609-494-5739 Summer fishing Long Beach Island is kicking full swing with the bay, inshore, midshore, and offshore bite all on fire. Time to break out the patriotic apparel and hit the water.
Bay Fishing Report
Lots of blowfish in the bay! Reports from many customers are all positive. This is a great family fun fishery. Rigging up is easy; small hooks with a weight on bottom baited up with clam or squid. Chumming helps attract and gets the puffers active.
The bayside waters of Long Beach Island have great fluke fishing all summer long and this year isn’t any different. The reports flood in however finding keepers isn’t easy. It requires honing in on what they want and properly presenting it. If you need guidance it would be best to frequent the shop and get some info from the crew. The depth of knowledge is here and we are willing to share.
While fluking has the spotlight, bluefish and resident striped bass are abundant. At the right times these two offer great light tackle fun. The school bass love soft plastic, plugs and bucktails going the trick.
Back Attack Sportfishing reported a good bluefish bite on Monday morning. They loaded up on shark bait!
Jeff Davis of Let It Fly Charters is putting his clients on fish everyday. A couple days ago they caught a big hound fish. Over the past couple weeks we’ve heard dozens of reports of these crazy cool creatures. Here’s one that Cam Conrad caught off the surf. More on the Long Beach Island surf fishing report below.
Another surprise catch report came in from Kirsten Holloway. She recently caught a nice cobia while fluke fishing Great Bay. It went for a Magictail Hoochie.
Inshore Fishing LBI
The summertime inshore – nearshore fishing on LBI is primarily based around summer flounder fishing. On all accounts it is good with anglers in the bay (report above), inlet, surf (report in the next section below) and ocean are all picking fish. Ocean reports are becoming more consistent and we expect that to continue all summer on the open bottoms as well as the wrecks and reef sites.
NJ Black Sea Bass is open! As of July 1st it’s a two fish bag limit with a minimum size of 12.5″ until August 31st when it closes.
With the clean warm inshore waters things get very interesting this time of year. The bonita showed up early this year. Aboard Fish Head Charters the crew was into them mid/late June and the action continues now. Cobia have already arrived and made their presence know. We hard of a few nice ones caught in addition to Kirsten’s report (we shared above). Spanish mackerel, albacore and mahi are also present inshore/midshore. More on the bluewater fishing below.
Surf Fishing Report
Kingfish have made a strong showing this week. Anglers fishing DynaBait, FishBites and live bloods are all catching. Live bait is always best however availability can be tough. We are selling out fast. The convenience and fish catching ability of DynaBait and FishBites is spectacular. Try them today!
Fluking off the surf is very good! Tons of shorts with keeper-sized fish in the mix. Time to stock up on Gulp and bucktails! Here Jared Grady with a healthy 21.5″ fluke that he recently caught off the LBI surf. Jared has been doing great this summer. He reported, “All those early mornings are string to pay off. The bite has been on fire lately!”
Chunking the beach with meaty baits will result in line screaming fun…
LBI Land Based Shark Fishing
The inshore, nearshore, from shore shark fishing continues STRONG! The abundance of brown sharks and large sand tiger sharks is staggering. This year more than ever there abundance is visible.
Anglers are catching some really big fish and good numbers of them on a consistent basis. The photos and stories at the shop are all awesome. Get out and tangle with some to test your tackle and angling abilities. Always know the laws! These sharks (sandbar aka brown sharks and sand tiger sharks) are prohibited to be possessed. They must not be landed and must be released in the wash, as seen in the sand tiger shark photo below sent in from JKT Fishing.
Store staffer Jordan has been catching consistently. He’s releasing a number of sandbar sharks as well as some very large sand tigers. It started out with mostly browns. He stepped up to bigger baits and got bigger fish. It’s funny how that works out. On Sunday he went three for six on large sand tigers.
Bluewater Fishing
This holiday week is rolling strong with great weather which allowed access to the offshore waters. We hope you all are enjoying it because the offshore action this season has been great. The midshore grounds were lit up early and the action continues now.
Store staffer Pat was out today and had an epic morning. He reported, “We fished away from the fleet and got it done. Went four for four on bluefin tuna with a nice over, all on bars/chains. Green was the hot color today.” They were done fishing by 8am and to work by 1pm for the afternoon shift.
Another report came in from Mark Finelli from Laura Sportfishing. He sent in this photo below and said, “That Nomad DTX Minnow was the bomb!”
The offshore canyons are lit up with life too! Earlier in the week we heard of a big eye bite in the Hudson. Other news from customer who filled the boat with yellowfin. Also some talk of swordfish on this new moon!
