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Fishing Report Update – May 4, 2018

Here’s the Fishing Long Beach Island Report Update for Friday May 4, 2018… Great step forward this week with both fishing and weather. The beautiful sun and temperatures has warmed the bay to the mid to high 50’s in most areas. The LBI surf temperature is in the high 40’s to right at the 50 degree mark. The Inlet and surrounding waters are a mix depending on tide.

Get out and enjoy spring! Good fishing awaits in all waters of LBI with a target species such as striped bass, bluefish, black drum, weakfish and perch on the chew.  Sorry haven’t heard anything on winter flounder. With the recent warm up these more than likely guys jumped on the train outta here but other flounder showed up… FLUKE! These guys will be waiting and ready to chew come opening day May 25.

On The Water Magazine From The Surf article by local angler Steve George is out. He shared this post on Thursday, “Just perfect timing with this months column as the yellow eyed demons are just now invading the surf, inlet and back bays. I can again tell you these are world class type bluefish- as yesterday afternoon (Wednesday) I had the pleasure to do battle with the 3 foot long 15 pound plus blue on a very light tackle set up geared for schoolie stripers. What blast that was in shallow/ clear water – the visuals were incredible. So have fun – stay safe and check out the latest edition of On-the-Water Magazine in between tides.”

Yesterday (Thursday) Brian Petitt of Medford stopped by to share a report. Brian weighed in a 9.7 pound bluefish that he caught while fishing the Barnegat Light State Park Jetty. The racer went for a 4oz Acme Kastmaster Metal “tin” Lure. Blues love metal especially diamonds, tins and slab spoons. Also don’t forget heavy hooked bucktails from MagicTail and Andrus in the 1-3oz range. Now’s the time to gear up and take some casts to be there and ready when they pop up.

Here’s Brian Petitt of Medford with a 9.7 pound bluefish he weighed in.

Yesterday morning (Thursday) I had store staffers Kelley and Jordan were on board Fish Head Charters. Right out of the gates Kelley hooked a nice keeper size striped bass on a bone Daiwa SP Minnow lure. Soon Jordan followed it up with another bass that ate his white swim bait. These two went back and forth all morning both sticking to their individual go-to’s productively catching. At certain points it was one after the other with numerous double ups. Dozens on dozens. These fish ranged from keeper size to minis. Seemed like the fish were really keen on white today and also they didn’t want it on top. I can say this after stubbornly fishing top water for far too long. A quick switch over to a swimming plug and BANG! Hooked up. Lots of fun on light tackle! The hot lure for Kelley he was the Bone Daiwa SP (DSPM13). Jordan was dialed in with the white Kettle Creek Paddle tail rigged on a 3/4oz jig head.

Here’s Kelley and Jordan with a pair of schoolies caught fishing with Captain Greg aboard Fish Head Charters.

Again the bunker were stacked in the Inlet thick as thieves. While we did not catch a bluefish we did some caught by anglers fishing close by. We also got to see a large school finning on top that numerous times would not touch a lure placed a head and in front of their eyes.

One of a couple bluefish we saw caught.

BAIT UPDATE:

Late in the day yesterday, fresh bunker arrived. Stock is holding up but may sell out before our next anticipated refill (late today). No bloodworms but are expecting some today. Live surf clam in stock with more arriving today. We hope to have live eels in the next week or two and then shortly after live minnows.

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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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