Author: FishHead.Greg

Born, raised and living in Ship Bottom at the heart of Long Beach Island, Greg's surrounded by the Barnegat Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Greg is an accomplished angler with great knowledge of saltwater fishing from the light tackle back waters to the surf and jetty as well as inshore and offshore big game fishing. Whether you are new to fishing or new to Long Beach Island, Greg wants to help. Questions about knot tying, fishing rods and reels, problems, techniques, locations? Just ask. Stop by Fisherman's Headquarters and say hello.

BHCFA Fishing Report

Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association Fishing Report
by Jim Hutchinson Sr.

The 2017 summer flounder season has opened in the Beach Haven area, and the captains of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association are anxious to put their anglers on these fish.

Recent reports have decent amounts of keeper fluke around with quite a few meeting the New Jersey state minimum size of 18-inches. Recent hot spots have included the ICW south of Beach Haven along with the waters of Great Bay. An added attraction for fishing in the Great Bay waters is the continued presence of feisty bluefish. Goodly numbers of 2-4 pounders can be found all over.

The striped bass bite in the ocean is not hot right now, but the fish being caught on the troll with bunker spoons and Mojos are large ones. A recent local tournament had the two top places taken with fish weighing over 50-pounds.

BHCFA Captain John Lewis reports that he has his boat the “Insatiable” back at its mooring in Beach Haven and is ready to chase stripers, blues, and fluke. Captain John adds that he has heard of some bluefin tuna up to 450-pound being landed offshore this week, and he is anxious to find some anglers who want to test themselves against these big fish. He is also looking forward to the arrival of some mako sharks.

Captain Frank Camarda of the party boat “Miss Beach Haven” is ready to sail for fluke from his berth at Centre Street in Beach Haven.

Additional information on the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association can be found at www.BHCFA.net

LBI Fishing Report May 31

Positive reports of fluke, blues and bass.

Alex Weinstein stopped by and picked up a new Van Staal surf reel. He downsized from his VS250 to a VS150. He is stoked with his new set up. He just sent in this report, ” Thanks for setting me up. Got some big blues and bass on the north end surf recently. Sunset this past weekend and Tuesday were good for me. At low tide if you can wade deep to get out past the surf there are fish. You have to get behind the wave line. Alex got this one on a Deadly Dick Metal.

Store staffer Steve-o limited out fluke fishing yesterday. He got two nice ones and one right at 18″ mark. He was fishing live minnows on the north end.

A customer was in the shop reported picking at fluke bucktailing with Gulp. He got two keepers. An angler fishing close by chunking got three bass. The largest was 30″ and one had a full belly. It was stuffed with a few bunker heads and an extra large butterfish.

Captain Mark of the Laura Sportfishing stopped in today and picked up a spool of Power Pro line. While here he shared his morning report, “Got some bass and blues then switched over to fluke in the bay. Fun fishing!”

Ryan Szelc just stopped in to get more bunker this afternoon. He reported they are catching blues off the surf on chunks, “It’s weedy but fish are in there! We’ve been picking at bass.”

Store staffer Max sent in this report… “My dad Michael fished the bay today. Got four keepers up to 23 inches. As always they want the Gulp and Spro bucktailing combo.”

Mary Lee the 17 foot white shark that frequently pops up in our local waters is back. She continues to head north up the coast and has pinged six times in the past 24 hours. This afternoon she was off the south end of the Island.

LBI Fishing Report May 30th

Paul Taurgrasso of Barnegat had fun fishing aboard the the Carolyn Ann III this past weekend. He caught ’em up to four pounds.

Here’s a report from the CA3, “Fishing was better Sunday as the current slowed down. Besides better fishing it was a beautiful day on the water. Seas were calm, sun was out and just warm enough. There was nice sea bass up to four pounds. Everyone had plenty of action with lots of short fish.”

Another sea bass report came from Dylan Fisher, “Took a break from stripers and gators to get into sea bass. Lots of life on the wrecks. Had a great time with the crew as we had action on the deck!”

Still blues and bass cruising the surf. Early June is prime time surf fishing here on LBI. We expect the next couple weeks to offer some awesome fishing. Here’s a photo of store staffer Nick D. He put a couple hours on the beach and found some blues. Best of luck to all the students fishing the Battle On The Beach tomorrow!!!

Here’s a recent photo from Captain Ken Nutt aboard the Striper out of Barnegat Light… 40.9 pound bass caught this weekend aboard the Striper by Adam Eastburn.

Some really nice reports of large bluefin tuna. One customer Zach was recently in the shop spooling up his Shimano Stella with hollowcore line and gave us heads up he caught a 450 pounder on the troll about 20-30 miles off central NJ coast just days ago. There were others caught but today we heard the boats fishing the area struck out. We did here of some smaller 30-40 pound bluefin further offshore in the area of the Hudson.

Look who’s back in town…

LBI Fishing Report May 28th

Thank you to all of the men and women who served and put it all on the line for freedom and the America Dream. God Bless America!

Hopefully everyone is enjoying Memorial Day Weekend 2017. Thank you to all of the men and women who served and put it all on the line for freedom and the America Dream. God Bless America!

In the holiday spirit we are posting a pair of Americamo Boardies from Pelagic. Looking for some new threads fro the summer? Stop in and check out our selection of the goods. We’ll keep you cool in the summer heat.

Fluke, Bluefish, Striped Bass, Weakfish and Sea Bass… Soon we’ll add sharks and tuna to the list. Late May and June is prime time Jersey sharking. It’s time to gear up and get out. The bluefish are still around in strong numbers so there’s time left to gather primo mako baits. Positive reports from anglers off land and in the boat catching blues in the bay, inlet and ocean. There’s reports of inshore bluefin tuna in our waters. We just saw a photo of a big one caught as well as a monster mako. Just today we heard about the first local boat who got into the yellowfin tuna. It’s time to get on the search.

Yesterday afternoon there was a fun bite off of the mid-island surf. A number of anglers got into fish on bunker. Both bass teen sizes and blues were caught. Also from the surf… fluke! Beach fluke fishing with Gulp is good. Bucktail with teaser is the ticket. We heard about a couple big fish breakoffs… sounds like the sand tigers might have showed up.

Jake Bowles reported a great day fluke fishing the back bay yesterday. He got 30 shorts, two keepers with the largest 21 inches.

We another great sea bass report. The inshore reefs and wrecks have some nice fish on them. Here is a hump-back Pat D. caught this morning.

Here’s some info from yesterday’s LBI Cup. Some nice stripers were caught pulling spoons.

LBI Cup Striped Bass Tournament Results

55.5 pound First Place – James Gang
50.7 pound Second Place – Ten X
45.0 pound Third Place – Lucky Stripes
9.3 pound Bluefish – Surf Runner

First Place

Second Place

Third Place

Here’s a report from Redman and crew who took second place aboard the Ten X. “We trolled up this one just north of the Seaside Pier on a #4 Green Tony Maja Bunker Spoon. Shortly after a whale popped up and swam under the boat. All four rods trolling rods went off. What a disaster. Fortunately we got a nice one.”

Here’s the weekly fishing report from the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association written by Jim Hutchinson Sr.

Memorial Day weekend is here, and the boats of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association are in pursuit of striped bass, bluefish, and the newly opened season for summer flounder. It appears the weather will be decent for some serious angling.

Captain Ray Lopez of “Miss Liane Sportfishing” along with mate Max Goldman had the Brian Lahullier party from Toms River out front for a taste of the spring striper run, and bass weighing 35 and 42.1 pounds were boxed after busting bunker spoons in 65-feet of water off the Ferris wheel at Seaside. On another day with a very sporty scene in the ocean, it was a troll with Clarke spoons with the Harrison charter from Bordentown, and eight good size blues came over the gunwales.

Capt. Lindsay Fuller on the “June Bug” reports that he and his crew brought the boat north from Wanchese, NC, near Oregon Inlet, where she spent much of the winter getting some needed repairs done along with some upgrades. While they did not fish on the way north, they did keep track of what they saw on their new onboard top-of-the-line Garmin electronics suite. Captain Lindsay was able to identify bait pods as deep as 15,000 feet deep with attacking game fish and saw sizable schools of Striped Bass as they came north. The new electronics allow the crew to pre-search various areas for inshore species as fluke, sea bass, Tog, bonita, etc., are all clearly seen, and the structure in which they are living was clearly tracked.

The 2017 Jr. Mate schedule is now posted on the BHCFA’s web site. As in other years most of the sessions are hands on. Some changes in the curriculum have been made in response to requests from the mates and some of the captains. Classes will start on Thursday, June 22, with registration and an overview of the fisheries, and work on knot tying. Any youngsters 13 and older who would like to become involved in the Junior Mate’s Program can find information and registration materials on the BHCFA website.

Information on the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association can be found at www.BHCFA.net.

LBI Fishing Report May 27th

Fishing Long Beach Island NJ is a great way to enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend. The local waters have variety of opportunities from the beach or boat; summer flounder – fluke, striped bass, Bluefish, sea bass among others!!!

With the LBI Cup Tournament and Holiday weekend combo, lots of boats were on the water today searching for classy striped bass. Unfortunately the reports were dismal. Anglers fishing out of Barnegat Inlet who ran as far north as Manasquan and as far south as Atlantic City had nothing to show for their efforts. We heard of a couple nice bass trolled off of LBI and IBSP but nothing to get excited about. There were a handful of bass, some in the 50 pound class which took the cake in the tournament. We’ll post the results as soon as we get them.

So far this spring’s local snag and drop as well as troll bite is nothing like what we’ve seen in prior years. Could it be the reduction fleet pounding the bait in our area the past month??? It’s very possible. When the local gill netters are struggling to find schools of bait, there’s something up. Some have written it off but like many our fingers are crossed. Maybe it will turn on to close out May with a bang. Historically early and mid June offer great striped bass fishing so we have some time. Things might happen.

There’s nice bass here cruising the waters of Long Beach Island, just not as active or in the number we all wish for. Expect the activity to turn on as we creep out of this new moon phase. As always the case around the late May moon, recently some really nice fish were caught by surf anglers. Obviously the largest was Art Eromenok’s trophy 57.4 pound striped bass (on 5/23). We believe this to be the largest striped bass we’ve weighed in from a land based “surf” angler. A close second was Ray Sullivans’s 56.7 pound surf tournament winning bass in 2010. Then Jim Haines’ 55-3 from the mid nineties which is mounted and on display above the bunker cooler. Somewhere in the shop’s top ten falls John Kelly’s 55 pound from 1964 which is known to be the shop’s first surf bass in the Fish Head’s Fifty Pound Club. Over the years we’ve had a number of fish beautiful striped bass, a handful over 60 but only from the boat. None from the surf that we are aware of. Not sure if the LBI surf ever offered up a 60 pound surf bass. Anyone know of one???

Mike Burn weighed in this 28.46 pound bass earlier today. He caught it on the mid-island surf last night chunking bunker.

Gary from Farias sent in this photo of his father in law, Rich Hall. He got this bass of the surf recently fishing bunker.

Armando from Manahawkin stopped by the shop this afternoon with a fat 21″ fluke. He reported fishing off of the mid-island bayside, “I caught the fluke on a bunker chunk as well as some blues. There were other blues and fluke caught too.” Here’s a photo of Amanda from Hopewell Junction, NY with a nice summer flounder she caught fishing near Armando. Amanda shifted gears and put some time in on the surf and got this bluefish today too.

John Delsordo got a nice 24″ fluke fishing the bay today.

“Insane fishing with Captain Mark of Laura Sportfishing!” Matt Polito reported, “The sea bass fishing was great today. We started out slamming the blues in the Inlet. Every cast they were hammering lures. We tried to find some stripers but no luck. We then headed out to the sea bass grounds and got into them good! In less than an hour we had our boat limit.”

Blake and I headed out for a late morning search. We wanted to find some bass but the intel wasn’t promising. We decided to stay in the inlet and made for a quick fun session. We found gators on the feed absolutely crushing plugs. Here’s one of many yellow eyed monsters!

Fishing Evolved! No one on the planet pursues the art and science of catching fish like Berkley. From offering the world’s best braided and monofilament fishing lines to the revolutionary Gulp! baits, Berkley Fishing is at the top of their game. This is a must see behind the scene video from their Spirit Lake Iowa facility.

Fluke and blues on the LBI surf

Four year old Addie Wanamaker caught her first bluefish this morning.

Here’s a photo of one blue John P recently caught off the surf.

Norm from Beach Haven stopped in the shop yesterday evening and picked up two new Shimano surf reels. He stopped back in today and reported a good morning, “Eight blues from 6:30 to 8:30 am on bunker.”

Scott B from Mount Laurel caught 14 shorts and one keeper fluke off of the surf opening day (yesterday). Today he went back and had even better action… 30 shorts and one keeper. The one keeper was a really good one. It went 27″ 7.46 pounds. Now that is a real deal fluke for the surf.

Ed B from Pemberton got 12 shorts, no keepers. All of the action was on the dropping tide with Gulp!

Best of luck to all the anglers fishing the LBI Cup tomorrow.

For the offshore guys… our Baitmaster Ballyhoo delivery arrived this past week. We’ve got premium baits in stock.

Season’s First Fluke

Today is opening day for NJ’s Fluke Season. We got some awesome reports. The theme is bucktailing the bay with Gulp.
Gulp! 4″ Swimming Mullet

Bill Figley and friends were out in the bay today. The three limited out and reported all nice fish.

Greg Sonday caught 15 fluke today bucktailing in the bay. The chartreuse bucktail was the hot lure. Greg’s largest was 23 inches.

Sea Bass opens May 26th with the bag limit 10 fish at 12.5″

We just got in a nice delivery of fresh primo bunkers.

LBI Fishing Report May 24th

This stretch of fishing weather continues. The onshore winds are keeping surf anglers stoked and boat anglers on the fence. Some boat guys are getting out but it isn’t the blue bird days that the majority look for. When the fish are here you gotta go!

Chris Masino got a nice bass off of the surf last night.

Still lots of bluefish in the area; bay, inlet and surf.

Reports the surf is weedy in spots today. There’s some heavy turn action. Birds are picking. Dave Werner reported one bluefish.

Kevin Lorenz reported, “Finally got away from the blues!”

57.4 Pound Bass Caught

Art of Ship Bottom fished the mid-island surf late this afternoon. His first bait got taken by a trophy striped bass.

Art said, “I hit the surf not far from my house. There was a good section of water with a nice rip. I casted out my first bait and put it right in the zone. Minutes later I was hooked up. After a nice long battle both the fish and I were beat.” Art brought the bass over to the shop and checked it in for a weight. It weighed it in, 57.4 pounds 51.75″ length with a 30″ girth. A fish of a lifetime and one of the largest ever weighed in at the shop.

Through out the day today we got other positive reports from the surf. Both bass and blues on bunker. One angler reported getting some fish on metal off the surf. It’s late May and the new moon is upon us. The big bass are here! It’s time to go fish!!!

LBI Fishing Report May 23rd

The Fishing Musician Rick W of Ship Bottom just stopped by with a 35″ striped bass. Rick got it late morning fishing the mid-island surf. It went for a bunker chunk. Rick said, “No Grass!” That’s awesome news because the past couple of tides have been grassed out.

Recently store staffer Nick D found some blues off the surf on both bait and lures. Others in the shop reported the same.

Drew Knapp reported his after work session yesterday went exactly according to plan! “Three blues for dinner and shark bait.”

Chet Kosarek sharred this report, “Fished the rocks at Barnegat Inlet Saturday. Saw one small blue caught on a white bucktail. Sunday was weedy. Caught nothing and saw nothing. There were a bunch of boats fishing boats by the dredge spoil islands behind Barnegat Inlet. No one seemed to be catching although the fish finder marked some fish.”
White Bucktails Here!

The traffic lights are on! Drive with caution and stay alert.

The LBI Cup hosted by the Beach Haven Marlin Tuna Club is Saturday May 27th. For more details go to www.LBICUP.com

The Striper Shootout hosted by High Point Vol Fire Co is Saturday June 10th Go to www.HPVFC.com for more details