Gotchas?

What type of retrieve do you use when surf fishing? How fast? I do not seem to get this right.

Very fast, pumping action.
You want to concentrate on the side-to-side action as opposed to the vertical since the water you will fish is relatively shallow.

like you're trying to keep it away from them.

I normally constantly reel and jerk my rod as I continue to reel. Basically if you ever used a jerk bait to fish for bass, my technique is similar to that. I normally get a good side to side swim using that technique, but different things could affect the motion of the gotcha. Examples would be too thick and short of a leader which would make it stiff and not motion side to side a lot. Also line which has been stretched and curled up can get annoying when it wraps itself around your hooks. Other than that, every one has a different technique, which ever one works best for you keep doing it.

I found that it is difficult to reel too fast for Spanish and blues in the surf. Soon as I sped up my retrieval, I caught more fish.

Thanks for all of the advice. I will definitely try this.