Summer if finally here and the heat arrived too! With the hot sun and longest days of the year, the water temperatures will be ramping up… a new season of fishing is upon us. Here’s the LBI Fishing Report Update for Friday June 20, 2025.
Right now the LBI surf has primarily fluke and bluefish with kingfish popping up and still some spotty striped bass and black drum catches. With the surf temp today at 65º expect this theme to continue.
The fluke bite on the Long beach Island surf has been consistent for the entire month of June so far. The most recent report came in from Chef Tom who fished the mid-Island surf in Brant Beach yesterday. “Great day fishing! I caught 15+ fluke fishing a nice bowl of water in the late morning. Pink and white were working great with an active bite until noon and then nothing. Another angler fishing close by also caught a bunch but between the both of us no keepers.”
At times the blues are crashing the micro peanut bunker in the bay, inlet and surf. The past couple days 1-3+ pound cocktail blues have popped up in the Barnegat Inlet offering good light tackle fun. Some are chewing on the suds and can be caught on lures or bait (bunker or mullet).
There are a few kingfish on the LBI surf and with summer here, this fishery should only get better. Fish live bloods and/or Fish Bites baited on a small hook rig for these guys.
At the Barnegat Inlet the catches are primarily fluke and bluefish. There’s also striped bass at the right time/tides and will be all summer long. Sheepshead and triggerfish as well as out of season tog are also on tap at the rocks. A couple (not rare but) uncommon cobia catches have turned up recently. We also heard of a couple caught in the local ocean waters.
In the bay the fluke fishing has been good when the weed/snot grass isn’t bad. At times, the outgoing tides in some areas has been loaded. The classic live minnow, spearing, stripe bait (squid) and of course GULP! are all catching. I shared in a previous report that a lot of the fluke I’m catching (all spring) are spitting up shrimp (both grass shrimp and larger sand shrimp in the 2-3″+ range). This is common year after year as the primary diet of summer flounder is crustaceans; grass shrimp, sand shrimp, baby blue, mole, mud, calico crabs. Most trips the aggressive fluke have been keyed in on these shrimp baits, doing a number on the Gulp Shrimp. This year I fell in love with the new Gulp! Turbo Shrimp for it’s improved tail action. But with all that said it’s hard to go wrong with the curl tail grubs and swimming mullets as well as the slender profile sand eels and jerk shads.
The Miss Barnegat Light is running ocean fishing trips and reported on Wednesday’s trip, “the fluke and sea bass took the back seat to some bluefish and a good showing of bonito.” It’s great to hear they were scattered around chasing bait, sand eels. With summer here expect other hardtails (spanish mackerel, albies) to offer some warm water variety.
When the wind is blowing and the fishing conditions are tough head out crabbing or clamming. Now’s a great time to harvest some shellfish and enjoy the good eats! We have all the gear necessary for these targets.
Looking for a LBI Surf Tide Chart?
Here’s my most recent video report posted on Wednesday June 18, 2025
