First Day of Fall Is Here! Personally my favorite time of year. With great weather, warm water, less crowded beaches and waterways topped off with great fishing opportunities (great surfing too) how can you not love early Fall? At the time of this post we have incoming long period swell from Hurricane Fiona which will be very powerful. It looks to peak Friday afternoon in the 6-10′ range. There will be windy NNW wind. This combo will make surf fishing difficult on Friday. The eastern section of Barnegat Inlet’s jetty could be treacherous! It should settle down significantly Saturday leaving as a beautiful yet chilly start to the day, low of 49º to start off the morning.
The bait really starts moving (mullet, peanut bunker, bay anchovies, sand eels, etc) and in the past week that has been very apparent. We’ve received some great videos and photos from customer capturing the bait and feeding frenzies. For some great photos check out our recent post on Instagram sharing Stay Above The Weather’s photographs of bait and active albies. In my most recent video report update (link below) I shared video from Neill McKenna. This past week we have received a couple deliveries of fresh surf caught mullet so the mullet run is progressing. We also got a report today from Bobby Capri, “There’s thousands of mullet but I did’t bring my cast net.” He did however get into great bass fishing plugging!
Fluke, small blues and a couple bass are in the surf. Remember NJ Fluke Fishing Season ends on 27th. Kingfish are on the suds too. Anglers at times also have a shot at albies.
Barnegat Inlet Jetty offers great fishing at this stage in the year. Tog, triggers and sheepshead as well as fluke, blues, striped bass. Yup a couple; drum too. In the bay there’s blowfish, weakfish, striped bass blues.
Jason Houck shared, “Thanks for the awesome reports. Stocked up this weekend and got in on some good fluke fishing off the beach on the north end and that epic bluefish blitz. That lasted a solid 2 hours on the north end and you could catch them at will for almost 4 hours.” Another report came in from XYZ.
Here’s my most recent video report…
Last weekend (9/18) was the America Anglers LBI Fishing Tournament. Here’s the abbreviated results… 36 teams and 20 individual anglers, 248 total anglers. Only 31 fish caught, the majority were bluefish with some kingfish and fluke peppered in.
| Results | Team Name | Total # Fish Points | Total # of Fish |
| 1st Place | OCFC Blue | 100.50 | 7 |
| 2nd Place | MFC C | 54.25 | 3 |
| 3rd Place | LBIFC A | 30.75 | 2 |
| 4th Place | The Bobbers | 30.00 | 2 |
| 5th Place | Surf and Land B | 25.75 | 2 |
| 6th Place | The Squad | 19.00 | 1 |
| 7th Place | Salty Sand Sharks | 18.75 | 1 |
| 8th Place | Team Speranza | 18.25 | 1 |
| 9th Place | Top Notch | 18.25 | 1 |
| 10th Place | Ocean County Boys | 18.00 | 1 |
Largest Fish MEN
| Results | Angler’s Name | Team | Species | Points(Length) Girth |
| 1st Place | Jeff Bajack | MFC C | F. Albacore | 23.50 |
| 2nd Place | Joja Cruz | The Squad | Other | 19.00 |
| 3rd Place | Andrew Basso | Salty Sand Sharks | Bluefish | 18.75 |
Largest Fish WOMEN
| Results | Angler’s Name | Team | Species | Points(Length) Girth |
| 1st Place | Katie Bailey | The Bobbers | Bluefish | 18.00 |
| 2nd Place | Sharon Zola | WSFC Red | Bluefish | 13.50 |
| 3rd Place | Heather Goldner | WSFC Blue | Bluefish | 12.00 |
