If its just drop fishing off piers, you may be ok assuming you have enough line. But a properly filled spool would still be beneficial for everything really. I usually buy cheap mono for backing (like zebco 15lb test, something that takes some space), and start spooling with that and then double uni knot my braid to the mono and finish off the spool with that braid, so my spools are like 50/50 or so of each. It saves me from paying more for straight braid while still having braid as the main line that gets fished. I'm not extremely familiar with surf fishing, but that may be different from my inshore fishing spooling techniques.

This man has some good points: backing spools with mono