Surf Fishing Novice - "Saturday report" and a quick Q

[Joeblowv1]

Hey everyone,

Went out Saturday morning to IBSP with my dad (I have my "sportfishing pass") got to the water around 8AM and found the wind pretty strong, and sea pretty rough and foamy with taller waves starting to break pretty far out, splashing suds pretty far up the beach.

I see plenty of reports of fish caught that day, and I felt like I couldn't really get more than a few decent casts here or there, and definitely couldn't get past the breakers. I tried bait chunking (My dad is a bait n wait only kinda guy) and throwing a 3-4 oz bucktails, the wind was too strong for me to cast a mag darter or SP Minnow without the wind taking it. I only stayed out for about 2 hours before it felt like a waste of time.

I've been doing plenty of reading as far as gear, and recently just upgraded to some "nicer stuff" so I think I'm good in that regard, I would say my cast is not great, and I struggle to get "really long" casts - which a lot of guys say "doesn't matter that much"

I guess as I'm still pretty amateur (have not been able to bag a striper yet despite starting surf fishing around this time last year - that is not a complaint just a fact) I am just wondering if there is anything I could have done differently to overcome the conditions? Or is it sometimes bad weather conditions just really make the fishing difficult and it is what it is? Did I even have a shot with my casts only making it "between" the breakers?

I work M-F 8-5PM and am about an hour from the beach so I don't really get a chance to go outside of the weekend. and of course the fishing and ocean conditions are always a lot better when I'm stuck in the office vs when I have a chance to go.