With the low tide incoming, there’s a small but powerful swell lingering on the beaches in the 2′ range. Yesterday there was significantly more energy breaking on the sand bars, all of it from the weekend’s offshore low pressure system which gave us big surf this past weekend; Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Tune in now to the Wednesday morning October 23, 2024 Long Beach Island fishing report update…

What’s Biting At Long Beach Island?

Since the Full Moon last week, the surf side fishing action on LBI has been on the slower side. We had active blues as well as pockets of kingfish, both of which surf anglers were catching. However things changed. Saturday’s American Angler surf fishing tournament was dismal. The sold out event had strong participation BUT the 6’++ surf made for very rough conditions. The waters were full of seaweed making it nearly unfishable. No score-able fish were entered.

LBI Surf Side Striped Bass

But here’s good news on the surf side… Some striped bass were caught by anglers plugging the surf. It’s that time of year! Shop regulars Chris Masino and Greg Davis both caught some linesiders in the surf this week. It’s great to see some fish are around in the suds. With the abundance of bait (sand eels, peanut bunker, snappers, bay anchovies, +) in the area, new arrivals with stripes can’t get here soon enough!

LBI Surf Temperature

The water temperature on the LBI surf is right around 60-62º. With the recent warmer weather we have a little bounce off the recent lows, but for the most part there is a downward trend. I got out and did some awesome fishing here the last couple days. Last night I got out and fished for a few hours. It was slow but we managed three bites with one bass. Both Monday and Tuesday were beautiful days with light winds and a spaced out longer period groundswell.

Wreck Fishing – Bottom Fishing

Monday I had Chef Tom and his wife aboard for some wreck fishing. We ran out to 80′ of water and had fun sea bass and porgy fishing on clam, squid and sand fleas. We had to work for them but we caught a good cooler full of fish they both had sore arms. They brought home the groceries and had fun so the mission was a success.

I’ve heard many good reports from customers were were also out earlier this weekend. Both the reefs and wrecks have life but it seems that there is no consistency. Many spots have a mix of both shorts and keepers. For us we didn’t have any jumbos so maybe I should of fished deeper.

LBI Bayside Fishing

The Barnegat Bay and Manahawkin Bay has striped bass to target. Store staffer Emmet, Frezza and Paul are catching. Also Paul ran up north and got into that Monmouth County striped bass bite that’s rolling on up there for a couple weeks now. Hopefully those fish start sliding down. We’ll see how that goes. The stage is set as we have a lot of bait in the area. We haven’t had bunker in the shop fresh or mullet because the mullet runs sort of fading out. We hope to have a delivery of fresh bunker later today. There’s a lot of sandals stretch along the central and northern Jersey coast. Take a look at a post I just threw up on Instagram just the other morning.

LBI Blackfish – Tautog – Tog Fishing

The #1 best fishing opportunity right now for land based anglers fishing LBI is TAUTOG! The bite has been good and got better. Fish the inlet rocks with green crabs and sand fleas a have fun catching. There’s plenty of fish chewing and there’s keepers in the mix.

LBI Public Service Announcement

LBI Beach Replenishment Info – The work is currently at Holyoke Ave and they will be working in that area for the month. Be on the lookout – prepared if you are planning on fishing or driving the beach down that way.

Barnegat Inlet Dredge Project Info – The Army Corp Engineers are currently working on Barnegat Inlet, removing the shoaling east of Buoy 11, basically in the middle of the inlet. Due to the nature of the work, the dredge is restricted in ability to maneuver and thus shows the black ball/diamond/ball vertical day shape as well as red/white/red vertical lights at night time. To communicate with the dredge use VHF13.