hi Andi !
if you mean the bushfire fish [?] ,
… while Josh was here , we rode it as a 5 finner .
it went UNREAL…I LOVE that setup !!
cheers for asking mate !
ben
A couple of my big quad fish in action, secret spot on the west side Oahu 
Because it’s almost 21" wide…and I can still bury it up to the stringer! 
I love my little 5’9" CI fish because it throws everything I thought I knew about hydrodynamics completely out the window. It schools me every time I ride it.
Anybody know when Hydrodynamica the movie is being released or finished?
Quote:
admittedly the fish is easier to ride than a “proper” shortboard…
I would disagree with this.
(I’m gonna tread carefully, as there are people on here who’s experience massively outweighs mine… ;D )
When I get back on the thruster, every once in a while, it seems the easiest thing in the world! I just look at a feathering lip, & it takes me there, I take the drop with the lip & it effortlessly holds, I want to change direction, smack a lip etc… it just does it! Stuck to the wave like glue!
My fish & me is a whole different relationship. Infact, that’s it. The thruster is PART of me: I have a ‘relationship’ with the fish.
It’s about giving & taking… appreciating that ‘what the fish wants’ is as important as ‘what I want’… Can’t say that I’ve ever fallen out with it yet, though, I haven’t been made to sleep on the couch.
Seriously though, despite enjoying it so much more, I find that the fish more technically difficult than a thruster. I’m I alone in this?
Quote:
…OH and a wiseass…does your mother know you’re throwing another party again?..I think not!
i think i’ll throw my food on you now
I wouldn’t do that if I were you.
…DIS-TRUCTO !!!
LOL thanks Herb
Why do you like your ish??
because it’s all about chro and speed
can’t wait to try one . . .
Zeek, all boards have their strengths - well, except maybe the first one I made and that square rail board that someone’s talking about on another thread. It’s tough to beat a performance shortboard in performance waves, but how many of those days do you get in the off-season (summer for me). That’s when a fish shines - and when it becomes easier to ride than a performance shortboard. It carries you through the flats and lets you connect through to the next section on a mushy/semi-mushy wave. And when you get to the next steep section you’re on a board that’s short, quick and manuverable.
Don’t get me wrong Stinky mate, there’s nothing I like more than being on the fish: whether the waves are struggling or whether it’s THE day of the year. I love it, flat sections or racing walls, I wouldn’t be on anything else… Unless the takeoff is ultra-sucky, the fish shines more the better the conditions.
Infact, I continually get exasperated with people referring to fish as boards for those ‘less than perfect days’ - surely, that’s missing the point of them??
What I meant to say in the previous post was, “I feel it is not ‘easier’ to ride a fish well than it is to ride a conventional thruster well”.
I see a lot of surfers (who are obvisouly competent shortboarders/mal riders) using fish “effectively”, but not surfing fish “well”.
That is to say, the style, the speed, the flow, & grace… maintaining this through all the turns, following and working with the powerlines of the wave - that’s as much a deep technical art & competence for a fish, as achieving the critcal performance standards for a thruster, or the similar related functions for a mal…
…surely?..
…or am I just very, very bored at work (!)
Ok im pretty much coming up to a year of having the fish ( or maybe more than a year! ). I think i’ve surfed it 95% of the time since then. I just love it. Sooo much fun, paddles unreal, catches tiny waves, in head high steep waves ( like this morning ) it is so stable and ridiculously fast. Thosee keels provide crazy drive speed and hold. Too much fun. I think it is perfectly suited to 95% of the waves i surf, my ability and ( cringe ) style.
Just an update people.
Because if I had not gotten on some sort of a quest to build a good fish(still trying) I would probably be riding, gasp, gasp, a nine-0. Mike
Because Chuck Norris DOES ride a fish. Mike
Here’s my 2 cents worth. Not all in praise of fish though.
I took two surftechs to Indo with me earlier this year. One was a 7’ McCoy and the other a 7’2” Randy French Macfish. By the way, I’m 85k, nearer to 60 than 50, and am of average surfing ability.
For nearly 2 months I rode both boards every day (one 2 hour morning and one 2 hour afternoon session) in good, lined up, point breaks that averaged 2’ to 6’.
The fish had a Futures twin fin plus trailer. With those fins the board was pretty ho hum: predictable, a bit stiff, quite fast. After 3 or four sessions I was not particularly impressed. I had a pair of Futures Rastovich keels with me, so I thought I should give them a try, even though they looked pretty big and I suspected they would make the board even stiffer.
Man was I wrong. The board was totally transformed. At first it was so sensitive that it was uncontrollable, each push producing 2 or 3 times the rotation that I wanted, plus, it was very sqirreley on any significant drop where there was a straight line component. Once I got used to it though it just wailed down the line and I could hack the biggest gouges of the top and the off the bottom.
In the end though, I thought the McCoy was a much more all round board and when I got back to Oz I sold the fish.
Why?
The fish had too many bad habits. The wide nose and low rocker made it very difficult to take steep drops: many times my heart was in my mouth as I watched the nose about to bury itself, even with most of my weight on the back foot. The McCoy does not do that, no drop is too steep, the board always does the right thing, so even when blinded by spray you knew that it would naturally sort things out for you.
Also, on bigger waves when the board had a lot of speed, it would start to feed air in through the nose concave and out through the double concaves in the tail. While this was happening I just had to stand there praying that the wave would not throw up any obstacles where a turn of any magnitude was required. However, it was so goddamn fast that it usually went through all the sections so quickly that the wave was easily made. But what I really wanted to do was to hit lips and do things in the critical part of the wave, not just straight line it.
Turns were great, but, compared to the McCoy, it only wanted to do one sort of turn, so after a few good waves the boredom factor set in. And, quite unexpectedly, the McCoy paddled into a wave significantly easier than the fish. This was unexpected, because I figured that the fish, with it very wide flat area under the chest would easily outpaddle the McCoy and drop into a wave much more readily: it did neither.
Don’t get me wrong, I really liked the board in small waves, with its speed it turned sessions in slow boring waves into fun, whereas I just could not generate the speed required on the McCoy, but as I said it has some bad habits and a limited range.
To be fair, the board was never designed for overhead waves, but as I only take two boards with me when I travel, usually 7’ and 7’ 6” McCoys, I really missed having the 7’6” for the bigger days.
Cheers.
Great post mate thanks for the feedback. I usuallt surf waves from knee to a little overhead, so big waves dont come into it for me. I do find the fish tricky on steeper waves, but mine has 5"+ nose rocker, so it seems to work ok. I have discovered that short wide thick works best for me, and i would love to have a nugget. if i had the cash that is what i would be spending it on.
Cheers mate.
tho i’ve been fairly recently turned on to bonzers of the 3 & 5 fin nature, i still love my fish b/c:
-
it taught me, more than any other board, how to PROPERLY use the rail on a turn(this is a big issue for the generation that grew up w/ thrusters all over the place)
-
it paddles great for its size
-
its a true piece of art
-
its just plain fun as shit!!
now granted, i really haven’t been riding the thing much over the past couple years b/c i’ve been taken w/ bonzers. but when ever i do ride it, i fall in love all over again. i’m never getting rid of my fish!!
Mmmm. I like my fish with tartar and lemon, sometimes with malt vinegar. Ivars on pier 54 in Seattle makes the best fish 'n chips in the world. Yummy.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I’ve never ridden a fish myself, but this thread is cool because I can read about all the pros and cons from people who have experience with them. Trying to decide on a design for the board I’m starting soon. A fish might be in my future…
I do not like fish sam i am
I do not like them with a goat
I do not like them in a moat
I do not like them in a tree
i do not like them…they are not for me.
I will not surf them, and I will not glee
I will not endorse them not even for a fee
Fish suck…Did I tell you how much I dis like Seals?
-Sam, sam I am.
LOL resinhead!. I have an almost 3 year old daughter, and for a while there i knew a lot of those books by memory, they fu&* with ya head after a while.
My fish is just so fast in the tube.,So fun pumping down the line and down off the top in steeper sections…
I went to an area in sumatra where this nice long never ending wall breaks consistantly and thought my fish would be perfect for it.
Sure it was fun, so fast and it was making waves on sectiony days all the way to the end when others were pulling out.
It wasnt as good as smacking lips or that sort of thing but the spring like action through turns and down the line drives is just so fun
I ended up finding a hollow secret spot down the coast nobody else surfs, i have had it to myself, with a friend who went home and the fish liked this hollow wave more than the other wave i described, you can drop into steep sections, land on a rail and as long as you land right it flies through the tube like nothing else.
Another wave up the coast gets a few more people out but i can honestly say many shortboards seem to have trouble getting into the wave in time before it throws over in a fast backdoor section.
I can take off deeper than most of them becuase of my fish is so fast in the tube, and easier to get into waves.
Some surfers were scoffing and having a giggle that i would bring such a board to indo but then saying " at first i was thinking how could that thing work, but now i want one."
Here is my secret spot and the fish goes great out here up to around 5-6 feet. (after that the wave doubles up and goes dry at the end section)
And a local very large 'fish" we often see swimming through the wave before we paddle out.
I like it so much i am thinking of bring two of these next year (one for a spare) and not using any other boards…
(Although im leaving my bigger wave boards in my friends house, just in case)