Photo: Cast Call

Casting into the surf at Island Beach State Park can be very rewarding, especially when a 32 inch striped bass hits your line at about 80 miles an hour. I once had one latch onto my 10 foot fishing rod while sitting in a sand spike. After completely bowing the rod, it pulled the rod out of the sand spike and started taking it out to sea. Fortunately I caught the line in time. However, this beauty was about half an inch too short to keep, so we sent it back.