Surfing Waves

Hi all just wanted opinions on my next board.

Am currently riding a 7'10" Surfers Paradise minimal and seeing as an average Cornish day might be 2-4ft I thought moving onto a 7' fish might be the way forward as the high volume would enable me to catch waves fairly easily (I'm still a bit of a kook but get in the water whenever possible as live next to the beach).

Also would a thruster set up on a fish be more or less stable than a twin or quad set up?

Cheers

Personally I love a fish. I recently got a 6'2" retro custom shaped and have never had more fun on a board. I would say go for it, You are probably going to get a lot of different responses from here. I would recommend trying to find someone that has something similar and try it out. With that size I would either go as a thruster or a quad.

If you live next to a beach and there is a hire shop then invest £20 in an all day experiment and take different boards out for an hour at a time with advice from the guys.

A 7 foot fish? Most of the super floaty/thick/wide retro fishes are small...somewhere between 5'6'' to 6'. I just want to make sure this 7 foot fish you're thinking of buying is truly a wave catching/retro style fish and not one of those hybrid thrusters with a small fish tail (which really are shortboards and work best on steeper more powerful waves...not easy to catch waves on small mushy days. Make sure the fish you buy is at least 2.5 inches thick and at least 22 inches wide so its stable (width) and very floaty (thickness) which for a beginner will really help you out. There is nothing more frustrating as a beginner than paddling hard all session only to have waves pass under your board over and over without catching waves and not having many opportunities to pop-up.

noddyinbude wrote:Hi all just wanted opinions on my next board.

Am currently riding a 7'10" Surfers Paradise minimal and seeing as an average Cornish day might be 2-4ft I thought moving onto a 7' fish might be the way forward as the high volume would enable me to catch waves fairly easily (I'm still a bit of a kook but get in the water whenever possible as live next to the beach).

Also would a thruster set up on a fish be more or less stable than a twin or quad set up?

Cheers

You've probably read my posts, I own one of them big fishes and love it, it's my longboard for when conditions require a longboard. I'm a minority in this subject, but I base all my info on my own trial error and not on what the intent og the board is or what I can read online.

I only like the retro ones, the "modern fish" is simply a fat shortboard with a swallow tail, not really better than any other fat shortboard. The retro's are wider and more stable, usually thick and almost no rocker, so they are wave catching machines.

As to stability, the thickness and width of the board will already make it stable, so you have to decide on what you want out of the board. After experimenting with buying and selling them, the thruster setup seemed slugish on a fish, the twin had the most glide and be a wave hog but will make wide sweeping turns so not great for steep waves, the quad is what I ride now, it still has a lot of glide but holds up better in steep waves. Lastly, they are partially correct, getting a big fish is not really the original intent of them fishes, but I dig my big fish, I use it instead of a longboard at places like San Onofre (old man's) and Tourmoline, it has so much glide I can keep up with the bigger planks.

Here are current and past big fishes, I've owned a bunch of small 6'0 to 6'2 fishes, but these are the big fellas

The one I have now:



The twin fin that my brother in law stole from me LOL (well, actually, he loved it, I wanted a quad):


The first quad I had made, I asked for too much rocker and too tapered back, turned out to be a great performance fish but I waned a wave hog like my twin fin, for performance I like shortboards, so sold it:

mathteacher, how tall are you and how much do you weigh? I'm also looking for a 6'0" - 6'2" fish. I'm looking for a used one, and there would be a bunch of them for sale once summer is over, and I want to narrow my search down to a specific dimension.

I'm around 5'6" and 145 lbs.

at your height and weight i'd say go smaller than 6'0. i'm 5'11 and 78kg and surf a 6'0 fish easily, so much fun but think smaller is better in this case (also important to know that we're talking retro twinnies?)

teaweed wrote:mathteacher, how tall are you and how much do you weigh? I'm also looking for a 6'0" - 6'2" fish. I'm looking for a used one, and there would be a bunch of them for sale once summer is over, and I want to narrow my search down to a specific dimension.

I'm around 5'6" and 145 lbs.

I'm 5'8" & weigh 200lbs my old small fish was 6'1" x 20 3/4" x 2 7/8" twin fin, sold it after the last summer season, just ordered the same thing in 2 3/4" but in a quad for a little better performance. I like the retro's thick and wide, if not it's like buying a shortboard, already have four of those.

Thanks for all the replys and as was stated I should probably go hire one for a day as there's plenty of surf shops here on the North Coast of Cornwall.

Interesting comments re size Mathteacher as I assumed that due to being a newby I'd need to stay big hence why I was looking at 7' fish as I'd seen one for sale 6'10 x 21' x15 x 15.5' x 2 5/8 and was worried that much smaller would result in me catching nothing?

All I know is that I like the look of them and the way they go down the line looks great and the kind of thing I want to do (think Glass Love!!) rather than trying to ride a 6' skinny thing and spending my time falling off! lol

i think you should go see a shaper and hear out their advice.

noddyinbude wrote:
All I know is that I like the look of them and the way they go down the line looks great and the kind of thing I want to do (think Glass Love!!) rather than trying to ride a 6' skinny thing and spending my time falling off! lol

Dude, some of my funnest boards where love at first sight boards, "buy now think later" kind of a deal. I always know what I want before I buy it, looks like you do too