A Long Beach Island native with life long experience fishing and navigating the local waters, Greg is a distinguished Master Captain (the highest qualified operator license), holding a US Coast Guard Masters 50T Near Coastal License with Towing Endorsement. Raised in and now managing his family's bait and tackle business, Fishermans Headquarters (Since 1962, The Saltwater Fishing Bait & Tackle Experts) Greg is daily immersed in fishing. He is the Chief Contributor of FishingLBI.com (Long Beach Island's best fishing report blog) as well as the Admin for the shop's social media pages (on Instagram and Facebook). Be sure to follow!
Fall fishing continued strong this week with solid reports coming from both the beach and boat. Finally reports from the mid-island and south ends of LBI have started popping. As we enter into December mild temperatures prevail all the way into next weekend. Now’s the time to get in on the great late fall fishing on Long Beach Island. Here’s the LBI Fishing Report for Friday December 3, 2021.
LBI Surf Fishing Report
Abundant striped bass action on LBI this week had anglers catching on the surf with bait and lures. If fishing bait, bunker and clams would be great choices however you’ll need to pick through the doggies.
Fishing lures is highly suggested. Even die hard bait anglers have made the switch and many have reported fun action on the numerous pop up bass blitzes this week.
Best lures choices would be anything that matches a peanut bunker. For the past week plus, peanut bunker rom 3-6″ have been the main forage which striped bass in the area are keyed in on. Always match the hatch! Think bucktails, rubber swim shads, Yo-zuri Mag Darter, Twitch Bait, Pencil & Popper. They have all been good to me!
I’ve also seen some small clouds of micro bait around so teasers could be effective but aren’t suggested because they cut down your casting distance. Usually I fish teasers and depend on them when small slender sand eels are present. Right now that is not the case.
As far as timing, the afternoon incoming tide push into sunset has offered good success. But some mornings have produced too. There’s not tell when the next blitz will hit the beach so go when you can and hopefully you’ll connect!
Recent Weigh Ins At Fish Heads
12/3/21 -Tyler Conrad 28.5″ bass weighed in at 7.4 pounds.12/1/21 – Kevin Laverty 31.25″ bass weighed in at 11.40 pounds
Click HERE for details on other weighs or the LBI Surf Fishing Classic
The northern Ocean County waters have been hot for five days plus. Finally this blitz fishing arrived to the shores of Long Beach Island. Yesterday 11/29/21 was a great day for surfcasters on LBI. Fortunately again today surf anglers got into flurries of bass blitzing. Late fall fishing offers some of the best opportunities for surfcasters on the beach of LBI. Let’s go fishing!
From the wicked westerlies (Monday and Friday) to the full moon eclipse early Friday morning, this past week has offered an interesting string of event and some good fishing all along the way. Right now we are in the heart of the fall fishing season on LBI. Let’s go fishing and enjoy time on the water before winter sets in. Here’s the Long Beach Island Fishing Report Update for Sunday November 21, 2021.
Tog Fishing Report
Tog fishing opened up from one to five fish on November 16th. So far solid reports have came in from anglers fishing the wrecks and reef sites. Also the Barnegat Inlet Jetty continues to produce good fishing.
James Walsh sent in this photo and said, “Thanks for the green crabs!” On Saturday he caught his limit on the jetty.
Magictail Tog Jigs changed the game and they keep on providing for so many anglers. Providing much more fun (than rig style bottom fishing) and more and bigger fish. Yesterday the boys from Magictail were out and reported good fishing. Peter boated this 11# tog with aboard’s Zach’s boat. They caught a four man limit.
Striped Bass Fishing Report
Reports right now can range from poor to great all depending on who you talk to, the waters they focus and the techniques they employ. Without question there’s a very strong range of size class in the Central Jersey waters from unders to slots (28 to <38″) as well as overs (38″+). Land based and boat anglers are catching striped bass in the bay, inlet and surf.
LBI Surf Fishing
The LBI surf is spotty. A few anglers are catching but no spectacular reports fired up this week. We have our fingers crossed that this week and next week will shine. In regards to quantity of striped bass, usually these two weeks are the best dates for Long Beach Island surf casters.
Regular customer Dave Glassberg from the Tackle Tank shared a video report which was added to the most recent video report post (link above). He caught a nice striped bass off the Ship Bottom surf this weekend chunking fresh Fish Heads bunker. Most anglers fishing bunker chunks are reporting pesty dogfish. There’s no delaying they are running rampant and a major nuisance. Fish through them and hopefully you’ll be rewarded.
Anglers fishing lures are staying away from the dogs. They are also finding some striped bass. Chris Masino caught a bass today fishing a Kettle Creek soft bait paddle-tail on a lead head. A few other striped bass were reported off the surf on lures.
This weekend we had one weigh in for the LBI Surf FIshing Classic. Nick DeGennaro caught and entered a striped bass that weighed in at 18.02 pounds.
Striped Bass Action In The Boat
Some anglers are finding fun fishing while others are struggling. The reports along the inshore waters of LBI have yet to really fire up. But we did hear of a couple. One big bass reported by Tom Ryan, “I caught this bad boy a few das ago off of LBI.”
Another report came from Dante of Magictails. He found a good body of fish on Wednesday afternoon just off the northern beaches of LBI. Doubled up on a tandem Magictail Mojo rig.
Most of the action for me as well as a lot of other boats has been from Barnegat Inlet north. Some days way up the beach. In the past week 5-7 days I’ve found good fishing from the Inlet’s north pocket (Monday 11/15 was epic) up to Seaside (Wednesday had a solid bite there) and some days the upper reaches of Ocean County (Saturday).
Quality striped bass had bunker pinned in the hard west wind on Monday 11/15. Fortunately the wind kept most at the dock and it was only me and the Hi Flier with Captain Nick in on the action for the first couple hours. Days like these make hunting all fall, day in and day out worth it! Take a look at the Hi Flier’s recent post for some photos of Nick, Colbi and Frezza
As far as it seems that the troll bite was hampered on the days around the full moon. We are expecting the action to open up as we finish off the month strong.
We heard of a couple blues this past week. Nate Caloiaro caught one. Also heard of a few others that were caught trolling umbrella rigs on the hunt for striped bass.
BHMTC LBI Cup
Congrats to Captain Mike Villanova and the crew aboard the No Limit! They won 1st place overall, 1st and 2nd place striper calcuttas and top female angler. Captain Mike reported, “Awesome day on the waters with great friends! It was a slow morning but we ended up finding the right bites, going 4/5 on bass up to 35 inches.”
The first eleven days of November have offered beach and boat anglers good to epic fishing. Some locations and times were truly special. Hopefully you got in on the fun and made memories. If not there’s still time to get in the game! But don’t procrastinate! Here’s a quick fishing report for the the Long Beach Island area on Thursday November 11th.
Huge thanks and honor to all of the Veterans who served this great country and defend our freedom. Thank you for your service!
LBI Surf Fishing Report
The LBI surf is not offering epic blitz fishing however anglers are getting out and finding fish. And some really good ones at that! It’s awesome to hear customers in the shop talking about great recent fishing experiences.
Greg Sadowski from Doylestown and his buddy Ernie Ernst were in the shop today and had an EPIC report! Greg shared, “Today at about 4pm Ernie and I caught twin 43″ bass about 15 minutes apart. Both on small fresh bunker chunks placed in the trough.” They were only fishing five ounces of lead. Due to conditions, the short game with small baits was the only option. “I’ve been shopping at your store for 20+ years. It’s always my first stop when coming onto the Island.” Greg said, “I’ve put in a lot of time fishing. This is my biggest ever off the beach. I enjoy your reports! Thank You!!!”
Here’s Greg (left) and Ernie (right) with their double striped bass catch off the Long Beach Island surf.
Another big fish from the beach today came in from Mike Brophy. We caught a large and beautiful striped bass off the LBI surf in the late morning hours around slack tide. Big congrats Mike on your first surf side striper. A photo of this catch os included in the video forecast shown above.
Marc Diaz caught this bass off the LBI surf at about 2pm on fresh Fish Heads Bunker.
Last night (Wednesday) Mike Cline caught four bass up to 41″ off the beach. He was chunking bunker around the top of the tide.
Central NJ Striped Bass Fishing
Striped Bass Fishing in the boat continues on as strong as it’s been. There’s really no need to dive into details. Daily boats are getting out of Barnegat inlet and enjoying great fishing utilizing their favorite methods; live bait fishing, trolling, jigging and casting. We haven’t heard any direct reports from the south end out front.
A lot of great fishing has gone down this past week and good fishing continues with quality from the beach and boat. We are smack dab in the middle of prime time fall fishing here on the central Jersey coast. Find a weather window or fish in the thick of it. It’s game time!
Here’s an updated fishing report video I posted yesterday Sunday November 7, 2021.
While I was away Fish Heads ambassador Swagmattic was kind enough to share a video report update on the the 4th.
Fall fishing on Long Beach Island is in full swing with this weeks arrival of the first wave of migrating striped bass. The ocean bite has been on fire the past couple days with mostly over slot sized stripers. The big bass are feeding heavily on bunker pods. There are still a good number of smaller fish on the bayside and we should see the quality there increase this week as well. Surf fishing is just starting to heat up as these larger bass are being caught off the beaches as well. Blackfish season opens 11/16 with a 5 fish bag limit. Seabass, Porgy, False Albacore are all still very much in play. Get off the couch and get out and FISH!!
Happy Halloween! Here at the end of the month we have reached another major stage of fall fishing here on the centers Jersey Coast. The weather patters are shifting with more consistent stormy weather and westerlies in between. The air and water temperatures are trending down and the days are getting shorter. We are RIGHT NOW entering prime time striped bass fishing. The first week of November is a great time to be fishing Long Beach Island from the beach, bay and/or boat. Quality striped bass first arrived in our waters last week and over the recent days more and more are being caught. Expect this trend to continue as this week looks promising! Anglers are catching using all of three proven classic approaches; live bait fishing, chunking, trolling, jigging and popping. Pick your favorite and get salty!
We had a nice weekend on LBI and heard lot of great reports from both land based and boat anglers. Some quality striped bass showed adding some new spice to the already great spread. But the next couple days will be challenging with an active and gnarly weather pattern.
Are you ready for the fall run? If not now’s the time to prepare for the best four weeks of the fall. Every year I say it and will do it again… Halloween to Thanksgiving is the best time to be fishing LBI and the central Jersey Coast for quality striped bass.
Right now the fishing in town goes to tautog. Land based anglers are catching very good numbers but keepers are challenging. Bait up with live green crabs and go! Boat anglers are also doing well with tog on the inshore wrecks too. I had return clients Matt and Joe aboard on Saturday. We caught out four fish limit in the first 15 minutes and had drop and reel fishing for the whole trip.
Here’s Howard with a quality tog!
On Thursday Howard Clark weighed in a big 10.9 pound tog. He caught it fishing an inshore wreck using the Magictail Tog Jigs baited with green crabs.
Striped Bass Fishing
As mentioned in the first paragraph, quality striped bass showed this weekend! Not just one unicorn and no these aren’t Raritan Bay reports. There were a handful a big striped bass caught north of Barnegat Inlet this weekend in the waters of Ocean County!
Fish Head’s alumni Dan D. got a good one trolling.
Another report came in from Illesor Retep, “My buddy and I were in the shop last week. We picked up some bunker spoons and mojos. Your team is extremely knowledgeable, very courtesy and helpful. They were great and deserve credit! I was out Saturday. Bunker was stacked up and at one point a thresher was breaking water. No marks so we trolled to cover ground. Caught and released this big bass (photo below). Another boat fishing nearby picked up a 48″ bass on a green spoon too.”
LBI Surf Fishing Report
On the surf there’s still kings and small blues being caught. Also skates and dog fish are present which the latter tend to show up in full force right around Halloween each year. A couple striped bass were caught so far this fall from the sud but so far they have been few and far between.
Seventeen days into the LBI 67th Annual LBI Surf Fishing Classic surf fishing tournament it is all kingfish on the board. No bass or blues yet. They may change soon.
We’ve got unruly conditions on the beaches of LBI today Monday October 11, 2021. It’s very windy (42mph gusts this morning) and the surf is rough. The Station 44091 Barnegat Ocean Buoy was at 10-12 feet today. The coastal flood advisor is still in effect and even though the area has had little rain there’s water in streets. The persistent onshore winds from this long living low pressure system have the waters stacked up. Slowly the system will let loose and pull out. But lingering easterly swell will be in the water this week.
This past weekend anglers fished the sheltered bayside area and caught fish; blowfish, tog, blues, weakfish and striped bass. There were a few that even battled the rough surf and caught a couple fish. Case and point, Ted Schmid’s and Derek Mason’s kingfish weigh-ins for the LBI Surf Fishing Classic (both on bloodworm). Long story short, there’s fishing opportunities to take advantage right now and it’s only getting better as we progress into prime time fall fishing!
Later this week the weather looks beautiful with unseasonably warm temps. Let’s get out, go fishing and enjoy every bit of it!
From tog, triggers, sea bass and sheepshead to bluefish, striped bass, albies, kingfish, blowfish and weakfish there’s a lot of options for angler fishing the waters of Long Beach Island. The unseasonable warm water and air offer a comfortable feel to the great early fall fishing.
Today October 8th, NJ Black Sea Bass fishery opened up to 10 fish at 12.5″ adding another great species to target.
Every day more bass reports from the bay, inlet and surf. He’s one Sloane caught last night aboard Fish Head Charters.
We also heard of a nice striped bass caught off the surf today. Speaking of the surf…
The 67th LBI Surf FIshing Classic kicks off tomorrow morning. Sign up now! It’s kind of late for a notice now but the annual opening day surf fishing seminar is at 9am at the Ship Bottom Firehouse. See you there! Click here for more info on the surf fishing tournament.
Here’s a recent fishing report video I posted yesterday…
Lots of bait around… mullet, bunker, spearing, bay anchovies, butterfish, SQUID and much more! Last night I caught a bucket full with Sloane and Swag. Lots of fun and it will be a great feast tomorrow!
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