Welcome to the magic land! What drone did you buy for that?

Hi Damien,

thanks for posting your question in the forum - and welcome to the forum :-)

I had my reel spooled up in the shop when I bought it and they didn't put any mono backing onto it.
I think if you spool on braided line without backing you can first put a few wraps of electrical tape around the bare spool.
That will prevent any slipping. The guys in the shop used this method.

You could also use 50m or so of a mono backing, if you got some mono lying around somewhere.

I always use a short mono leader -  around 2 meters (6 feet).
Just to prevent the braided line getting damaged at the terminal end.
Then I tie my terminal rig to the leader. Usually a two or three hook ledger rig with a fairly heavy sinker.
Sometimes I used breakout sinkers if the current seems too strong.

If you use 60lbs braid - maybe use 30lbs leader. If the hooks get stuck than at least you wont loose your main line.

I haven't tried any live bait yet. I'm not sure if the wriggling of the live bait could interfere with the drone stability.
If it was a fairly small live bait I imagine it wouldn't be a problem.
I used a lure instead of a live bait though in the hope of catching a kingfish. But didn't have any takes on that ?

I recently lost a good length of braid because I didn't judge the beach correctly and the braid must have gotten wrapped around a rock or reef. Was a bit unfortunate. But only happed once so far.
So make sure you know the structure of the beach and that it's good sandy bottom.
You can use the drone to fly over the area and then check the video footage to gauge the bottom structures.

The TLD is a good choice :)

You would have to choose a bait that will survive the flight. Normally live bait would only be out of the water for a few seconds when you cast. But with a drone it would be out for maybe a few minutes.

Baby octopus or small eel are good bait and would survive the flight. Even a large prawn would survive.

I can't see a live fish making. But maybe you have a bait fish in your area that would survive.

While a lot of people try their darndest to get surf fishing baits hundreds of yards into the surf, some of us fish the trough only a few feet from the water's edge to catch an amazing variety of fish that cruise it. It's a veritable "fish highway" for fish of all types trying to catch an easy meal. I've bought an array of "pimped" surf casting reels that'll throw bait far out (check out PMR on YouTube) but haven't had as much success and as easy fishing as I have fishing the "trough". Try it, you might be surprised!