San Diego & SoCal Fishing Forums

Getting back into surf fishing for a year or so now.
I like bait fishing, but I have these Lucky Craft too.
I see a lot of people, maybe almost everyone, throw them on a light braid to a fluorocarbon leader?
That sounds like a wind knot nightmare to me. How's it going for you?

Have a good summer out there on the beaches.

Straight mono, no leader works for me for LC's & the like.

Braid is asking for trouble. It’s all the hype now so to each their own. I never use braid unless I’m frogging or dropping iron deep.

I’m like the above guys… A mono user..
Butch

Very practical and good answers. I have used braid a lot, and it has failed when I wanted to bomb relatively light, or wind-catching baits, long distances! I will try both, though, with the jerk baits. No way I will go to the beach from Jamul with one reel with braid! Seems like 10 or 12-pound mono would throw them, but I wonder if it's strong enough. The 15-20 mono is probably not going too far, but it mayn't matter, and it's ready for swimbait. Just pondering stuff. Thanks for your replies. And I want to catch that fish in Butch's sdfish user photo!

12lb mono works great throwing lucky crafts. I throw them on conventional bass rod. No problem with distance on any jerk bait style with weight transfer system.

I generally do not have problems with wind knots on a spinning reel. I have been using Nanofil (discontinued), Gliss and J-braid. I do have problems with light braid (<12 lbs) digging in on a baitcaster, I tried https://www.amazon.com/FINS-Windtamer-B ... 28CND?th=1 which some people claim works well for preventing wind knots but it did not help much for digging in. Line lube did not eliminate the digging in either.

Some tips for avoiding wind knots are at https://www.saltstrong.com/articles/fishing-wind-knots/ . I do most of these things from experience already. One tip that is not in the article is to connect to a short length of fluorocarbon leader with a swivel. Often lures will twist the line (many will spin during the cast, watch for it) and even a small amount of line twist greatly increases the odds of wind knots. I know that some people are sold on using long leaders but I am not convinced it improves the catch.

camobass wrote: Sat May 24, 2025 7:14 am 12lb mono works great throwing lucky crafts. I throw them on conventional bass rod. No problem with distance on any jerk bait style with weight transfer system.

12-pound pulls in a legal halibut in surf pretty well?

Everydog wrote: Sat May 24, 2025 9:04 am

camobass wrote: Sat May 24, 2025 7:14 am 12lb mono works great throwing lucky crafts. I throw them on conventional bass rod. No problem with distance on any jerk bait style with weight transfer system.

12-pound pulls in a legal halibut in surf pretty well?

From experience I can say that a quality 12 lb mono is pretty tough , particularly when it comes to pulling a lure off a snag . I use bait casters in most of my surf fishing and have had problems with braid digging in when an equal pound test is used vs diameter . Most of my bait casters I have reworked and tuned and still maybe get 20 lb max drag . Talking Shimano Calcuttas 250 , 300te, 400 s . I personally cant see using 40 - 50lb braid for needed diameter to function with only 20 lbs of drag or 8 to 20lb line rating on the rod . Yea I know dinosaur here . Tight lines , WR

I won't go into all my braid strategies, but I don't usually try to minimize diameter because it's almost all thinner than the leader material.

Those are nice reels, William. I remember you mentioning the Luna, and for a while, I pursued used 252 and 253, but someone else got them!

This would pair up with a lot of rods I already have, https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Daiwa_C ... 40QAvD_BwE

The Luna 's are very nice and I do use one for steelhead and salmon . The linked reel above looks pretty nice as well and would certainly work for all Inshore stuff . Have a good one . WR

Everydog wrote: Sat May 24, 2025 11:13 am I won't go into all my braid strategies, but I don't usually try to minimize diameter because it's almost all thinner than the leader material.

Those are nice reels, William. I remember you mentioning the Luna, and for a while, I pursued used 252 and 253, but someone else got them!

This would pair up with a lot of rods I already have, https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Daiwa_C ... 40QAvD_BwE

Small diameter braid would be a nice idea on a BFS reel as it would yield the same or more line capacity than the same test mono on a regular sized baitcaster but with the lighter lure casting capability and better sensitivity. But at least on my Shimano Curado BFS, the lighter braids I have tried dig in.

One of my buddies exclusively fishes big halibut on 6-12lb. He has countless fish over 40lbs. on 12lb. Obviously those big ones are not surf.

12lb is strong. I always fish new mono. Using braid or mono for backing ; 1/2 to just under 3/4 of spool so fresh line change doesn’t break the bank. Try tying 12lb off with a SD knot to something with about 20 yards and walk back trying to break it. You’d be surprised. Stretch is your friend. Braid = no stretch and pulled/straighten hooks, broken rod tips, deep finger or hand cuts, clean breaks on sharp objects, un fixable nests and broken hearts.

Try ANDE Big game tournament. Super consistent unlike berkley

Everydog wrote: Fri May 23, 2025 8:30 pm And I want to catch that fish in Butch's sdfish user photo!

I caught that fish almost exactly a year ago…. It was a little over 25” and the most solid built corb I have ever seen…I would like to re-catch it as well…As far as I know it is still swimming out there.. I wish us both luck… Maybe me, a little more than you. ….
Butch

Nice catch, Butch. It's built like a tank compared to any I have ever seen. They usually have a floppy consistency, as I recall.

There's a reason literally 100% of serious east coast, Australian, Japanese, etc spinning reel fishermen use braid to leader connections when using artificials. It's objectively the best way to fish in almost every situation. And surf fishing with a stick bait is one of those situations. Using mono or fluoro will restrict your casting distance by a ton as well as hurt your hookup ratio. Fluoro is also a nightmare on spinning gear.

If you get wind knots, user error is occurring. And none of those issues are exclusive to surf fishing. Most likely causes:

1: You aren't managing the bail correctly; maybe you aren't closing it manually by hand or you're letting loose line onto the spool at the beginning of the retrieve.

2: You have too much line on your spool; this was what caused me to get wind knots, and loading my spools properly has solved this issue for me for years. Everyone has a different rule of thumb. Just make sure a tiny bit of your spool is exposed when you load your line. If you get wind knots, take a little off and eventually you'll find what feels right.

3: Your leader is too long; if your leader/connection knot is too thick for your rod's guides to accommodate then your leader shouldn't be so long that you have to cast it through the guides. No matter how small the connection knot is, the leader should never be so long that the connection knot winds onto the spool. Both these scenarios will cause wind knots.

4. After a couple sessions, smaller knots that pass through the guides just seem to create wind knots sometimes. I suck at tying the FG and use the RP knot. I tend to retie often on spinning gear but if a leader lasts 2-3 sessions the knot tends to eventually just get funky and want to snag in some weird way and create a wind knot. Why? I dunno, knot magic. If the leader is from a previous session and looks weird, I just retie.

In the off chance you're talking about baitcasting gear...you should really be using spinning gear in the surf. It is the harshest condition for your gear and spinning stuff is much more friendly to clean properly. Most importantly, you are fully at the mercy of the wind which is where spinning gear excels by being able to use much thinner braid than casting gear and being able to rip long casts straight into the wind.

Bait caster all the way. To each their own. Never had any distance issues except one time at night fishing the run and the wind was ripping so hard, even a heavy crocodile was flying backwards…it was comical.

I like variety in tackle. I grew up in Ventura and Carpinteria in the 70s with a big conventional reel in the surf and on reefs from shore, but now, I'll go all over the place with rods and reels. Back then, the only people I saw using spinning in the surf had 13-foot rods and spiked fishing weights, but others might have seen it differently, even then.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/156727635448?c ... tnEALw_wcB

It's just hard for me to throw a lure over 1/4 ounce on spinning gear in saltwater or lakes... and I think some of us relate.

The reminders for user error on braid for spinning tackle are helpful, even though having the Alvright or double uni knot go into the reel has been fine, except for rods with micro guides. Thanks.

Back to the mono vs braid.. I had a tussle with a big spot fin croaker under a pier this am….
I was using 6# Yozuri Hybrid with a 4#. fluro leader.. The leader finally broke, but I guarantee you if that had been braid, the fight wouldn’t have lasted 1/2 as long…. That Yozuri is some tough stuff..
And I like the line stretch with a moderate rod to absorb some of the shock of the surf and fight…
Butch