LBI Fishing Report April 21, 2021

Today’s nice breezy morning turned sour with afternoon storms. Some anglers reported slow fishing due to conditions but report from recent days have been great. Here’s the LBI Fishing Report Update for April 21, 2021.

Bass Is The Best Game In Town

The best game in town right now is striped bass fishing in the bay. Both land based and boat anglers are finding striped bass in a range of sizes from micro to keepers. To get after these look towards the sod banks, rolling flats as well as the many docks in the area. Bait anglers are fishing live worms and clams are doing it. Fishing artificials is putting good numbers up too. You can never go wrong fishing a bucktail jig. Top softies are the Kettle Creek Shads. Picking one or two top hard baits is a tricky one but we give the nod to the Yo-zuri Mag Minnow if looking for a swimmer or the Stillwater Smack-It Poppers if going topwater.

Here's Rob Crossley with a striped bass he recently caught fishing the bay. — Here’s Rob Crossley with a striped bass he recently caught fishing the bay.

Steve George reports, “At this point in April the water is warming up and coming to life again. Days are getting longer and the fishing is improving. Everyday is a new day come down and let’s fish.”

There’s some bass showing in the Inlet and surf and we expect these ares to get better with time.

Frankie Lenetti caught this micro bass on the LBI surf. He gave it a kiss and set it back with a reminder to grow up and then come back once 50 pounds!

The areas first (that we know of via direct report) BLUEFISH was caught just a couple days ago locally here in the Barnegat Bay by Dan Coghlan. Dan reported, “I’ve been catching a lot of bass in the bay since early march. Was great to see a big blue. Let’s hope they show up good this year!”

Dan reported, "I've been catching a lot of bass in the bay since early march. Was great to see a big blue. Let's hope they show up good this year!"

Tog Fishing Report Update

With the NJ Tautog season closing at the end of the month we are currently in the final days. Some days have been fire on the wrecks.

Here's a photo of Alex Widney with a monster he caught withing with Andy Wurst. — Here’s a photo of Alex Widney with a monster he caught withing with Andy Wurst.

Fishing hasn’t been on fire for land based anglers but some days are good.

60 Days Left Of Spring

Summertime isn’t far away! Already had a kingfish and a summer flounder caught from the waters of LBI hinting that winter is in the rear view mirror.

The first kingfish report of 2021 came from Paul Lindsey on April 8th. he was fishing worms looking for striped bass.

Our first fluke was reported in from Connar McGlynn. He got the bite on Monday fishing a Daiwa SP minnow on the Long Beach Island surf.

Fluke are aggressive ambush predators that are around in the LBI waters for long portion of the year… more more than just the 120-30 day season.

Other Mentions

White Perch fishing continues on strong with great reported flowing in. Liam sent in the photo recently.

Black Drum, winter flounder and cod are other species to target right now.

Here’s Swagmattic with a cad he recently caught and enjoyed on the table… fresh fish and chips!

NJ Black Sea Bass Season Opens On May 15th with a minimum size of 12.5″ and a 10 fish bag limit.

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! View all posts by FishHead.Greg