Tips for Choosing a Fish Board Surfboard

"BRIAN FIELDS: Hey, how's it going? I'm Brian Fields here at Aussie Island in Wilmington, North Carolina. We're here on behalf of Expert Village, here to talk to you about picking out a surfboard and what you can do to help take care of it in the meantime. Okay, second board we're going to talk about is a fish or what we call a fish. Fish range greatly, you have fish with round nose--some fish have a kinda of a more pointed nose like a short board. It's very, very broad term in surfing. Fish, all kinds of different shapes come with a fish board. The main thing to know, though, is a fish is usually a board that you're going to ride in smaller surf. A lot of people who typically ride a short board who don't necessarily want to move up to a long board or a fun board on days when, well say, have junkier surf, smaller surf, will pull out our fish. A fish usually will have--even if it has a pointed nose, a little bit rounder nose up top, you'll see this board does where as this fish right here, it's much more rounded. Another key to a fish is they're usually the width. They're usually a little wider than your short board. Thickness, you can ride about the same. Some people actually prefer thinner or thicker than their short board, that's more of a preference. The main thing though is, you're going to add width to your board. And then also, we usually ride them a couple inches shorter than your short board. It's going to give you a little "skatier" feel to the wave, allow you to get from section to section a little easier because of that width. Width will give a board a lot more volume, but like I say, it's very broad range. These two boards, this one is shaped out of foam, this one's an epoxy, spit out of a machine. The epoxy boards, again, give you a little more float but that's pretty much your overall with the fish. Like I say, its light like a short board but it's going to allow you to skim through those smaller waves much, much easier than a short board would."