At right: Spinner blade hooks, fished on two-drop bottom rigs are great for prospecting the beach with a variety of different baits. Pancake weights allow the rig to move slowly across the bottom. Photo by Joe Malat

Most of the time when I hit the beach, I'll have a predetermined game plan. If puppy drum have been biting on mullet, I'll have drum rigs and the freshest mullet I can find. Or, if jumbo stripers are eating live eels at Oregon Inlet, that's what will be in my bait box. But there are many days when I'll fish for whatever comes along, and the tackle I use will be simple, but proven and effective.

One of my favorite rigs for "prospecting" with bait is a standard, two-hook bottom rig, sold everywhere along the Outer Banks. They are made of lightweight materials and are best suited for smaller fish, but surprisingly large fish have been caught with these rigs.

I finish these rigs with #2 or #3, long shank, spinner blade hooks, either bronze or gold finish. The spinners offer color and movement that might give me an edge and the long shank style is easy to remove from a fish. I might try a different bait; anything from small pieces of mullet to strips of squid, on each hook.

Generally, pyramid sinkers are my first choice for surf fishing, because they do a good job of holding bottom. However, if I had a choice between fishing a rig that stayed in one place, or moved slightly with the current or waves, I'll opt for the moving rig every time. Fish are always moving, and sometimes I want my rig to move, too, as long as the currents aren't strong enough to whisk it up or down the beach like tumbleweeds blowing in the wind.

I always use the lightest sinker I can and still grab the bottom. If a four-ounce is holding like an anchor, I might drop back to a three. If conditions are slick calm with minimal wind and currents, I frequently abandon the pyramids and snap a flat pancake sinker to the rig. Pancakes allow the rig to slide across the bottom, pushed either by the current and waves, or pulled by me.

Lightweight, two-hook bottom rigs are perfect for bottom feeders, such as this spot. Photo by Joe Malat

When flounder fishing I move the bait, either with slow, steady sweeps of the rod, or by twitching the rod tip. This is an effective technique to catch those flounder that stay in one place and ambush prey as it cruises by.

Long strips of squid, hooked at one end so they flutter in the current, are deadly for flounder when presented with a rig that allows the bait to "swim."

Flounder are not the only fish that like to hit a moving target. Sea mullet often feed in the breaking, white water or along the deeper water drop-off at the edges of sandbars. They may congregate in schools and once you find one, you can catch several by returning to the exact location of that last bite.

With a pancake weight I can cast to the top of the bar and fish the white water for a while, and if nothing takes my bait, ease the rig toward me, off the edge of the bar. The pancake weight doesn't dig in like a pyramid or roll and twist my line like a rounded weight. It moves and lies flat, and allows me to work the rig a bit. If I'm lucky enough to find some sea mullet I can recast and slide my bottom rig back to the same location.

Bait is great, but I also enjoy casting lures, and one of my favorites is a small Shorty Hopkins in either one-half or three-quarter ounce. I'll fish this small lure with a light rod in moderate surf conditions with an 8-foot spinning rod and reel filled with 8-pound test monofilament.

The Hopkins lure will sail a country mile with the light line, so I can cover a lot of territory from the outer bar to the drop-off at my feet. If I'm fishing an empty beach I'll make a cast then take a couple steps up or down the beach, just so I can cover more water.

A lot of anglers think shiny metal lures are just for bluefish, but I've fooled puppy drum, flounder, speckled trout, Spanish mackerel, striped bass, gray trout and even an albacore or two with these artificials. Silver is my favorite color, but I've also had luck with gold, especially for puppy drum when the water was discolored. The silver or gold lure can be deadly during September and October when the finger mullet are running in the surf.

For some extra protection from the occasional toothy critter, I usually rig these lures with a 20-inch leader of 20-pound test monofilament or fluorocarbon. Some anglers discourage the use of any type of extra hardware when fishing with lures, and that makes sense when the water is crystal clear and the fish are being very picky.

A tiny, black #10 or #12 swivel connects my line and leader, and I attach the lure with a small # 2 black finish snap. The swivel eliminates line twist, the snap allows me to change lure sizes and colors without having to cut lines and re-tie knots, and I don't believe the size of the hardware is significant enough to discourage interested fish.

Of the two prospecting methods I prefer to work a lure. I enjoy casting and retrieving more than holding a rod and waiting for a fish to bite, but the trade-off is that some fish will rarely hit a lure. Sea mullet, spot, and croakers almost always are caught on bait.

In the surf, I'll use reels filled with mono or the "super-braid" lines, but I see the greatest advantage to the no-stretch braids when I'm fishing with bait and the line allows me to feel even the slightest nibble. Sea mullet will typically slam a bait when they bite, but there are times when they ever so gently pick up a bait and swim toward the beach, causing the line to suddenly go slack.

After forty years of fishing the surf, I've found that most of the time I use only a handful of rigs and lures. The reason is simple. They catch fish and I couldn't do without my simple two-hook bottom rigs and small Hopkins lures.