Sorry about the hiatus. GoDaddy sent me on a wild goose chase. It all started back in August and has been a lingering. Finally it’s all cleared up and I expect smooth sailing from here on out. My apologizes.

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• Fisherman’s Headquarters Facebook Page
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And if not already done… Please subscribe to our YouTube channel for updated fishing report videos. Jump over there now! Here’s my most recent fishing report video…

Before jumping into the fishing report, I must mention a few announcements…

We extended our hours as the spring fishing season is well underway. We open daily at 6am. Monday thru Thursday we close at 7pm. On Friday and Saturday we stay open until 8pm and on Sunday we close early at 6pm.

Premium Baits In Stock – For the holiday weekend we have a smorgasbord of the premium baits… Live bloodworms, live surf clam, live green crabs, live eels. We had both live minnow and live sand fleas but sold out, hoping to get more soon. AND this week we packed our one walk in freezer with quality offshore baits. We have Baitmaster ballyhoo both rigged and unrigged, as well as some new rigged swordfish baits; rigged eels, rigged squid and rigged tentacles. You gotta check these out! They are all sitting pretty at -10°. Every year we sell out so now’s a good time to pick up some packs.

LBI Spring Surf Fishing Tournament – For all of those surf fishing anglers… the LBI Spring Surf Fishing Tournament (formally the Simply Bassing event) is running until June 22nd. The event is $20 to sign up and there are prizes for striped bass (first, second, third largest) and bluefish (largest).

LBI Fishing Report April 18, 2025

The weather broke open and the fishing in the bay kicked into another gear this week. Striped bass and drum are chewing in many spots around the Barnegat Bay, Manahawkin Bay and Great Bay. These two can be targeted by land based anglers or via boat. For the black drum fish whole surf clams. Anglers are catching stripers fishing live bloodworms, clam and on lures.

The surf has been empty with the cold surf (~46º) but we expect some action in the coming days as the waters warm up a few degrees. We heard about one small surf side striped bass. It’s a start. Once the surf hits 48º and then 50º and remains there, we will be rocking!

Striped Bass Fishing Report

The bays and rivers are where the action is right now. For timing, the best is fishing the warmer outgoing tide and preferably on a sunny afternoon. When the tide and weather line up, these days are best. This time last year fish were present in the LBI suds. Anyday and the surf will be turning on!

Bloodworms are still a great bait and CLAM is producing too. For more help with fishing these soft baits check out these tips and tricks – How To Fish A Worm Ball…

Black Drum Fishing Report

A nice push of black drum arrived on the full moon last weekend. We’ve had a number of nice reports. There are many different areas that can be fished both on the LBI bayside as well as the west side of the bay and Great Bay areas. Last night store staffer Max got a big one fishing clams. He shared, “The Magictail 9′ rod paired with the new Quantum Strive 5ooo was awesome. It handled the dinosaur with no problem. The reel outperforms it’s price point.” Fish Heads alumni Erik was soaking some bait for bass and got a good size drum a couple days back. Also store staffer Tyler has been into drum on a number of trips this past week.

Black Drum Love Surf Clam!

Tautog Fishing Report

The first half of April’s tog season was not stellar. Cold windy weather dominated the schedule. With the better sea conditions and a settling ocean the wreck report are improving. Tony Butch and Fish Head’s alumni Bill Bassant were on the water today and caught their two man limit. We heard other reports of good fishing but no reports of big tog. Let’s see how the rest of the month plays out. We are looking forward to the second half of this April’s tog season to be better than the first half and just like last year… hammer time on the back stretch.

Land based tog fishing is only getting better too as the water warms and the fish become more active. Jared Zaum reported that he caught two tog fishing the Inlet rocks today, “One 15.5″ and the other 16.5″ – The Magictail 8′ 1-4oz rod matched up on the Tsunami SaltX-2 4000 is great.” He just received it yesterday from UPS and is already putting it to use. That’s what we like to see!

White Perch

Rivers and select lagoons have perch on tap. A number of customers have reported great fun fishing for white perch in the Mullica River. The last couple weeks of April is when a white perch bite materializes in select lagoons in the area.

Winter Flounder Fishing Report

Fishing reports of winter flounder are few and far between, but now is the time to target them. This somewhat of a lost fishery has little to no participation in recent years. Maybe it’s the regulations or maybe it’s the style of fishing.

We are hopeful that some bluefish and weakfish show soon.

Here’s another recent fishing report video.