May 2017 - LBI NJ Fishing Report

LBI Fishing Report May 31

Positive reports of fluke, blues and bass.

Alex Weinstein stopped by and picked up a new Van Staal surf reel. He downsized from his VS250 to a VS150. He is stoked with his new set up. He just sent in this report, ” Thanks for setting me up. Got some big blues and bass on the north end surf recently. Sunset this past weekend and Tuesday were good for me. At low tide if you can wade deep to get out past the surf there are fish. You have to get behind the wave line. Alex got this one on a Deadly Dick Metal.

Store staffer Steve-o limited out fluke fishing yesterday. He got two nice ones and one right at 18″ mark. He was fishing live minnows on the north end.

A customer was in the shop reported picking at fluke bucktailing with Gulp. He got two keepers. An angler fishing close by chunking got three bass. The largest was 30″ and one had a full belly. It was stuffed with a few bunker heads and an extra large butterfish.

Captain Mark of the Laura Sportfishing stopped in today and picked up a spool of Power Pro line. While here he shared his morning report, “Got some bass and blues then switched over to fluke in the bay. Fun fishing!”

Ryan Szelc just stopped in to get more bunker this afternoon. He reported they are catching blues off the surf on chunks, “It’s weedy but fish are in there! We’ve been picking at bass.”

Store staffer Max sent in this report… “My dad Michael fished the bay today. Got four keepers up to 23 inches. As always they want the Gulp and Spro bucktailing combo.”

Mary Lee the 17 foot white shark that frequently pops up in our local waters is back. She continues to head north up the coast and has pinged six times in the past 24 hours. This afternoon she was off the south end of the Island.

Lighthouse Sportfishing Magic Hr Special

I have 2 of 3 spots left for open boat Magic Hour Trip this Thursday June 1. 4-8 PM Bay / inlet bass, blues, & fluke $125 pp Weather looks great and the fishing is hot!

Capt. Alex 609 548-2511

Old Barney Charters Memorial Day Weekend Report

The Bonnie Anne is back fishing and booking trips. Memorial Day Weekend is always reserved for trips with family.

Saturday we went wreck fishing and had to sort through lots of shorts. We did box 12 nice sea bass and it was my 5 year old Owen stealing the show with a 23″ humphead he brought to the boat solo.

Sunday we went fluking in the bay. After 3 hours we had 6 keeps to 23″. This time it was my 7 year old Eric ending with high hook and boxing 23″ and 22″ fatties. The fluke were on the chew!

We have openings this Sunday, June 4th for fluke, sea bass, or stripers. All bait, ice, tackle, and fish cleaning is included. Come out with us and catch fish!

Old Barney Charters – 267.918.1746 – Captain Kevin Schmidt

LBI Fishing Report May 30th

Paul Taurgrasso of Barnegat had fun fishing aboard the the Carolyn Ann III this past weekend. He caught ’em up to four pounds.

Here’s a report from the CA3, “Fishing was better Sunday as the current slowed down. Besides better fishing it was a beautiful day on the water. Seas were calm, sun was out and just warm enough. There was nice sea bass up to four pounds. Everyone had plenty of action with lots of short fish.”

Another sea bass report came from Dylan Fisher, “Took a break from stripers and gators to get into sea bass. Lots of life on the wrecks. Had a great time with the crew as we had action on the deck!”

Still blues and bass cruising the surf. Early June is prime time surf fishing here on LBI. We expect the next couple weeks to offer some awesome fishing. Here’s a photo of store staffer Nick D. He put a couple hours on the beach and found some blues. Best of luck to all the students fishing the Battle On The Beach tomorrow!!!

Here’s a recent photo from Captain Ken Nutt aboard the Striper out of Barnegat Light… 40.9 pound bass caught this weekend aboard the Striper by Adam Eastburn.

Some really nice reports of large bluefin tuna. One customer Zach was recently in the shop spooling up his Shimano Stella with hollowcore line and gave us heads up he caught a 450 pounder on the troll about 20-30 miles off central NJ coast just days ago. There were others caught but today we heard the boats fishing the area struck out. We did here of some smaller 30-40 pound bluefin further offshore in the area of the Hudson.

Look who’s back in town…

Reel Reaction Charters – Barnegat Bay Fishing Report (5/29/17)

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend! It was a hectic weekend with my son playing 5 baseball games in 2 days. But with his travel season finally winding down, I’m in full swing for charters. The inlet and surrounding waters had a decent bite on Bluefish & Striped Bass, and Fluke are cooperative on the tides if you find clean water. The bigger Bass are still being caught mostly on the troll, but the snag-n-drop has started to get better. Regarding fluking, you can definitely see the effects of the rain runoff from fertilizers as the bay has a ton of algal slime right now. Just a reminder: I have weekends and weekday afternoons available through June 18th, and starting JUNE 19th will run 7 DAYS A WEEK UNTIL SEPTEMBER.

I did manage to get out and had Emil Slane, James D, and Xavier S. of New York, NY on a 4hr Bay/Inlet charter for a variety of species. The crew tried fishing the inlet for Striped Bass, but it was covered up by feisty Blackfish with the slow current. The guys boated Blackfish to 5 pounds as it was hard to get the bait to the Bass. All the Blackfish were promptly released as they are out of season. We spent the remainder of the trip fishing the backwaters, but the crew could only muster short fluke with the biggest being 17 inches. All in all, the guys didn’t do too bad for their first time fishing the salt.

With a quick window in the morning, I took my wife and son on a brief Fluke trip to check a different part of the tide. Jen struck first with a solid 19.5 inch Fluke on the first drift, followed by Luke’s first Striper on the bucktail. This one he caught all by himself. After several drifts of short Fluke, Luke jigged an 18-incher that made it into the box. With two Fluke in the box and enough for dinner, we headed home and left them biting. We released about 15 Fluke and 1 Striped Bass in about 2 hours, keeping 2 Fluke for the table. It was definitely a better bite on the tide.

If interested in booking a charter, book through the website (reelreactioncharters.com), or call/text 609-290-7709 . As always, we use the highest quality gear and everything is included all gear, tackle, fish-cleaning, and ICE – it’s “no worries” fishing. Just come aboard and FISH.

Capt. Brett Taylor ~ Reel Reaction Sportfishing ~ Call or Text: 609-290-7709

Lighthouse Sportfishing Barnegat Bay Report 5/29/17

I have been on Barnegat Bay every day since Friday. Fishing for target species, bass, fluke and now fluke, is consistent to on fire at times. Friday’s trip had a mix of bass (one keeper) and blues. The DeCicco party on Saturday started off with non-stop bluefish action during the last of outgoing. Fish ranged from 2-10 pound. Great fun on light tackle. Once tide swung around and the water cooled off the blues shut off but the bass turned on. Attached is a picture of Nick DeCicco with a nice bass. Nick was one of my students who graduated from BHS last year. His dad has been coming out with me for years, but this is the first time Nick came out. It was nice to see that not only did I teach Nick in the classroom but on the water 😉 Today I snuck out for two hours. Wind was a little hard out of the NE but the eastern part of the bay had plenty of windbreaks holding fish. I started by landing a couple 4-5 lb. blues on BKDs. Catching the last hour of outgoing I found a steady pick of 16-17” fluke. Snot grass was a little bit of a problem. Although it was supposed to be low tide the bay was still as high or higher than a “normal” high tide.

On the nature side of things: This month’s full and new moons usually mean horseshoe crabs will be mating and laying eggs. Considered living fossils they are not crabs, although their name suggests that. They are closely related to arachnid (spiders). Because they carry a copper substance in their blood it is blue. Their blood contains amebocytes, which is a cell that coagulates around pathogens. Because of that, about a half million are harvest every year for the medical industry. The blood is taken out and the crab is then released back to Delaware Bay. Some survive this process, some don’t. The time at which horseshoe crab lay their eggs along the Delaware Bay shore is inherently known by several species of shorebirds. One of those species, the Red Knot, has is timed so perfectly that they migrate to the Delaware Bay shore from their wintering grounds in Argentina to feast on the eggs. Often flying for seven to eight days straight, the red knots will put their lost weight back on, doubling it in 2-3 weeks of feeding on the eggs. These birds will then complete the rest of their journey flying to the arctic tundra to reproduce only to fly south to the other end of the hemisphere a few weeks later. Isn’t Mother Nature amazing?

Screaming drags,

Capt. Alex 609-548-2511

LBI Fishing Report May 28th

Thank you to all of the men and women who served and put it all on the line for freedom and the America Dream. God Bless America!

Hopefully everyone is enjoying Memorial Day Weekend 2017. Thank you to all of the men and women who served and put it all on the line for freedom and the America Dream. God Bless America!

In the holiday spirit we are posting a pair of Americamo Boardies from Pelagic. Looking for some new threads fro the summer? Stop in and check out our selection of the goods. We’ll keep you cool in the summer heat.

Fluke, Bluefish, Striped Bass, Weakfish and Sea Bass… Soon we’ll add sharks and tuna to the list. Late May and June is prime time Jersey sharking. It’s time to gear up and get out. The bluefish are still around in strong numbers so there’s time left to gather primo mako baits. Positive reports from anglers off land and in the boat catching blues in the bay, inlet and ocean. There’s reports of inshore bluefin tuna in our waters. We just saw a photo of a big one caught as well as a monster mako. Just today we heard about the first local boat who got into the yellowfin tuna. It’s time to get on the search.

Yesterday afternoon there was a fun bite off of the mid-island surf. A number of anglers got into fish on bunker. Both bass teen sizes and blues were caught. Also from the surf… fluke! Beach fluke fishing with Gulp is good. Bucktail with teaser is the ticket. We heard about a couple big fish breakoffs… sounds like the sand tigers might have showed up.

Jake Bowles reported a great day fluke fishing the back bay yesterday. He got 30 shorts, two keepers with the largest 21 inches.

We another great sea bass report. The inshore reefs and wrecks have some nice fish on them. Here is a hump-back Pat D. caught this morning.

Here’s some info from yesterday’s LBI Cup. Some nice stripers were caught pulling spoons.

LBI Cup Striped Bass Tournament Results

55.5 pound First Place – James Gang
50.7 pound Second Place – Ten X
45.0 pound Third Place – Lucky Stripes
9.3 pound Bluefish – Surf Runner

First Place

Second Place

Third Place

Here’s a report from Redman and crew who took second place aboard the Ten X. “We trolled up this one just north of the Seaside Pier on a #4 Green Tony Maja Bunker Spoon. Shortly after a whale popped up and swam under the boat. All four rods trolling rods went off. What a disaster. Fortunately we got a nice one.”

Here’s the weekly fishing report from the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association written by Jim Hutchinson Sr.

Memorial Day weekend is here, and the boats of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association are in pursuit of striped bass, bluefish, and the newly opened season for summer flounder. It appears the weather will be decent for some serious angling.

Captain Ray Lopez of “Miss Liane Sportfishing” along with mate Max Goldman had the Brian Lahullier party from Toms River out front for a taste of the spring striper run, and bass weighing 35 and 42.1 pounds were boxed after busting bunker spoons in 65-feet of water off the Ferris wheel at Seaside. On another day with a very sporty scene in the ocean, it was a troll with Clarke spoons with the Harrison charter from Bordentown, and eight good size blues came over the gunwales.

Capt. Lindsay Fuller on the “June Bug” reports that he and his crew brought the boat north from Wanchese, NC, near Oregon Inlet, where she spent much of the winter getting some needed repairs done along with some upgrades. While they did not fish on the way north, they did keep track of what they saw on their new onboard top-of-the-line Garmin electronics suite. Captain Lindsay was able to identify bait pods as deep as 15,000 feet deep with attacking game fish and saw sizable schools of Striped Bass as they came north. The new electronics allow the crew to pre-search various areas for inshore species as fluke, sea bass, Tog, bonita, etc., are all clearly seen, and the structure in which they are living was clearly tracked.

The 2017 Jr. Mate schedule is now posted on the BHCFA’s web site. As in other years most of the sessions are hands on. Some changes in the curriculum have been made in response to requests from the mates and some of the captains. Classes will start on Thursday, June 22, with registration and an overview of the fisheries, and work on knot tying. Any youngsters 13 and older who would like to become involved in the Junior Mate’s Program can find information and registration materials on the BHCFA website.

Information on the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association can be found at www.BHCFA.net.

Lighthouse Sportfishing Barnegat Bay Report

Quick one here as I am very busy. The last two days the action has been great around then inlet and back for blues from 2-10 pounds and bass from shorts to around 20 pounds. Intel on fluke is that there are around have to fish the right tide. I am open Monday Memorial if you want to get in on the action.

Screaming drags,

Capt. Alex 609-548-2511

LBI Fishing Report May 27th

Fishing Long Beach Island NJ is a great way to enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend. The local waters have variety of opportunities from the beach or boat; summer flounder – fluke, striped bass, Bluefish, sea bass among others!!!

With the LBI Cup Tournament and Holiday weekend combo, lots of boats were on the water today searching for classy striped bass. Unfortunately the reports were dismal. Anglers fishing out of Barnegat Inlet who ran as far north as Manasquan and as far south as Atlantic City had nothing to show for their efforts. We heard of a couple nice bass trolled off of LBI and IBSP but nothing to get excited about. There were a handful of bass, some in the 50 pound class which took the cake in the tournament. We’ll post the results as soon as we get them.

So far this spring’s local snag and drop as well as troll bite is nothing like what we’ve seen in prior years. Could it be the reduction fleet pounding the bait in our area the past month??? It’s very possible. When the local gill netters are struggling to find schools of bait, there’s something up. Some have written it off but like many our fingers are crossed. Maybe it will turn on to close out May with a bang. Historically early and mid June offer great striped bass fishing so we have some time. Things might happen.

There’s nice bass here cruising the waters of Long Beach Island, just not as active or in the number we all wish for. Expect the activity to turn on as we creep out of this new moon phase. As always the case around the late May moon, recently some really nice fish were caught by surf anglers. Obviously the largest was Art Eromenok’s trophy 57.4 pound striped bass (on 5/23). We believe this to be the largest striped bass we’ve weighed in from a land based “surf” angler. A close second was Ray Sullivans’s 56.7 pound surf tournament winning bass in 2010. Then Jim Haines’ 55-3 from the mid nineties which is mounted and on display above the bunker cooler. Somewhere in the shop’s top ten falls John Kelly’s 55 pound from 1964 which is known to be the shop’s first surf bass in the Fish Head’s Fifty Pound Club. Over the years we’ve had a number of fish beautiful striped bass, a handful over 60 but only from the boat. None from the surf that we are aware of. Not sure if the LBI surf ever offered up a 60 pound surf bass. Anyone know of one???

Mike Burn weighed in this 28.46 pound bass earlier today. He caught it on the mid-island surf last night chunking bunker.

Gary from Farias sent in this photo of his father in law, Rich Hall. He got this bass of the surf recently fishing bunker.

Armando from Manahawkin stopped by the shop this afternoon with a fat 21″ fluke. He reported fishing off of the mid-island bayside, “I caught the fluke on a bunker chunk as well as some blues. There were other blues and fluke caught too.” Here’s a photo of Amanda from Hopewell Junction, NY with a nice summer flounder she caught fishing near Armando. Amanda shifted gears and put some time in on the surf and got this bluefish today too.

John Delsordo got a nice 24″ fluke fishing the bay today.

“Insane fishing with Captain Mark of Laura Sportfishing!” Matt Polito reported, “The sea bass fishing was great today. We started out slamming the blues in the Inlet. Every cast they were hammering lures. We tried to find some stripers but no luck. We then headed out to the sea bass grounds and got into them good! In less than an hour we had our boat limit.”

Blake and I headed out for a late morning search. We wanted to find some bass but the intel wasn’t promising. We decided to stay in the inlet and made for a quick fun session. We found gators on the feed absolutely crushing plugs. Here’s one of many yellow eyed monsters!

Fishing Evolved! No one on the planet pursues the art and science of catching fish like Berkley. From offering the world’s best braided and monofilament fishing lines to the revolutionary Gulp! baits, Berkley Fishing is at the top of their game. This is a must see behind the scene video from their Spirit Lake Iowa facility.

Reel Reaction Charters Barnegat Bay Fishing Report

There are some nice Striped Bass around, but the trouble is trying to get out as the weather windows have been pretty narrow this Spring, especially for weekends. There are plenty of Bluefish around, and now that Fluke has opened it gives another viable option. I tried a few locations in the back, but the recent rains have made for some serious snot-grass. The trick has been finding cleaner water and frequently cleaning off your offerings. It’s been a tough go as of late with multiple cancellations due to poor weather, wind, and sea conditions.

This past week I did manage to get Jim Bennet, his son Michael and Frank Baer from Media, Pennsylvania for a 5hr Ocean/Inlet charter. With the guys game for anything that swam, we started working close to home with the sight of birds on Spearing and 3 to 5 pound Bluefish. After moving on from the Blues, we decided to look for marks and trolled spoons for about an hour with two good-sized knockdowns. Unfortunately, we couldn’t come tight and with daylight waning we headed closer to home. The guys finished trip hooking up with 8 to 12 pound Bluefish on both live bait and artificials. Michael recently graduated from Lafayette University with an engineering degree so “hat’s” off to him.

Later in the week, I had the opportunity to do a quick 2hr recon trip with Tom Duralek for Fluke after work. Although we had to deal with some dirty water and steady winds to 20 knots, we ended with 1 keeper to 21 inches among a bunch of short fluke and some sea robins. Tom lost another nice one boatside, so they are definitely in the backbay areas. The west side of the bay had some decent water temperatures up to 68 degrees. The conditions were pretty tough (dirty water & wind against tide), but at least managed to pull the 1st one of the season.

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I have weekends and weekday afternoons available through June 18th, and starting JUNE 19th will run 7 DAYS A WEEK UNTIL SEPTEMBER.

If interested in booking a charter, book through the website (reelreactioncharters.com), or call/text 609-290-7709 . As always, we use the highest quality gear and everything is included all gear, tackle, fish-cleaning, and ICE – it’s “no worries” fishing. Just come aboard and FISH.