I’m looking at buying a 9’6” Whisker Seeker bait casting rod for surf fishing for small sharks at the coast. I’m gonna pair it with an Abu 7000c3. I’d like some feedback from anyone who has either the MH or H model 9’6” bait caster before I pull the trigger. I have a handful of spinning surf rods in Heavy action that I’ve been using that are 10-12 ft but I can cast my catfish rods with Abu 6500 c3 just as far or farther and they are 7’6”. Don’t want to argue or try to be convinced about weather a spinning rod and reel casts as far as a bait caster as I already know from my own personal experience which one cast farther for me. Wanting to know about the action between the MH and H models. If I can get away with a MH I would prefer that so I can use it for Catfishing as well but I want to be able to sling a small stingray out past the 2nd Gut so I figured I would probably need the H. Thanks for any input.

Super Salt Life bruh!!

I dont know much about those rods at all. I did try the Salt Life trying to get sharks at Surfside a few times. Was using the biggest mullet I could net, a 10/0 circle hook, wire leader, 6oz satellite sinkers, 10 foot heavy surf rod and 65lb braid out into the 2nd gut and... all I caught was rays. Mean suckers.

Good luck man! It was fun trying, saw guys catching them doing the same thing but lady luck was never with me.

PS NEVER kick a mullet with your barefoot... its really a bad idea.

Thanks Dan. I’ve been catching sharks for a while now and sometimes we get em and sometimes we don’t. You should have been using the smaller stingrays for bait. They are Black Tip candy. I usually start with fresh dead shrimp and catch whiting, drum, Ladyfish, whatever I can get and chop that up for sharks and rays. I’m not very experience but I just use my Catfishing knowledge and apply that to sharks. They are very similar. If the ocean isn’t bucking I try and wade out and cast into the 3rd gut. We’re going end of August and I’m taking Jaxon boat fishing in the ocean for the first time. Gonna burn a good memory into that kids brain for sure.

Sounds like a great trip!

The sharks I saw caught were "only" about 60lbs I bet your big cat rods would work alright? Now if you want those 6 footers... all bets are off.

The tip about the using the rays is a good one. I got that tip the last day I was there of the last trip I made there. The dude also said fishing at night was like 10X better than in the day time and told me all about how the water had to have this certain "green tint" to it and when it did... if you fished at night, with the rays, and the tide was right. BLAMO!

He had caught a few 8 foot bulls doing that in the week before I met him. Which was impressive. He had pics. This new info also made me think twice about wade fishing for the trout like I had been.

Sorry to high jack the thread...

HEY! What do yall know about these rods? Tell Gato the whole story.

It’s all good Dan. That’s why I made the post. I’m on here for alot more than learning. I enjoy all the stories and I’m on this forum because I enjoy the back and forth with my fishin bros.

And Dan. You’d be surprised what these Catfish rods can handle especially a Heavy Action. It’s the reels that get smoked with big fish that runs hard and long like sharks. 🦈

One of the reasons I like catfishing is, it is as close to the experience of off shore fishing as you can get inland. We were out fishing just outside the jetty one day and I hooked a little bonnet head shark. I thought I had a tank of a speckled trout and it turned out to be a little 24" bonnet. The thing pulled like a fish 5 times its size! Can't even imagine what a 6 foot Bull or Black Tip would do...

A 6ft Bull or Blacktip will melt your drag and trash your reel unless you bring the right weapon to the fight. We mostly catch 10-50 lbrs out of the surf but I have landed 1 over 100. The reel got smoked half way to shore but we managed to wrap the string around some driftwood and drug it in. I have a vintage Penn Senator that can handle fish up to 300 lbs that my buddy Littlefeather gave me but you can’t cast it. I use it when we have a kayak to paddle our baits out but I haven’t taken the Yak since we had Jaxon. We used to swim out to the second sandbar and cast into the 3rd gut but I don’t really like doing that anymore either. I’ve developed a healthy fear for sharks after fishing for them the last 15 yrs. I prefer to launch my baits with a rod and I don’t like being in the water with Big Sharks.

When I first started dating my wife 13 yrs ago she gave me [censored] the first time we went to the coast about not wanting to get in past my waist. I said I’m a fisherman and tomorrow morning I will show you exactly why I don’t like getting into the water anymore. Next morning I set up for sharks and I fished the second gut where her and her friends were swimming. I hooked a 60 lb Black Tip and cleared the freakin beach! Those girls couldn’t believe they were swimming with sharks until I drug that sucker in. Greatness!!!

And guys, I’m not a professional by any means but I do take a travel rod with me everywhere we vacation and I always fish no matter where we go. It’s in my blood. Y’all should have seen the look on my wife’s face on our Honeymoon to Kawaii, Hawaii. We were hiking the Kalalau Trail on the Napali coast ( ll miles in and 11 miles out) and when we hiked up to the Hanakapi Fall I broke out my travel rod and stared fishing. She could not believe what she was seeing and I don’t think she truly knew what kind of dude she was getting involved with until that day. I caught Black Bass below those falls and she was amazed that i would go halfway around the world and bring a fishing rod in my backpack not knowing what kind of fish or if there were even fish at all. I told her this is paradise and God definitely would put some good fish in paradise.

You are not wrong about clearing out the beaches by dragging in sharks. Not got one myself but when I have seen them caught they have an impact.

I try to tell people and I think most think I am BSing but if you are swimming down anywhere around or on Galveston you are almost certainly swimming with sharks. There are a lot of them there! Just goes to show, they truly do not prefer to eat people... it just happens by mistake sometimes and secure in that knowledge I was very happy to swim out deep.

Then old boy showed me pics of 8 foot bulls he caught right on that beach very recently... I still want in the water, but not quite as deep ha ha.

Unfortunately I have no experience with those rods but like you, my wife and use our medium/heavy cat rods for surf fishing as well with 50lb braid looking for sharks and we can usually get into the second gut wading out waist deep then walking the rod back to the rod holder on the beach and usually land a few sharks.

We went the last 2 weeks of this past June to do some surf fishing and had one of the worst experiences ever but it's funny as hell now looking back on it. We started out with squid and we're catching nothing but hard heads. We up the size of the hooks thinking to big for hard heads to grab...WRONG! Still catching hard heads, we switch to 6"-8" rays on even bigger hooks and the hard head hookups are few and far between and now it's dark and we're catching nothing but blue crab.

I notice I'm getting this uncomfortable feeling like a pinching or needle sticks all over my thighs and crotch and my wife is right next to me and she is doing what looks like a toddler pee pee dance then we look at each other and go sprinting out of the surf and I immediately drop trou on the beach and shine my headlamp down and the swim trunk liner is full of baby jellies and crab larvae in many different stages.....so yeah we caught crabs in our pants on our 16th wedding anniversary getaway.

Doc, i am sitting here belly laughing after reading your post. That is straight up hilarious!

That’s one for the ages Doc. Never gonna forget that Anniversary no doubt. Fishing has away of doing that and you definitely never know what your gonna catch in the surf!

I’ve decided to go a different direction on the rod and reel guys. When I get em ordered I will let y’all know what I decided on.

I had to cut off an arm and a leg to pay for it but here is what I ended up ordering..I think it will be a great setup that should last a lifetime and I can pass it down to my son one day. The lever drag can handle sharks up to 300 lbs just in case we run into an ocean monster at some point. Now I gotta catch something giant to justify my spending like a drunk sailor on shore leave!