Pompano should start showing up in the waters around Vero Beach soon and that will bring out the surf casters. My friend Jack is a avid surf fisherman and has been telling me for the last couple of years about how far he cast his custom-made surf fishing rig, a Penn 525 Mag revolving spool reel harnessed to a 12-foot custom surf rod. I kept wondering what was so much better about that rig than a spinning setup, so a few days ago I challenged Jack to a hurling contest. If nothing else, it would give him an incentive to get his rod and reel tuned up before the pompano arrive.

 

We hit the beach with our respective rigs, five-ounce sinkers and a tape measure. I used a cheap Shimano 12-foot spinning rod with my big Shimano 6500 Baitrunner reel. I use the reel on shorter, stouter rods to fish around docks and pilings for snook, so it’s spooled with 60-lb test braid. Jack’s Penn 525 was loaded with 15-lb mono.

 

Jack’s first cast down the beach looked pretty impressive, but he didn’t want to count it. It was just a warm up, he said. The second throw was indeed a little better. Finally he consented to count his third throw.

 

I stepped up to the plate, then, and gave it my best shot. Unaccustomed to handling such a long rod I let go a fraction of a second too soon and the sinker flew off further to the right then I would have liked. I could see that it wasn’t going to match Jack’s throw, but that it wasn’t going to be totally embarrassing, either. Jack beat me by 37 feet on that round. Then we did a second test with better results for both of us. When we put the tape to the sinkers mine had done 187 feet. Jack had another 50 feet on me. To put all that into humbling perspective keep in mind that competitive surf casters routinely do 750 feet and more.

 

Then Jack insisted I try his rig. It certainly was lighter than mine, but I’m always a little nervous with revolving spool reels that I haven’t used before. If you aren’t careful on a cast the spool spins faster than the lure is taking line and poof! You’ve got yourself a horrible tangled mess of backlashed line on the reel. I was careful with my first cast and all went well, albeit I didn’t come anywhere near our earlier throws. On my second cast I uncorked it. The sinker was heading down the beach in a beautiful arc when the backlash struck. I heard a popping noise and everything came to a screeching halt. The sinker’s momentum had broken the line when the backlash seized up the reel. It took Jack about 15 minutes to unsnarl everything.

 

I’ll gladly give up 50 feet to avoid that kind of mess.