Fish Boards - opinions?

snowyeoghan

Does anybody here have experience with Fish boards?

I moved to California and it seems if people here aren't using longboards, there using Fish boards - very few shortboards.

My old board back home was a 6'6 shortboard bullet, and to be honest I found it too much work.

It seems as though these fish boards are a good compromise between a long board and short board, in terms of easily catching a wave yet having some fun.

Any Thoughts? Advice?

OuterBombie

North Cali, nice, where are you surfing most?

The term "fish" is probably one of the most abused terms in surfing and can mean any number of different types of board. Generally it refers to a board that is shorter, thicker and has a wider tail shape then a standard shortboard and can have any combination of fins from 2 ,4 to even 5.

IMO, a true fish would be a "retro" keel fish, usually pretty small, mine is 5'8", wide, thick with two glassed on keel fins (Big area fins). These boards go like the clappers in small surf (waist to head high - good or bad conditions) but need a particular style to surf well (some would argue that they inhibit your surfing). They are also pretty tough to surf backhand, mainly cause you tend to lean more on your back foot which can cause a spin out. However, in the right conditions you'll go faster than anything else on a board like this, right from popping up, and once you experience that its tough to go back

Once the tin on the retro fish was reopened, thanks to skip frye, derek hynd, tom curren, many shapers began to experiment to produce boards that had all the good comparisons with the fish, mainly fast in small waves, while trying to improve on the bad points. As a result in the last 10 years there are lots of hybrid shortboards that could be called a fish but in reality are not. These boards are still great though and are where a lot of shaping development is at currently.

Based in CA you are lucky, the secondhand market there is serious and you could pick up a beaut of a board for a couple of hundred bucks. Plus a lot of the top shapers are based in CA, some simple research online would get you some names.

I sometimes take a look at http://www.surfysurfy.net/ for examples of some savage sticks.

I'd imagine this time of year in Cali lots of heads are riding fish type boards however once the swell gets decent I reckon you'd see a lot more shortboards in the water.

Either pick up a quick board second hand, try it, if doesn't work, sell on, or talk to a local shaper, tell him what you want, your surfing ability, where you surf, etc, and he'll sort ya out.

Enjoy.

snowyeoghan

After all my Googling for Fish boards I never really found much info. So thanks for the detailed answer! I must check out the second hand market so.

I have a few regular spots around Half Moon Bay but make it down to Santa Cruz occasionally - Santa Cruz can get jammers though. I can't to check out the Mavericks Comp - I just missed out on it this year

Your right about the shapers! I visited Jeff Clarks shop and the quality if his boards are unreal - a bit pricey but I bet worth it.

I wonder why these boards aren't as popular back home as they are here. From a lot of well-known breaks back home its seems like they should be more popular.