Chris Masino stopped in the shop this afternoon and reported picking some bass off the south end surf today. He reported there’s bass on the beach but most are undersized. He mentioned another anglers got a nice keeper.
George Sowney I got this beautiful girl last night off the surf. It was 38″ and in the mid 20 pound class.
Chris O’Neil was out on the water yesterday. Here’s his report, “Crazy day of fishing! Three guys and we were limited out in two hours. Three fish were really nice fish in the mid 40” range. All trolling in 50-55′ of water off of LBI. All white spoons and mojos.
Today, I had a fun morning on the troll working the grounds. Got a late start but managed to find fish in the same area I’ve been fishing for the past week plus. Only a handful of other boats and it seemed most were picking fish. Nothing like the red hot bite as of late but lots of fish still around.
Barnegat Fishing Flea Market
This Saturday December 9th (9am to 1pm) is the 9th Annual Fisherman’s Flea Market hosted by the Barnegat High School Fishing Club. Location is the Barnegat High School at 180 Bengal Blvd, Barnegat, NJ 08005. Admission is $4 per person (kids under 12 are free) and all proceeds help supports the High School Fishing Club. There will be tons of deals on all sorts of fishing tackle. A couple of the guys from Fish Head will have a table with some awesome deals. Be sure to stop by and say hi!
What an incredible Fall run of stripers we are having. 12 to 20 pound fish are common. That is not the norm for this time of year. We do have to troll to catch them. Jigging and casting has not been productive, though, that can change any minute. No real bird play lately but I always have the jigging and casting rods on board for when it’s time. For now, you just troll Mojos and bunker spoons over readings at about 3 to 3.5 knots and the rods go off. We are doing great with big 20 ounce single MagicTail Mojos and #4 Tony Maja bunker spoons. White is working the best on both lures, to the point where I am dragging four white lures in a four rod spread. Wireline on the bunker spoons and braid on the Mojos. We’re using our smaller wireline rods that only have 150 feet of wire on them instead of 300 feet. The rod and reel is a lot smaller, too, so you don’t get worn out by the gear and you enjoy the fight more. That 150 feet of wire is putting the lure right in the hot zone. These short rods with less wire were custom made for a technique we employ this time of year known as jigging or bucktailing. We tie on a 2 or 3 oz. bucktail with a strip of pork rind (yes, we have some) and you hold the rod and sweep it while we slow troll. Very effective on the size class fish we have right now and it is a train wreck of a hit.
The next 5 days look great for this fishery. The air temps are dropping but the predominant wind direction is all W/NW which makes for a really comfortable ocean to fish in.
Sailing Open Boat or available for Charter, tomorrow, Thursday Dec. 7 and Friday, Dec. 8
9:30 AM to 4:30 PM and Sat, Sun, and Mon, Dec 9, 10, and 11, 6 AM to 1 PM. $175 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared. You can call right up until go time for a spot.
Pics:
Capt. Dave DeGennaro got to jump on the rod for one Monday that hit a white MagicTail Mojo.
The 2017 Fall Striped Bass season continues to reward anglers plying our local waters with sizes that range from “Bonus” [ 24-27.999] to 28″+ and “overs” or aka “Trophy” with some days favoring one or the other . When the planets align we are mixing it up between all size categories for our anglers aboard the Reel Fantasea.
Techniques have been trolling a mix of mojo’s [ volume of “smaller” 12lbs – 35lbs bass] and Tony Maja Custom spoons with a heavy leaning toward the spoons for the classier size cows! Live bait and artificials have also scored solid numbers of bass as well!
I have This Friday [ Dec 8th] morning [ 8am- 12pm] and afternoon [ [1pm-5pm] and Sunday [8am-12pm] [ Dec 10th] morning available .
Kenny Updegrave out today fishing with his uncle. Get caught five striped bass up to 25 pounds trolling off of northern LBI in 40′ of water. They caught on both Magic Tail Mojos and bunker spoons.
Surf Fishing Report
“The surf has been good this past week. Scale down your hooks and baits to get hooked,” Merle Van Liere was in the shop today and shared he’s finding fish on the beaches of LBI. “I got three yesterday. Another anglers fishing close by caught five.” Merle mentioned both clams and bunker are catching but the bait size is important! They are little fish so you have to rig up appropriately. With that said there are still some high teens and twenty pound class fish around so don’t scale down too light!
Lots of trailers flying around this weekend. I made a mistake last year and couldn’t stop thinking about missing the last hurrah all winter long. Colder temperatures are in the outlook but there’s still LOTS of fishing left in the tank! The fish are stretched out all along with Jersey Coast with the largest fish found in the state’s southern waters. Locally LBI’s waters has a great mix of size ranging from teens to 30 class plus. I’m looking forward to late prime season fishing! Are you?
Here’s the Long Beach Island weekend fishing report recap…
Everyone must have enjoyed this great weekend of weather on the water fishing with mild temps. Why? Because the entire fishing community and then some were pounding the grounds! 99% of the boats left in the water were fishing and the stripers were chewing!
This weekend the striped bass put out! Both Saturday and Sunday were very very good especially in the mornings and late afternoons but nothing like Friday!!! Out fishing it’s awesome to see the majority of boats catching… Tight lines and bent rods all around!
With full on fire fishing, I’ve been on the waters as much as possible (daily). Friday I was on the water with Chris Colesante for an all out bonanza! (see previous report, 12/1/17). Saturday I had Matt Polito from Philadelphia in on a good morning trip. We had a blast busting bass on bunker spoons. They out produced everything in our spread. Today (Sunday) John and Dave from Western Ne York were aboard. It was the first time in about 3-4 days that we had the active whales again. We couldn’t muster up a snag or lure bite so we got on the troll and quickly started shedding layers. The non stop meyham troll bite lasted for about 1.5-2 hours and then got shut down, flat out over run by boat traffic. It was awesome working the areas we previously had fish (Friday and Saturday) with literally no boats around for well over an hour. We assumed the fleet to our north and fleet to our south were catching too but we weren’t leaving!
Here’s Dave holding one of our bigger bass from Sunday’s catch. This fish was over 30 pounds on the yoga grip and was successfully released to grow up to one day be a 50+ pound bass.
Store staffer Dave has been on the water striped bass fishing every chance he gets. Recently he’s been on the meat! He got into the bass yesterday fishing off of northern LBI in 50′ of water pulling Magic Tail Mojos and plugs. He said, “Sunday was good. Fun day but a little slower. Lots of boats.”
Bill Bassant got five today up to 30 pounds trolling off LBI.
Dylan Fisher reported, “Finished just like we started. Epic fishing this morning on the Whaler! Now, both boats are out. Hate this time of year, but I need to star resting, prepping and training for next year.”
Here’s Dylan with his last bass for the 2017 fall run.
Jeff Warford reported a great action packed weekend bass fishing. Saturday he out produced most with double digit +++ catches, “Thanks Magic Tail for the best Mojos Trolling Lures out there!”
SURF
This week is the LBI Surf Fishing Classic’s final stretch, ending December 10th. Fish were caught this past weekend off the surf on both Saturday and Sunday. The tournament had five bass checked in on Sunday and three Saturday. Finally! It’s nice to see some activity off the surf.
Here’s Dylan O’Connell with a nice eating surf caught bass.
Greg O’Connell reported today, “Quality time spent with my kids on the beaches of LBI this afternoon and evening. Dylan caught the dinner fish (7.7#) and weighed it in for the LBI Surf Fishing Classic. It was his first ever weigh-in and “red” bass button!” Big High Five!!!
Jason Hoch got a 14.74 pound bass off the mid-island surf this evening on bunker. Rob Swift starred he released a a 26″ bass off the mid-island surf on bunker. Melicca Fillman of Beach Haven West got a 8.22# bass off the mid-island surf on bunker. Gary Grippaldi of Manahawkin caught a 10.24# bass on a ducktail fishing the Island’s south end surf. Merle Van Liere weighed in a 10# bass on clam fishing North Beach yesterday at 4:30pm.
Captain Walter and crew aboard the “Going In Deep” brought a monster sword in from the deep. Look like the November to Remember that was full of off the charts sword fishing is flooding into December. Some went offshore to take advantage of the calm ocean. Some caught bigeye tuna and tilefish.
Jim Kuhl reported, “No tuna but a box full of tiles!”
Word on the street… some ghosts (bluefin tuna) are here inshore.
The awesome tog fishing reports continue from boat anglers while the land based fishing slows. Still good numbers but less keepers. The inlet is stacked with small ones but from what we have been told the larger fish are not as abundant as they were a few weeks ago. From the reports it’s safe to say the inshore structure is loaded!!! Social media is flooded with great photos and all anglers in the shop getting tog tackle (especially Magic Tail Tog Jigs!!!) are raving on the fishery. Rob Vallone has been putting in a lot of time and he is Dailed in on the jig. Numerous trips with limits and some quality ones in the mix. Another angler stopped in the shop and said that Rob lost a monster right next to him, “I’ve never seen a tog thump and fight with that amount of power before. “
The lights out fishing has continued into December. Yesterday (12/2) I got out with friends and had great troll bite all morning long off of the island with fish into the mid 30 pound range. There were also fish caught on both the snag and drop and jigging. Today (12/3) I went out with my dad and brother mid morning looking for bluefin off of island beach state park as they have been around on the move. We did not see any with a warmer water temp and lack of bait but we did find the mother load of bass and bird plays. There are tons of fish well to the north of us as well. Now is not the time to pull your boat! Back at it in the morning, tight lines.
I thought it could not get better than yesterday and this past week. BUT today it did. A large striped bass bio mass is staged up in the LBI waters and has this weekend set for great late fall fishing.
The bass are stacked up!
Fishing was off the charts today! Quality bass just piling on the hooks. Some of the best fishing I’ve experienced bass fishing out of Barnegat Inlet.
Here’s Chris from Surf City with a pig that went for a bucktail tipped with a Fat Cow Jig Strip this morning. Chris was out fishing today with me aboard the Fish Head. We had a ton of fun.
This bass fell for a bucktail tipped with a Fat Cow Jig Strip.
Steve Warren was in yesterday preparing for fishing today. He sent in this report, “Thanks for your help! Caught non-stop until I stopped when seas kicked up around noon. Never went more than a couple minutes without a fish. Nothing over 25 nothing under 15.”
Dave Sutter sent in this message, ” I was out off of Harvey Cedars late afternoon yesterday trying to get on some fish and was surprised to see George Poveromo, on his boat the Mark IV, fishing in the same group of boats I was in. Just proves that we have a world class fishery right in our back yards! (as if we don’t already know). Lets fish responsibly and hopefully we can keep it that way!”
Magic Tail Mojos Outproducing All
LBI Surf Fishing Report Update
With the large population of striped bass in our local waters, I’m shocked at how few are being caught on the beach. Recently there’s been a small uptick
in the surf activity. Expect this to imporve more and hopefully offer good fishing this weekend and the upcoming week to close out the surf fishing tournament on a strong note. Everyone is happy we added the 9th week this year!!! There were three fish entered into the surf derby today. For LBI Classic weigh in data check out the live results page at www.LBIFT.com
As stated in the previous post by the High Flier’s Captain David, “This is possibly the best fall striped troll I have ever seen.” I agree! I’m one of the last anglers to troll so that isn’t saying much but it really has been awesome. The morning and afternoon troll is very consistent. Just about everyday, every boat is limiting out.
The striped bass are stacked up like cord wood!
The bio mass of fish stretched out in our local waters right now is great to see and very promising! It’s also great there’s strong reports from up the coast and in New York waters. Here’s a report from a Captree’s Laura Lee Fleet… Tuesday 11/28/17 – Striped bass blitz this morning!!! Today at 7am we caught 2134 striped bass keeping 34 and two bluefish. The DEC was onboard counting them.” That’s awesome fishing!!!! And they are heading down this way. Can we really have more fish than what’s already here?
Here’s a striped bass that fell for a big wood troller.
Today (Thursday) I had a blast fishing in the boat with Blake. It started off slow but got into ’em! Thanks to Max for putting us in the right area. The fish were stacked up off northern LBI in 50′ of water. More on some other recent fishing Blake and I did below.
Here’s Max with one of many juicy ones today.
Tom Cavanaugh fished recently out of the south end of the LBI he reported good fishing with bass up to 47″ on the troll!
“Yesterday (Tuesday) I had the pleasure to fish with the Fish Heads Crew aboard Captain Jeff Warford’s Tightlines. We headed out early to look for ghosts (bluefin tuna) but saw nothing, so we headed to the blackfish grounds. A few boats were on the spots we wanted to hit so we poked around. We caught fish at every spot, but it was much slower than it has been. The fish were much smaller too. Even though, we still had fun catching on Magic Tail Tog Jigs baited up with live green crab. We boxed 6 fat keepers up to 5 pounds and had too many throwback to count.
On the way in we came across some life. Gannets were roaming and a couple free falling. Once a whale breached and the sounder came alive with bait. Then the mother load of bass lit up the screen. We quickly deployed the striped bass trolling spread and instantly we were doubled up. The Magic Tail Mojos were unstoppable! I can’t lie, Mojo fishing is absolute madness. It’s insane how well they produce. Yesterday was my first time ever trolling my Magic Tail Mojo lures. I was impressed!!! Guys we have been waiting all year for the fish to show. Now’s the time!!! We have at least another 2-3 weeks of good fishing. Stop in Fisherman’s Headquarters and load up! Get some tog jigs, Mojos and get into the fun!” ~ Dante at Magic Tail Lures.
Captain Jeff Warford on the Tighlines (27′ World Cat) is running an open boat charter, tomorrow (Friday) $150 an anglers. Need 2 to sail. Weather look great and the fish are on the chew! Call Jeff at 609.377.9136
With all of the striped bass stretched out along IBSP and LBI a couple have hit the beach. Not in the numbers we would all like to see but there are some bass being caught off the surf. Yesterday Pat P got a 21.94 pound bass off the Harvey Cedars surf on bunker. Today Ralph V got a 7.24 pound bass off the Surf City surf on bunker. There’s still some time left in the LBI Surf Fishing Classic. Ending December 10th.
Go fishing! That’s the report. This is possibly the best Fall Striper troll I have ever seen. 15 to 35 pound fish are on the feed. This is predominantly a troll bite anywhere from the Bathing Beach to Lavalette. White Mojos and Maja bunker spoons are working the best for us. There are tons of bunker to snag, sometimes 30 to 40 feet thick readings of bunker on the fish finder but the snag and drop is not productive. There are a good amount of birds working and hitting the water yet casting and jigging are not resulting in hookups either. The good news is that the troll bite is insane with quality size fish. Most of our action is on the braid rods with Mojos which is a lot of fun without the wireline involved. When we do use wire, it’s our shorter rods with only 150 feet of wire instead of the bigger rods with 300 feet. We tie a big bucktail on tipped with pork rind and have a guy on each side of the boat jig these while we slow troll. It works really well and is a train wreck of a hit when you hook up! The last week right up until today has been a quantity of quality fish every trip.
Open Boat or Charter Wed thru Fri, Nov 29, 30, and Dec 1, departing at 10 AM, returning around 4:30 PM.
Sat, Dec 2, departing at 6AM, returning around 1 PM. $175 person, 4 people max on Open Boats, all fish are shared.
Attached pics:
JPEG 0983: Dave Glassberg of PA and Hi Flier first mate Capt Nick DeGennaro holding up Dave’s 35 pound Striper trolled on a Mojo.
JPEG 1005: Carlos Hopkins of PA with a 30 lb bass he caught on a big white Mojo.
Solid Striped Bass Fishing continues for most trips!!! Some days we turn the corner and we are locked up with solid “under’s” [28″ – to – ?] , some days we find our selves picking through endless amounts of bonus – [ 24″ – 27.9999″] and some days we find ourselves and our drags straining under the pressure of 43″+ striped bass “steaming South” !! What any one day holds adds to the excitement of what the day will allow us to harvest.
All the action has been almost completely striped bass with just a smattering of big slammer blues making the mix on a very rare occasion.
I have this Friday afternoon 1pm – 5pm available for those interested in jumping aboard and join in the fun! Call only for details -, 609-290-1217
609-494-5739
