Looking for some help/advice on surf casting for stripers.

[IAY]

Hello fellow forum users,

I want to know if the rod and reel I have is worth respooling and buying lures for surf fishing. I found my old Okuma Elite 65 reel and rod combo spooled with cheap 30 pound mono from 8 years ago that I used maybe 4 times. This thing is real piece of junk that has 8 plastic guides on a 10 foot graphite pole, line in pretty awful shape, and functional spinning reel. I did some test casting with a 2 oz tennis ball at a soccer field, and got maximum distance of 35 yards. With the information I provided you, do you feel that this set up is worth respooling with some decent braid(which is worth more than the entire set up) and sufficient to target some Striped bass off of the beach in Ocean City, Maryland?

[fishingman88]

I think before you invest heavily into surf casting for stripers it would be best to just do a test run. Pick up a sub $100 combo and some Daiwa SP Minnows, bucktails, Cotton Cordell Redfins, and some Uncle Josh's Pork rind. Go out and fish, keep a log, and see if you can spot any trends. If you find that you like the chase for stripers, then I would suggest upgrading your setup down the road.

Personally, my favorite striper setup is a Lamiglas 1081L with a Van Staal VSB150. You could substitute the reel with an old school or new stock Penn 704Z for a more budget friendly setup.

At the end of the day, I'd highly recommend doing some reading along with your fishing as well. I really enjoyed Art of Surfcasting with Lures and Fishing the Bucktail.

[fishingman88]

I forgot to include my last post that your old setup is probably not worthwhile using IMO. It sounds like it doesn't perform well and the guides might even be cracked which would ruin any braid you spool on there.

[IAY]

Hmmm. Was really hoping that I can try out fishing with the old combo before deciding whether I want to invest more money in it. I have to drive at least 1.5 hours to Chesapeake Bay and 4-5 hours to the Atlantic Ocean so really don't want to buy something blind especially if I don't do it consistently. I guess I will just give it up then.

[fishingman88]

Hmmm. Was really hoping that I can try out fishing with the old combo before deciding whether I want to invest more money in it. I have to drive at least 1.5 hours to Chesapeake Bay and 4-5 hours to the Atlantic Ocean so really don't want to buy something blind especially if I don't do it consistently. I guess I will just give it up then.

You can try out the old combo, but your description made it sound absolutely terrible You could purchase a cheap spool of braid off fleabay and try it out.

I'll be honest, if you're concerned with driving 1.5 hours to the Chesapeake and not sure if you want to do it consistently, then I don't think surf casting for stripers is going to be where you want to spend your time. It is brutal. It is rough. It takes a lot of time. I fish the Chesapeake Bay and I'll drive out 2.5 hours (5 hr roundtrip) to fish a 1 hour window when the wind, tides, etc. matchup. When I first started out, I caught one decent striper every 20 trips. However, as I put in more and more time and my fishing logs grew bigger, I started to see trends and now I catch a decent striper every 3-4 trips.

It's time consuming, but something about catching a 40"+ striper on a plug in the windy, nastiest weather after plugging for hours makes it all worthwhile.