

Surf fishing is fine if the Mrs. is on the beach with you. If she’d rather stay in the a/c at the house, I’d recommend pier fishing. It’s much more social and I think you can catch a wider variety of fish. Don’t know where your beach house is but there are fine piers in PCB, Fort Walton Beach and Orange Beach.

No way!! He’s got one of my favorite channels!

Offer was accepted. Papers were signed. Earnest money was sent. Proof of funds was sent. Home inspection is Tuesday. Just waiting on closing.

Mrs. Irish is as excited as a little girl on Christmas Eve and I'm over here trying to figure out what hell I'm going to do down at the beach all day. So I will be riding my ebike up and down 180 East, hiking, fishing, weightlifting, walking on the beach every morning, probably get a metal detector for the beach too.

We will spit time between the mountain and the beach. I admit, it will be cool just to be able to get in the car and drive to the beach and not have to pack anything. We will be packing a bunch of stuff this week, clothes, kitchen stuff, beach stuff, etc... to take down there and set-up house keeping.

We've already met some friends down there that live in the area and do the same thing we will be doing. Plus we already have a few friends that live down there at least part time.

We need to get together and hang out so you can show me the ropes. I need to learn the ferry schedule.

The guide is at Pensacola Beach. Might try to go with him and see what he can teach you.

https://www.justinreedfishing.com/

I’m just waiting to see what Irish does with a couple of fresh Pomps!

We ain't selling it. We're going to look at the weather every week and see where we want to hang out.

I'm going to check him out. Thanks!

You are very kind. I hope I can make some good stuff.

Bring long needle nose pliers to unhook all the hard tail cats you’ll catch trying to find a stretch of beach that you can catch pompanos on

Athletic tape for your casting finger if you run braid

Small khale hooks if you target pompano (they have small mouths)

Hire a surf guide a couple times. That helps prevent too many mistakes as you start out. I wouldn’t tell him you live down there.

Look up how to tie your own pompano rigs. Most you buy in the store have hooks far too large

Ugly stick elite salmon rods for casting fairly light tackle on the cheap with decent length for staying over waves

https://www.basspro.com/p/ugly-stik-elite-salmon-steelhead-spinning-rod

Medium/light or medium, however long you can find

If you were up for it I could show you for free, or do as others have said and watch YouTube videos or hire a guide. Also know that the fishing is very seasonal. You can catch fish year round but what you catch and the tactics will change.

Thanks my friend. Long time no see. Hope everything is going well at the company.

I ended up buying some inexpensive rods to get started. They had great reviews on Amazon. Worst case I will upgrade later and keep these as extras for friends and family that come down to visit.

I'm read about the tape on your casting finger. Good info.

That is a very kind and generous offer and I will take you up on it. Let me get my rods in and figure out when we are going down for closing, get a bunch of our stuff unloaded and moved in, figure out how long we are going to stay on this next trip down and I will give you a call. I will PM you my contact information and we can talk.

I second watching Angler Up with Brant and also Bama Beach Bum. You can learn a lot from those two and see you don’t have to have tons of equipment to do it. We surf fish every beach trip and are pretty much 100% on redfish and whiting. We are about 25% on Pompano. We use 1/2 a whiting and I prefer the head half for redfish. We catch some sharks and i don’t want to, it’s just a long flight for something we are not eating.

Good info. Thanks!