Stripers from the surf

A colleague at work told me about a striped bass surf fishing clinic that an East Bay tackle shop was hosting. I’ve always wanted to catch one so I agreed to meet him out there. My buddy went to the tackle shop where they watched a video, ate barbecue and bought a lot of gear before driving to the beach. I decided to skip the clinic and meet them on the beach with whatever I had.

I found parking 3 blocks from the ocean. It was strange walking through the city in my fishing clothes and surf rod. It was 5pm when I hit the beach and there were a lot of people already surf fishing. There was one nice striper on the beach. My buddy gave me a large plug which I tried casting with my surf rod but my gear wasn’t matched for this type of fishing and I couldn’t cast the plug very far. I went back to the truck and grabbed my trout rod (a curado on a 6.5’ all star rod w/ 12lb mono). I tried the plug again but I wasn’t happy with the way it flew. It tumbled through the air and didn’t go very far. I switched to large kastmaster spoon w/ white bucktail. I could cast that pretty far but the rod was a little on the light side.

I walked down the beach 100 yards and found a distinct bowl. There was a steep slope to the beach and the waves were closing out right in front of me. I timed my casts so that I could walk forward and cast in between the sets. I wasn’t getting great distance but I felt like it should be deep enough. After 30 minutes of casting, my line came tight as I was about to pull the lure out of the white wash at the waters edge. I set the hook as a reflex but I thought I had snagged some kelp or seaweed. When I felt it pull back I looked down the beach to see whose line I had snagged. Nobody there… Then I felt the headshakes. Oh yeah! I kept the pressure on and the next wave pushed it so shallow that I could see its tail thrashing the foam. I kept the line tight and waited for more help from the surf. A couple more waves put him right at the waters edge but not high and dry. When I tried to drag it up the beach the line snapped. I went from walking backwards to a flat out sprint for the water. I pounced on the fish with both hands just as it was covered by another wave. I had to drop my rod to grab the fish. After that the reel turned ¼ revolutions and completely bound up from the sand.

The fork length was 26”. I am guessing it weighed between 6 - 8lbs. My buddy and one other person from the group also caught stripers. We left as it was getting dark but I think that some people were going to continue fishing that night with plugs.