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LBI Beach & Boat Fishing Report – August 12

 


The beaches of Long Beach Island have a lot to offer. Beautiful soft white sand, clean soothing warm saltwater, relaxing sound of the waves on shore and FISHING!!! We all know the LBI surf has some of New Jersey’s (and the eastern seaboard’s) best surf fishing. Come down to the shore and enjoy the best before summer ends.

The Beach Boyz, Austin Pounds and friends are making the most out of the summertime surf fishing on Long Beach Island. “Limit of fluke by day and sharks all night.” Austin said, “No boat needed! Just put your feet in the sand.” Recently the Boyz caught their fluke limit with fish up to 24″ and by far their best night of the year with big sand tiger sharks! “Epic night! Six sharks, two giants. One taped out at 90″ and the largest one stretched 97″.”

Antonio Vitelli also reported releasing a large sand tiger a couple nights ago.

While fluke and shark dominate the surf all summer other species like kingfish, bluefish and striped bass are here. Grey Coleston said his last trip out on the surf produced a couple kingfish.” Bluefish are still in the suds too with an occasional striped bass.

We posted a report about the flare up of striped bass activity on the recent full moon and a reader Louise Warren DeMichele sent in this confirmation, “They are out there! We caught this one off the Ship Bottom surf.” Others that set out to target bass on lures produced fishing the Inlet rocks at night on the incoming tide.

Fish in the bay are having a field day (and night) with all of the bait that’s around. Both peanut bunker and spearing are thick in the Island’s backwaters. The other night anchored up sharking massive piles of bait pushed past with the tide. Achers of bait lit up with breaking fish in the moon light is an awesome sight to see but probably the most frustrating thing when the boat is outfitted with all compact lever drag reels on short medium class stand up rods. Not a lure on the boat and even if we found one in the bilge nothing to cast it more than 10′. Never again!!!

Fluke Fishing:

While some are still hammering out really nice fish in the bay and Inlet, now is a great time to fish the reefs and wrecks.

Captain Mark of Laura Sportfishing reports good fluke fishing especially late week and into the weekend. “Gulp baits are the ticket! The bigger the better. The 5 and 6″ minnow and grubs are what they want.” We suggest fishing them on Spro Bucktails (some bucktails fail to have the proper balance, flash on head and hair but most importantly the proper hook and bait keeper ) with a stinger Gamakatsu assist hook. You’ll put an end to missing short strikes

“I’ve been on the water everyday and right now I’m totally dialed in. Certain areas have been fished hard and picked. If you know where to look there is an abundance of some really nice ones at that. In the past week the boat had 40 keepers. We are mowing through Gulp but you got to give them what they want! Fish the reefs and wrecks and you’ll score!”

James Sonday and Katie Marshall reported a great day on the water recently. They caught fluke up to 25″ managing seven keepers.

Pat DiPasquale fished with Howard Clark and they got on the meat! They pounded out their limit.

Fish Head’s alumni Rob Reale got a nice 26″ fluke recently. As you can see in the photo his dad Rocco was pumped!

Captain Lou aboard the Miss Barnegat Light reports fishing continues with waves of action. “We’ve had some high points but also some lows.  Lots of action with short fluke, sea bass and mackerel with a handful of keeper fluke each trip. The fluke that are keepers are all nice fish in the 3-5 pound range. Sometimes the kids show the adults how it’s done! Here’s one youth angler showing off two nice fluke.

Amongst fish, one guy caught a nice quality rod and reel setup off the bottom. It must have just went overboard because it was in great condition. You never know what you are going to catch! Jump aboard for some fun bottom fishing or join us on a sunset cruise!

 

Offshore Fishing Report:

The offshore report as of late has been up and down. One day the bite goes off then the next… “You should of been here yesterday.” On the midshore bluefin grounds anglers have been pounding Lemkes and the waters around the Edward Cole. Recently the light tackle chunk at Lemkes has produced fish. The ones catching are scaling down to 30/40# flourocarbon leader. The Cole, a spot which produced very well for many seems to have dried up but that may change. Let’s hope it turns back on. Recently we got a solid report of fish at the Star and the Fingers. There anglers caught on the jig and troll. It is anyone’s guess how long they will stick around. Maybe they’ll push up the line and hang on the west side of the Chicken. They could be already making a nice heading for boats out of Barnegat Light. One report of fish at the Little Italy so that area is worth a look.

Out at the edge reports back from a couple boats had a skunk theme both on the troll and chunk. One captain reported, “We smashed them on the moon. Fishing was bonkers!” Sometimes coming off a moon fishing can slow up and that’s what seems to be happening now. The Hudson reports slowed. A couple large 60-80# yellowbirds were taken out of the Toms. There’s boats catching just not a ton. You gotta persevere and take the good with the bad. Keep on keeping on. This season has been great and there’s a lot more season ahead of us!

Colette Tallent stopped in and geared up for an offshore trip with the kids. The kids first trip offshore was an awesome experience. This smile explains it all!

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Author: FishHead.Greg

A Long Beach Island native with life long experience fishing and navigating the local waters, Greg is a distinguished Master Captain (the highest qualified operator license), holding a US Coast Guard Masters 50T Near Coastal License with Towing Endorsement. Raised in and now managing his family's bait and tackle business, Fishermans Headquarters (Since 1962, The Saltwater Fishing Bait & Tackle Experts) Greg is daily immersed in fishing. He is the Chief Contributor of FishingLBI.com (Long Beach Island's best fishing report blog) as well as the Admin for the shop's social media pages (on Instagram and Facebook). Be sure to follow!

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