How different is riding a quad?

I can't quite describe it, but you are very welcome to try my Quad fish one day.

Well, yes and no...

Ok, kinda hard to explain but will give it a shot. The reason I love my quads is that they have super glide and are easy to paddle, less resistance through the middle and small back fins account for that. However, that does not make it better in steeper waves. Contrary, the small back fins slide out. I had a 6'3" that now Kitasan has and it has GX fins in back, I had it at blacks and it totally slid out of walled waves.

However, and this is why I said yes and no, my shaper uses bigger fins in back than I do and says he doesn't have any problems and specifically only surfs quads now. I had a quad that had bigger back fins and found it to be no better than a thruster but did not get a chance to switch things around to try different set-up's.

So, my answer, I love the quads for the glide, but so far with my own experimentation I have found them to be worse in steep hollow waves, but I have not had a chance to replace a thruster with a quad.

For sure, all my fishes are quads and totally love them!

By the way, I just bought back my quad thurster on Craigslist and am going to be trying it on big waves, bought Future 400's for the back, let you know after I try them. If you want to give it whirl let me know, I surf OB and SMJ mostly

Ah, sounds interesting.  I might have to try one out one of these days before the winter surf kicks in.

For now I'll probably stick with my fish and thruster.

well, I might be taking some of this back.

I got to try the new fishes I just had made but put in slightly bigger back fins and they help up fine in overhead+ waves. Some of the faces where at least 8ft high and it held up fine. Need to try them on some more walled/hollow surf, but for cali conditions a quad might be just fine. Still experimenting.

Hey, do what I do, buy a used one to try, then sell it and have a new one made if you liked it, keep the dough if you didn't. That's how I did most of my experimentation.

Naw, I stopped buying used boards because now what I want is not sold used.

I wanted a half moon quad fish that glided like a fish but performed as a shortboard. Probably a bigger pod or something would have sufficed but I wanted that specific iteration.

The reason I bought back my old quad is that it's a thruster quad, didn't get chance to try it out enough so, bought it back.

But, when I started experimenting I would buy the same size used, try it, if I liked it I would sell it and get a custom, if not sell it and try it slightly different. Since you are buying and selling, not just buying, it actually is not that expensive.