Retrieves - Many days, the type of retrieve doesn't seem to matter much. Some people like the slow, steady retrieve. Others like a crank, crank, crank, pause or a crank, crank, twitch type of retrieve. What I have found is that when fish aren't very aggressive, the slow, steady retrieve produces best. When there is a lot of bait in the water the crank, crank, twitch (a pronounced twitch may work best) does well. It may be that the pronounced twitch makes the lure really stand out from the rest of the bait in the water, or makes the lure dart like a wounded baitfish. When using this retrieve, I have found that spinning gear works better for me. I would advise you to vary your retrieve if you are not catching fish, yet know they are in the area.Staying Dry or Getting Wet - When fishing in the surf, I split my time between wading out to about my waist and wading to about mid-calf. If I haven't fished a particular beach in awhile or am fishing a new beach, I usually just wear swim trunks and a sweatshirt and wade to mid-calf. I find that this allows me to work a larger section of beach in an effort to locate fish. If I'm familiar with a beach and have fished it (and successfully located fish) recently, I often will wear a light wetsuit and fish out a little deeper. This allows me to fish particular spots from various angles, often casting parallel to the beach. One thing that I have to be careful of when wading out to my waist is to not hastily bypass the 2' deep areas. I have scared away a few of the largest halibut I have ever seen in the surf while quickly walking through the shallows to get out to the 3'-4' depths.
Types of Areas - My favorite type of area to fish is a sandy beach with scattered rocks and eelgrass beds, and a larger kelp bed out off the beach. These areas seem to hold a lot of baitfish, and as the old saying goes, "fish are never to far from the cafeteria". This type of beach also provides halibut with structure to bed down next to and I find that casting swimbaits right next to the structure spots produces some great action.
My next favorite type of area may have no structure, but is a sandy beach with holes and dropoffs. Any change along the sandy bottom is a potential spot where halibut can ambush bait. Often these spots are hard to locate on high tide. So, it pays to visit the beach on minus tides to get an idea of what the bottom looks like. These spots can change very quickly, and what might have been a hole last week, may be a flat spot today.
If I'm not fishing the two previously mentioned types of areas, I will likely fish around harbors. Harbors are great when the surf is large elsewhere. Harbors also provide areas for baitfish to hide, and any location where there is bait in the water is worth trying for halibut. Remember, you may not see the bait in the water, but if you see birds working just off the beach, try that area.
Tides - For me, tides usually don't influence when I am going to fish. They influence where I'm going to fish. Different beaches fish better at different tides due to the location of structure, debris in the water, and access to holes and dropoffs. I have found that no matter what the tide, I can usually find areas that produce well.
The Unknown - One of the nicest things about fishing from the surf with swimbaits is that you never know what you may catch. In addition to halibut, my buddies and I have had days where we have found schools of barred surfperch with several fish over two pounds. We have also found small schools of white seabass and have landed legal seabass to 35" in the surf. Calico bass aren't too common, but they are around sometimes near shallow structure.
