Hi, i am having trouble getting my casting sorted, i have aquired both a 12 foot and a 15 foot rod neither of them can i seem to cast very far... i know my technique needs work but wondering if there maybe sinker weights come into play?  

If your really keen to get into it there are surf casting clubs around and i think some have distance days might be a good time to watch and learn and pick up some tips. One thing i found was dont buy a lemon and expect to be distance casting anytime soon, there are heaps of different distance righs out there that hold the bait by the sinker so when it touches down it releases normally which helps with less wind resistance which means more distance.

When i started i was lobbing 4oz teardrops with a full heave only 60ish meters it was pretty frustrating but slowly learnt things and tried different rigs and each helps abit but the main one is the gear and tenique a rod that loads up properly helps normal cheapies are a waste just spend some time and money on a nice surf rod and reel. When i was thinking of line weight i was using 10kg but it was to big for the beach so went down to 6k and got more distance and had no worries winching in stingrays and eaglerays not many snapper but i was trying.

If you youtube there are vids and some tips on tenique that might help but again with a normal rod it would shatter some of these guys can do 150-200m no worries.

Overall i would say go down to the local surf casting club meeting and introduce yourself and go from there. As the old man said fish your feet first i use to try and get distance but got my best land based fish at stanmore bay in 5m of water 15m off the rock i was on so distance is not everything. Oh and google earth some spots and find some contour to fish and read some of the older pages in the walk about section heaps of points have been raised overtime and lots of great advice given.

I got bored of land based so copped out and got a boat lol so yeah im a sell out

Cheers tight lines

As carbine said clubs are great for all aspects of surfcasting IMO. Youtube has a lot of vids to help you with casting technique. Can't go past what smudge said either, you set up needs to be balanced to achieve the best out of it, but without a doubt some set ups will perform a lot different to others no matter how good you are.

When fisherman talk about balanced gear it means making sure the reel, rod, line, sinker and terminal tackle are suited to each other. Some rods aren't designed to cast a heavy sinker others are. I don't have the knowledge to recommend anything in particular. Make sure you use a mono shock leader when casting with braid... as has already been said, good gear and good technique are both necessary to get distance.

 

mono, rod, reel and terminal tackle 'matched' to each other naaaa get a long distance casting reel fill it with 15kg line use 4oz topedo sinkers stream line your bait eg: dont use big hunks of bait. and your away laughing dont beleieve me try it. im doing 70 80 mtrs some times more if i need to hit that gutter further out, mind you i do have a 15ft rod with medium action to it.