TIPS ON FLY FISHING THE HIGH SURF
TIPS ON FLY FISHING THE HIGH SURF
By Nick Curcione
Photos By Tom Lynch
The defining element
What is it that differentiates fly- fishing from other forms of recreational angling? Pure and simple it is the cast. In fly casting the line carries the fly. With conventional and spinning tackle it is the weight of the lure or bait that carries the line and because it is concentrated in a relatively small mass, the latter is much easier to cast. In contrast, when fly casting you are throwing a length of line (sometimes up to 30-feet or more) and using it to deliver the fly. And of all the locales where one might choose to attempt this, the surf ranks as one of the most inhospitable environments.
A tough game
The way the fly is delivered is the defining criteria of fly-fishing. You might be using fly gear, but dragging a fly behind a boat is not fly fishing. Instead, fly-fishing is fly-casting and casting the fly is the most difficult component of this sport. John Randolph, in his foreword to the book on the late Lefty Kreh’s biography (All the Best) puts the matter succinctly when he states that, “The cast is the great stumbling block in our sport, the only skill one must master to be successful-all the other elements of fulfillment can be purchased or learned quickly.”
A demanding environment
Like a host of common sporting activities such as golf, tennis, wing shooting, hitting a fast-incoming baseball, learning to cast a fly efficiently takes persistence and practice and of all the waterfronts where one chooses to present a fly, standing on a beach facing the high surf rolling in from the open ocean presents the most formidable environment. In most cases when fly fishing the high surf, the fact is you either make the cast or you’re totally out of the game.
From the casting standpoint, anytime you fish a body of water on foot the difficulty factor goes up a notch. Of course, how deep you go is usually the deciding factor. Standing in the shallows where the water barely covers your ankles doesn’t pose much of a problem but going slightly deeper where leg movement is restricted can significantly hamper your efforts. The ability to shift weight from one leg to the other is an important consideration particularly when trying to execute distance casts and your mobility is significantly limited in this respect if you’re standing in knee deep water. Besides, as a safety consideration alone, fishing the surf in water that consistently washes over your knees can be dangerous. But even the fly fisher who doesn’t wade past the shin level in the surf, must contend with conditions that are either exaggerated or unique to this locale. Using two-handed rods for overhead casting off the beach will enable you to achieve more distance, but it is still not an easy game.
Surf strategies
The wind is one factor that can be encountered in all marine environments, but it can take on added significance for the shore bound fly fisher facing the surf. Particularly as a saltwater fly fisher, the wind is a force that you will inevitably have to face. If you’re in a boat, it’s possible to maneuver to a point to diminish its effect. Sometimes this is even possible when wading a flat simply by changing direction. It’s a different story however, if you are casting from the beach with an onshore wind blowing directly into your face. You just must deal with it. The most common fault in this situation is overpowering the casting stroke. The mistaken belief is that if you cast harder the fly will go further. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The trick is to haul sharper on the forward portion of the cast to maximize line speed. In addition, try to direct the cast low to the water where wind velocity tends to be reduced. Even more annoying is when the wind is blowing over one of your shoulders because it can put you on a collision course with the fly. If you’re not a switch hitter who casts well with either arm, you’ll have to learn to cast back handed.
A certain degree of water disturbance is commonplace in most saltwater locales. But even the fierce churning like that encountered in some of the northeast’s fastest moving rips doesn’t match the turbulence of the surf crashing onto ocean facing shorefronts. Waves that pound rocks into billiard ball smoothness are common in the surf and can pose quite a challenge to the uninitiated. An effective casting strategy under these conditions is the water haul but you must time its execution to make a decent cast. A water haul as commonly used in situations where sinking lines come into play, is a simple technique of sliding the head portion of the line off the water immediately after it has been brought to the surface by means of a roll cast. Obviously, you need a body of water to perform this maneuver. What is not so obvious is the fact that a crashing wave or a rapidly receding wash can suddenly deprive you of the necessary water “platform.” A wave crashing down on the line will prevent you from lifting it cleanly from the water. Likewise, the line being sucked along the bottom as the water rushes seaward can play havoc with this otherwise simple technique. To prevent both these occurrences it is necessary to time your casts to coincide with the wave sets hitting the beach. If a wave pounds down on the line wait a second or two for the effect to subside and then make a roll cast in preparation for the water haul. Generally, the ideal times to make your casts are those periods between cresting waves and the water’s ebb. This may also dictate that you run to and from the shoreline as necessary. It’s a simple matter of recognizing that surf conditions tend to be far more dynamic than other water locales and you will have to adjust your casting patterns accordingly.
Reading the water
Experienced trout anglers know that all sections of a stream are not equally productive and the same applies to the surf line. To the uninitiated all beachfronts may look basically the same but that is not the case and you’ll be wasting a great deal of time if you think fishing one area is just as good as any other. If you want to stand a reasonable chance of connecting with fish in the surf, you must learn to read the beach. The easiest and most obvious clue is when birds are crashing the water as bait is being pushed to the surface by predator gamefish in pursuit. This is a classic heart pumping scene that often accompanies the feeding sprees of fish like stripers and bluefish. Other more subtle signs involve studying wave action that can tip you off to favorable habitat like holes and troughs along the bottom. Even with clear water conditions it’s difficult to know what the bottom looks like (if possible, study a beachfront during an extreme low tide to get a good idea of bottom configuration). But learning to interpret wave action gives a good indication of what it’s like below. Waves tend to break up early as they roll into shallow areas but remain relatively flat when moving over indentations in the bottom. Baitfish and other marine food sources frequently get swept into these depressions and that is where you’re more likely to encounter predators in search of a meal. Learning to read signs like this takes a bit of practice but it’s well worth the effort.
Auxiliary gear
Far more than any other environment, the surf is the one locale where a line management device (more commonly referred to as a stripping basket) is essential. It stands to reason that since the water turbulence is greatest here, even more havoc will result if the line is allowed to simply fall at one’s feet. Even if you choose to fish completely out of the water on the dry sand, line-disturbing obstacles abound. Any sort of debris like seaweed, kelp, pebbles or broken clamshells will inevitably snag the line and impair the cast. Finally, mobility is often a key factor in successfully fly fishing the surf and you cannot move about freely if the line is not secured in some sort of container.
It's also important to stay as comfortable as possible. Even if you wade up to your shins with pounding surf, you’ll probably get wet above the waist. In warm water conditions this may not present a problem. For colder conditions you’ll need wading apparel. Most often that will be in the form of chest high waders. The soundest advice here is to buy the best you can afford. Being wet and cold will ruin your outing. For most of my years in the surf weather permitting, I preferred fishing barefoot. But after stepping on rays twice in three months, that is no longer the case. Not too long after that a friend fishing the Texas gulf stepped on a broken clam shell that hobbled him for nearly a month, so my recommendation is to wear some type of protective footwear regardless of where you fish.
Look back
A piece of advice frequently given to novice casters is to turn one’s head rearward to monitor the back cast. When learning to cast if you don’t see your back cast, you don’t know if it was good or bad and you can’t make the necessary adjustments. Regardless of your casting proficiency, when fly fishing the surf, you should look to the rear prior to making the back cast to ensure the safety of others. Walking or jogging on the beach is a relatively quiet affair and unless you bother to look you never know when someone may suddenly appear behind you. Fishing in the dark can pose a definite problem in this respect. The only consolation is that there are normally fewer people on the beach. One night while walking what we thought was a totally deserted stretch of shore- front on Martha’s Vineyard, the only clue a buddy and I had that others were fly- fishing the area were the occasional flashes we saw up ahead of us. At first, we thought they were fire- flies but as we got closer, we realized these were sparks caused by fly hooks striking stones that covered the beach behind a group of fly fishers. Save for these sparks, there were no other clues alerting us to their presence and we could have easily walked into a gauntlet of flailing back casts. This was one time when I was thankful for other anglers’ casting faults.
Landing your catch
When the fish gods are kindly and you connect with a good fish off the beach you obviously want to land it but over the years, particularly when fishing the northeast, I’ve witnessed many instances where anglers lost big stripers because they didn’t know how to fight it in the surf. Remember water rushes in and then recedes from the shoreline. This may seem painfully obvious, but you must learn to coordinate your fighting strategy to coincide with these water movements. A fish being pulled away in a receding wave is not the time to increase your pressure on it. At the least you want to try and ease up a bit. If you keep pulling, there’s a good chance of breaking the tippet. Conversely, with the fish positioned in an incoming wave try and pressure it to the point where you can begin to surf it into shore.
Get all this right, slide your prize up on the wet sand, and savor an exhilarating experience reserved exclusively for those who are willing to take on the surf with fly. It gives new meaning to the term, “surfs up.”
