Being an adaptive surf angler will save your trips more often than not.
I made a big mistake last October, and I made it because I was stubborn and lazy about making adjustments. I know better, but I just couldn’t get beyond what I wanted to do, and do what I needed to do. The waves were four to five feet, no weed, and there were sand eels along the beach. I caught stripers that day and, like everyone else, most of the fish were 24 to 27 inches.
It wasn’t a blitz, just a pick. I had the feeling that I should be catching more fish, but resisted processing how to get there. Most surf anglers that day threw diamond jigs with tubes, but I stuck with a bucktail and pork rind because I caught more fish with it. The tin and tube guys cast “to the moon” and when they approached the beach they reeled in as fast as possible. I made short casts and worked the turbulence at the lip where most of the fish were. Although I understood where the fish were feeding, I didn’t think it through or realize what I needed to change.
Just to be clear, the lip is a slight edge at the bottom of the slope of the beach where incoming waves meet water running down slope from the previous wave. When the two waters meet, they slam together creating turbulence. The lip may not be favored by bluefish, but stripers love to run the edge of the lip and suck up anything lifted out of the sand, such as sand fleas and sand eels.
Swing And Miss
I couldn’t believe how many hits I missed. The ratio was easily nine misses out of 10 hits. I thought, this isn’t right, these fish are large enough to take the bucktail easily, so why so many misses? I began to analyze. Why, how, what, and when, I asked myself all these key questions. Clearly, something was wrong, but what? In spite of my effort, I missed the relationship between small bait and missed hits at the lip.
In such situations there are only a few possible solutions, and sometimes there is no solution. First, I considered my choices. I could switch to a tin and tube, but even with the misses, I was catching more fish on a bucktail than the tin slingers. Also, diamond jigs are heavy and are difficult to work at the lip. I could go smaller, because it’s a classic way to get more hook-ups. There was an inherent problem however: getting a smaller lighter bucktail down through the turbulence to the fish at the lip. I rejected the idea. Perhaps a deep running small swimming plug such as the 5-inch SP Minnow might work. No, it would just be tossed around like a rag doll and look like a piece of flotsam.
What if, I thought, I move away from anglers and cast parallel to the beach about 10 feet off the sand. It has worked before, and on my first cast a fish slammed the bucktail. I was excited believing I had solved the problem. However, the waves were erratic and on my next few casts the bucktail was lifted and thrown at me and never got deep into the lip’s turbulence. I was not daunted by the situation because I’ve been there before many times, and usually find a solution.
The Head Shake
Another possible answer was to use a teaser. I disdain teasers for several reasons. One, they are usually deployed off a dropper loop that is a weak knot; only about 50% of your line strength, and after a few fish, it gets weaker. The fragility of the knot becomes a bigger problem when two relatively large fish are on at the same time. Stripers have powerful muscular heads, and can generate a lot of force when they snap their head back and forth. Although bluefish make short head shakes we feel as rat-tat-tat-tat because the side-to-side motion of their head is restricted, stripers generate long side-to-side head shakes. Blues bite through their prey but bass either inhale food or grab it with their mouth, crush it, and shake their heads violently.
Anyway, should two decent stripers suddenly shake their heads in opposite directions, there’s a good chance they’ll snap even a 40-pound test leader. Years ago, an offshore angler showed me how to tie a one-piece leader with a loop at the swivel. It’s extremely strong. I began using this leader and when a teaser was needed, I slipped it onto the loop. The loop not only provided strength it also kept the teaser away from the leader. Even with that problem solved, an angler occasionally has to remove two fish from the same rig; it can be awkward and downright dangerous with spines and hook points bouncing around.
Dilemma
I stopped casting and walked up the beach a few steps to think. Yes, a teaser might work, but I dislike using them. Then, there was the turbulence. Would a teaser flop around in the turbulence like a piece of seaweed? I decided that adding a teaser would surely mess up my lip presentation.
In retrospect, my conclusion may have been influenced by my anti-teaser bias. Also in retrospect, away from my emotions of that day, and writing this article watching snow fall, I’ve developed a different conclusion. I made a big mistake. If I had another go at it, I believe a teaser in front of a bucktail would have been a better idea, and would have increased my hook ups significantly. I might have caught some bigger ones, too. In the future I need to get past any bias against a lure or technique and make a better adjustment. I vowed to remember that mistake.
Three Days Later
Apparently, my error didn’t make the dent in my brain that it should have. A few days later, I was on a beach at low tide on a calm day casting bucktails, tins and tubes, and small swimming plugs. Another angler, perhaps 30 yards to my right was steadily picking on stripers, while I caught one in the same time period.
Eventually, I sidled over to him. I don’t like bothering anglers when they are fishing and catching, but I did this time. I said, “No hard feelings if you don’t want to answer me, but what are you using?” He retorted, “No problem. Come over and take a look. I’ve been using this most of the fall and it’s been good to me.” He showed me a rig that looked more like a rig for porgies and blackfish than suitable for catching fish in the surf. There was a leader, maybe 24 inches long, a long sinker-like weight was tied to the bottom and the other end tied to a swivel on his running line. About a third of the way below the swivel was a loop and he had a small sand eel-like piece of plastic wiggling off it. He cast the rig out and reeled in slowly dragging the lead.
I couldn’t match that set up, but I did add a teaser. Too late, the tide was over and the fishing stopped. I went home and made a similar rig. My rig exempted the dropper loop in favor of my one-piece loop and I added a 6-inch thin red worm-like soft plastic by Mann’s. It’s a perfect mimic of a sand eel. I fished the same beach at the same time in the tide the next day, the weather was identical, but my helpful friend wasn’t there for comparison purposes. I did catch a few fish, but I don’t think my set up was as good as his, nor do I believe there were as many fish along that beach that day.
Last Stop
I began tracing my path to the east, with a smile on my face. I made one more stop and found a friend in the parking lot getting dressed for the beach. I said my hellos, he said nothing, and pointed to the water. I looked up to see clouds of gulls close to the sand and working back and forth. I hurriedly dressed and we made for the water with due haste. Sure enough, schools of peanuts were scattered along the beach replete with screaming gulls and explosive hits from stripers that raided the bait periodically.
I studied the action and decided to walk west because there seemed to be more bait and more fish in that direction. I tossed my bucktail and caught a striper on my first cast: the same 24 to 27-inch fish that dominated the fall run. However, considering the intensity of the action I felt I should be hooking up more often. Again, I had a lot of missed hits, and immediately my October mistake jumped into my head. I decided to try other approaches before using a teaser, because teasers aren’t the best lure when peanuts are around. Besides, the fish were hitting in 2 to 3 feet of water.
All lures were catching fish, even tins and tubes which seemed odd given there were no sand eels around. I tried Z-Man plastics on a leadhead, small hard plastic swimming plugs, and different size bucktails. They all caught fish but not consistently and with lots of missed hits. The tide was almost low now, and anything heavy just plowed the sand including my small leadhead lures.
Time to think it through. I eliminated teasers because the tide and the bait weren’t right. I decided on a pencil popper. Indeed, that was the ticket. Now, I had more hits and hooked up securely more often. No genius here, poppers are often the best choice when stripers crash on larger peanuts in shallow water. I’m still kicking myself for my October stupidity, but I made a good and rapid segue to the right lure in November. Too bad there wasn’t more tide, and that there was no action when the tide turned. I’ve been preaching an “adjust and adapt” philosophy for years. Maybe it’s time I listen to myself more intently. Well, one out of two isn’t bad.
