Encinitas Ain’t Just a Place For Fishes And Logs

Seaside and Cardiff Reefs are notoriously the domain of soul daddies like Rob Machado and Joel Tudor. Fishes, single-fin logs, and alt craft are more the de facto equipment bobbing around in the lineup. But Jackson Butler’s shaking things up.

At 17 years young, he’s an emerging face of North San Diego County. Harkening back to the early days of Taylor Steele in the ‘90s when Momentum was new and new was rad, for Butler, performance is the inspiration, not some dusty bygone era. Although, he freely admits that Machado is his “style hero”—despite his regular-footed stature.

Compiling his favorite clips from his winter on the North Shore and various other odds and ends from 2019, Butler’s new drop on Vimeo, a brisk 80 seconds of surfing, is clear evidence that there’s more to Encinitas than grumpy Swamis locals.