It’s cold but fishing continues on fire! Numerous reports flooding in from customers. There’s lots of fish on the beach all over the island and hammering baits. Barring any severe weather these bass will be hanging around for the rest of the year.

Here’s some reports we got today…

Khaled Chapl stopped in to pick up some frozen bunker. He said his last trip out he got a 30″ bass. Heading back up to look for another dinner fish.

Tony Cucinotta stopped in for a Penn Reel part and a pack of white Storm Shads. While here he said the beach is alive with fish. Find a cut and fish!

Most anglers fishing lures are using rubber shads, small bucktails and sand eel imitations like Red Gills or Tsunami Sand eels.

Store staffer Willie helped set up Peg who recently moved into Ship Bottom. Welcome To Town Peg! She stopped in today thank him, “Willie was a big help. Yesterday afternoon was my first time striper fishing from the surf. Coming from fresh water fishing… What a fun time it was! I hooked six fish and landed four. Two of them spit the hook rolling in the wash. I was fishing salted clam off the mid island surf.” Peg is heading back up there this afternoon.

Yesterday Captain Alex of Lighthouse Sportfishing stopped in to share a report. He caught a bunch of bass yesterday afternoon off the South End surf. He said the bite was very good.

I had a great day on the water yesterday aboard the Tightlines with Captain Jeff Warford. We headed out and started trolling right where we’ve been fishing for the last three weeks. In minutes the screen was on fire and we were doubled up. The activity continued all morning. Some bird plays came together and we hammered some bass on lures both jigging and top water. With 100’s if not 1000’s of bass this year I was focused on the fly. While the conditions were not prime, I worked at it and managed to get one bass to fall for a large clouser.

LBI Surf Fishing Classic

The Long Beach Island Surf Fishing Classic is over and the final details are wrapping up. Congrats to all those who put in time and fish their butts off! While fishing was not epic there were some good catches.

All special prizes offered by Fisherman’s Headquarters have been issues and mailed. All other prize distribution is in the works and will be done directly by the LBI Fishing Tournament.

Local News

The snowy owls have made their return to LBI. After their long flight south from the Tundra there are relaxing on the dunes of LBI. I was on the hunt shooting (with the camera) this past weekend and found four different ones.