Mike Stafford
I spent many years surf fishing with my trusty and never rusty Cherokee Chief 4WD.

I surf fished from Corolla to Hatteras and may have driven every mile of driveable beach on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My fishing buddy and I fished virtually every month of the year and once fished for flounder in Buxton near the Hatteras light house when it was so cold the foam from the waves froze and rolled across the beach like tumbleweed. We caught 84 flounder that day and nearly froze to death.

I never drove into the water and was careful to pressure wash the underside of my Jeep after each trip. I paid extra for a second undercoating after I bought my Jeep on the advice of some other fishermen and when I sold it not a speck of rust was seen by the buyer.

I made a mahogany roof rack to hold my surf fishing rods horizontally for travel and had a stainless steel cooler and rod rack which attached to the front bumper. Really enjoyed those trips and miss surf fishing but alas the skin no longer tolerates the sun exposure.

I never saw any trucks in the water but did see quite a few tractors over the years being used by commercial fishermen to pull gill nets set perpendicular to the beach. They loaded the fish into pickup trucks and sometimes the tractors had to pull the trucks off the soft sand.