San Clemente Legend Tanner Gudauskas Picks His 12 Favorite SURFER Covers

There once was a time – long before the days of TikTok influencers and the infinite scroll – that surfers around the world would consume surf imagery only in the form a hold-in-your-hand magazine. It would arrive in your mailbox once a month, and when you pulled out the glossy zine, your eyeballs would be hit with what was undeniably considered one of the most important pieces of surf photography for that month: the cover shot.

In the 60-plus years of SURFER magazine’s publication, there have been hundreds of covers that have gone to press – and many of them have been forever imprinted on the brine-soaked minds of surfers worldwide, of all ages. San Clemente goofyfoot Tanner Gudauskas – who remembers pouring over the pages of SURFER as a grom – admits that many of the shots that landed on Page One have influenced who he is as a surfer today. 

“I didn’t realize how important all those covers were to me until I was able to literally close my eyes and picture which ones were my favorites and why I had saved them in my memory,” he says. “It’s trippy to see how they impacted my life and I think it’s all through the imagination that they gave me.”

Taking a nostalgic walk down memory lane, we recently sat down with Gudauskas and asked him to pick out a handful of his favorite SURFER covers (he chose 12). 

“I don’t think this is anywhere near the definitive ‘best of’ list, but these made such an impact on my personal life that I can remember them for certain reasons,” says the youngest Gudang. “Getting a couple cover shots throughout my life, I know that person [who got a cover] was on Cloud 9 for that month. It was fun to go back and pick certain cover shots from memory that I still remember to this day.” 

Continue scrolling to view Gudauskas’ selects.

Volume 41, Issue No. 11

“I love the cover of Bruce [Irons] doing a huge air at Lance’s Right,” says Gudauskas of what is likely a favorite of many groms coming of age in the early aughts. “I just remember thinking you could never do an air that big. Seeing that as a kid…it was the imagination of what could be. I think the same time that cover came out his section in Taylor Steele’s Loose Change came out. I remember after seeing this that it wasn’t even about pulling airs anymore. It was about trying to go as high as we possibly could.” Photo by Tom Servais

Volume 42, Issue No. 3

“This one almost goes into that iconic-forever mode,” says Gudauskas, of lord Laird Hamilton’s “Millennium” wave at Teahupo’o, shot by Tim McKenna. “I think it had a fold-out cover. It was such a huge, gnarly barrel that it couldn’t fit on one page. I even remember thinking, ‘oh my god…’ His stance on the pig dog is so crazy. It was something I’d never seen at the time. To me, Laird is the most inspiring guy and even nowadays I get so stoked on who he is and what he does.” Photo by Tim McKenna

Volume 46, Issue No. 4

“I love this cover of Tom Curren pulling into a wave at Backdoor,” says Gudauskas [Ed’s Note: it was actually Off the Wall]. “He’s got a really stylish positioning on his board. He rode for Rip Curl at the time but it wasn’t back in The Search days…maybe it was right when he got back on Rip Curl. For some reason that sticks out to me.” Photo by Scott Aichner

Volume 37, Issue No. 2

“Lisa is such a pioneer and superwoman,” says Gudauskas, fanning out over the 4x World Champ kicking the fins loose in a shot that landed on Page One of the February 1996 issue, alongside the tagline “Lisa Andersen surfs better than you”. “It’s gotta be on most people’s top-10 list. That’s undeniably the sickest photo. It’s almost like a layback snap air.” Photo by Tom Dugan

Volume 41, Issue No. 6

“I just remember growing up, Santa Cruz was like the pinnacle of surf photography,” says Gudauskas, when talking about this cover of Santa Cruz stalwart Adam Replogle.  “They were pushing the limit. I remember the fish-eye shot of him [Replogle] was so trippy to me. ” Photo by Dave “Nelly” Nelson

Volume 35, Issue No. 11 

“I think that was the first time an air 360 had ever been done, and I think it was a left at the Lane and he split the wave with Kelly Slater or something,” recalls Gudauskas, of this progressive-at-the-time air by Jason “Rat Boy” Collins. “I don’t remember getting this one in the mail but I remember seeing that image and being so weirded out. It looks like he almost has carbon strips on the bottom of his board and he’s just blasting this air. Rat Boy was definitely one of my favorite surfers growing up, so this easily stood out to me.” Photo by Mike Balzer

Volume 50, Issue No. 6

“For me, this cover really showed the beauty of surf photography,” says Gudauskas, of this 2009 image of Greg Long on a pink Christensen gun, shot by Todd Glaser (who, for this feature, was actually blind-folded, shoved behind the seat of a car and driven to this spot because he wasn’t allowed to know the location of where they were going). “It’s not a heaving barrel but you know something is coming and the water is so beautiful. It was the perfect cover shot because it made you put yourself in that position and think, ‘Oh my word, what’s going to happen next?'” Photo by Todd Glaser

Volume 43, Issue No. 9

“I don’t even know how to describe this cover but it was like The Avengers of surfing were all standing in this room,” says Gudauskas, of this profile shot of Andy Irons, Laird Hamilton, Kelly Slater, Cristiana Janssen, and Joel Tudor. “These guys are bad asses. They’re not even surfing and were getting cover shots—they’re just standing in a room together. That’s how gnarly those guys were. I remember thinking, ‘well, those guys are super heroes and that’s kind of what you become when you charge.’ So that made a big impact on me.” Photo by Mark Gordon

Volume 43, Issue No. 10

“This was when SURFER did that article about those guys going super feral in the Ments,” says Gudauskas of “Second Thoughts” – a tale about Timmy Turner et. al’s off-the-grid Indonesian adventure which resulted in Turner getting shacked at Apocalypse in the cover shot above. “Timmy was next-level mystical. He was from Huntington, which is as normal a place you could come from, yet he’s getting as feral as you could get. The article is so savage–they were like killing their own goats. I don’t even think people are doing that kind of stuff now to get waves. I don’t know if it’s because of the article or just Timmy in general being himself, but those things mixed together definitely makes this cover one of my top 10. As a kid I remember wondering, ‘How did they survive? How did they get there and actually pull that off?’ It didn’t really make me want to go live in a tent in the Ments for a month but it was so memorable.” Photo by Jason Childs

Volume 41, Issue No. 12

“Chris Ward – for me, and probably for Pat and Dane, too – was my backyard superhero,” says Gudauskas, of the San Clemente tube-hound getting completely shacked at Puerto Escondido in the cover shot above. “He was the best surfer in the lineup every time you’d paddle out and he was always super cool to us. I was such a fan and would always watch his videos. I still think his style is so insane. The way he’s just standing in this barrel was such a vibe…he’s feeling it. He probably burned some guy to get that wave and he’s just loving it. After seeing that cover I was probably all hyped and wanted to have a necklace like that. I think that’s the type of stuff that makes me soul bond with these covers.” Photo by Scott Aichner

Volume 40, Issue No. 11

“Nowadays, guys are doing airs like this and getting a 3.5 in a heat,” says Gudauskas, of the forehand punt Keith Malloy is launching on the November 1999 cover above. “But when I saw this, it was the first time I was like, ‘Okay, when you do a frontside air, that’s how you see the bottom of your board, that’s how you do airs.’ So I’d just sit in class all day and would draw Keith and his body positioning on the board. And when I would try airs, I would almost visualize that that’s what I looked like.” Photo by Jeff Divine

Volume 39, Issue No. 7

“This was when Taylor Knox did the K2 Challenge at Todos Santos,” says Gudauskas of the cover above, featuring T.Knox rushing down the face of his famous $50,000 wave. “That one I remember getting in the mail because we had just gotten the Reef at Todos video, which was about that event. As a kid, I didn’t even know waves like that existed along the California and Baja coast. Obviously there was Mavericks, but this was so close to home. And TK, we had met him one time before, I think I was maybe 10 or even younger at that time. Just to see him charge that thing was crazy. I would still put that cover up in my dining room. I feel like that shot is so insane.” Photo by Jeff Divine

Related: The 25 Best SURFER Covers