Surf fishing at the beach on the ocean can get real exciting. In this article I will outline surf fishing tips I have learned through the years that anyone can use. Some tips have been acquired through personal experience and from other successful surf fishing friends.
First you need to make sure you have the adequate equipment. A fishing rod that is between 10 feet and 15 feet long is the ideal length in order to achieve good casting distance and leverage. The fishing reel can be a spinning reel size 6000 up to an 8000 size with a good drag system and good line capacity for heavier line such as 17 to 25 pound test. One thing to remember about fishing in the ocean, you never know what you will catch, so you need to be prepared with the proper heavy equipment to handle a 30 pound sting ray or a large blue fish that have giant teeth, not to mention the occasional shark. Sometimes you will catch small fish like whiting or lady fish that are too small for a heavy rod, but being prepared for the big one is really what you want.
Blue Fish Teeth
Blue Fish Teeth
Choosing where to fish is another choice to be made. If you are at a home or condo on the ocean front you would most likely fish right out front. Then look for activity on top of the water, like birds diving into the water feeding on bait fish. Where there are small fish there are big fish not too far away. Fish close to them if you can, otherwise get out your polarized sunglasses and look for bait fish near where you are standing. If you don't see any, just cast out to where the waves break and let your bait float in the sandy trenches the waves create. That is where fish will look for food.
Always look at the tide chart for your area and pick your fishing times around high tides. The best time is usually 2 hours before and one to two hours after high tide. Surf fishing at these times can usually yield the most activity. Also try early morning and early evening which is normally a good fishing time. Coupled with high tide, this time frame can be very exciting and productive.
As a member of the marine class of creatures, the hagfish has long been associated with “slime”, given the fact that they are known to produce vast quantities mucous.
Popularly referred to as “slime eels”, they are considered to be one of the more unique marine animals, bearing an eel like form that comes with a skull but no vertebral column, which essentially defines them as one of the few “living fossils” found underwater.
Typically compared with lampreys, hagfishes have yet been properly classified in taxonomy-rooted tenses, argued to either be a degenerate type of vertebrate fish or a type of creature which represents a stage that precedes the development of a vertebral column.
Known to grow as long as 19 inches, certain hagfish species are known to measure up to four feet in length, with different types of hagfish sporting different colors, from plain black, black and white spots, blue grey hues to pink tones.
Found in different parts of the world, there are 77 known hagfish species, with some of these only recently discovered due to the fact that they reside quite deep underwater.
As a species, hagfishes are not often kept as pets nor as food commodities, a status which hails from their “slime eel” reputation. After all, the “slime” it produces tends to cause a dent when talking about cleaning up their enclosures and such.
However, the inshore hagfish typically found in the Northwest Pacific regions is quite valued as a delicacy in Korea, where the slime it produces is typically used in different types of culinary specialties and cuisines.
Bearing an eel-like appearance and physical characteristics which haven’t changed since 300 million years in the past, hagfishes remain to be one of the more mysterious underwater creatures, a true “living fossil” that is alive and well today.
