609-494-5739 Recent days have offered great fishing for anglers fishing the waters of Long Beach Island. Both striped bass and bluefish are biting in the surf, inlet and bay. There’s also good early season fluke fishing too. Today, Tuesday May 7th we have a small yet powerful 2-4′ easterly swell on the beaches so be prepared with a little extra lead sinkers. Get out and enjoy this awesome early May fishing today!
Striped Bass Fishing Report
Striped bass have been action in the LBI suds for a number of weeks now. We are happy to share that the LBI surf continues strong. This past weekend was great and this work week and kept on going. Most reports are focused around mid-island (North Beach to Brant Beach) but that is also the more popular and convenient area to fish so more anglers mean more reports. On recent tides CLAM has been the top producer. Bunker is catching too and it’s also getting blues… more on that in the next section.
Right now there is a full size range from unders and keeper/slots to overs and welllll overs. In recent days fish in the mid to upper 40″ range were reported. Be sure your gear is in order and be sure to test your knots when rigging up. We hear too many, “I lost a big one today.” Spit hooks are one thing but knot failure is unacceptable. If you need an hand be sure to stop in Fishermans Headquarters and we can help!
The bayside while maybe overlooked now that the surf is good has been stellar. With the warming waters the bass are fired up! Small soft plastics like 3” NLBN, 4” Ron-Z and 5” Zoom Flukes have been best for matching the smaller bait profiles. Also top water poppers and spooks are teasing bass to the surface.
Bluefish Fishing Report
The front beach of LBI, Barnegat Inlet and Barnegat Bay all have nice bluefish on the chew. They first showed about 2-3 weeks ago and have since become more abundant and more spread out. This past weekend reports were coming in from all over! Carl Hartman stopped in with three nice bluefish up to 11lbs which he caught fishing frozen bunker chunks off the mid-island surf. We also had reports Monday from the rocks. There was a good bite with some good size bluefish on SP Minnows and metals on the outgoing tide.
Hopefully this trend continues and all can experience old school bluedawg beatdowns like the good ol’ days!
Fluke Fishing Report
With the rising bay and inlet water temperatures, the local fluke fishing is off to a phenomenal start! We’ve had reports of fish up to 26” and multiple limits of fish all over 20” on both Gulp and minnows. A few quality fish we’re caught on large strip baits like Bluefish, Mackerel and Sea Robbin. Fishing a big natural or live bait for fluke weeds out most of the smaller fish and increases the likelihood of a big fluke encounter. Store Staffer Paul had a nice limit of Fluke off the rocks, all over 19” up to 21.5”. All his fish we’re caught on Z-Man StreakZ and Magictail Killshot Jigheads.
