Fisherman's Headquarters

LBI Fishing Report Update For September 23, 2017

We welcome FALL with open arms and high hopes. As of 4pm yesterday (Friday) it’s officially fall, which means on thing for anglers… It’s fishing season!!!

It’s crazy how long Jose has meandered in the western Atlantic. It continues to linger south east of Montauk. We have a unique weather situation as Maria slides up. The prolong northeast flow seems to hold on and as days past there might be an unusual interaction between the two systems. It’s possible we see the rare Fujiwhara effect if Jose and Maria morph into one. While rare, it has occurred a few times in the Atlantic. Last time this occurred was 2005 Alpha was absorbed by Wilma. Before that in 1995 when Hurricane Iris and Hurricane Humberto interacted.

On the fishing front… Lots of bait in our waters! Peanut bunker, spearing and mullet. Anglers are finding fish some night busting on top. Sometimes they are finicky so be ready to pull out the specialty tricks.

Both bass and blues are being caught by anglers fishing the bay, inlet and surf. Store staffer Dan D reports college and fishing have been great. 40″+ blues , 30″+ bass and endless surf… Hello Fall!

Fish-Heads alumni Bill Bassant recently got a nice size one plugging the surf. Check out our Instagram Page for the photo. Congrats to Bill & Megan… They tie the knot today!

Lots of small blues with some kingfish on the surf. If the swell ever settles down the croakers that were off the beach might stage up.

The inlet has plenty of tog and the triggerfish and sheepshead are present too. Brian Craig weighed in a 7.42 pound sheepshead.

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EDIT: 9/23/2017 at 8PM

Today was ASAC’s World Series of Surf Fishing on LBI which is hosted by the Long Beach Island Fishing Club in Harvey Cedars. Those that were not  aware the tournament knew something was up, because the beaches were packed with beach buggies and anglers. Heard there was around 100 scoring fish caught by 45-ish registered teams.

We got word from Greg O’Connell who fished, “Pretty even mix of blues and kings. A lot of non scoring snapper blues and out of season fluke.”

Two teams tied for first; Merchantville Fishing Club and NJ Beach Buggy Association. Third place went to South Jersey Surf Casters. Biggest fish was caught by Kevin Eichman’s (Merchantville FC) 19.5″ bluefish. Most and biggest fish youth division went to Ryan O’Connell (Merchantville FC).

Another delivery of fresh local finger mullet arrived this afternoon as well as a batch of fresh bunker.

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Kids Wishing To Go Fishing Event

On Saturday 9/30 from 10am to 2pm the Jersey Coast Anglers Association in conjunction with Cardinal Enterprises and New Jersey Shore Chapter 12 of the Vietnam Veterans of America will host “Kids Wishing To Go Fishing”. This free fishing event for special needs children ages 6-16 will be held at Lake Juilanna located at Ponderosa Estates Farm in Millstone Township, NJ.

This is a catch and release event using barbless hooks. The lake that is well stocked with largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, crappies, yellow perch, channel catfish and sunfish. Refreshments will be served and there will be plenty of door prizes free bait and rigs along with loaner rods and reels. Adults will be on hand to help the kids and best of all the event is FREE. All interested in attending (an individual or group) must register in advance by calling 732-747-7846.

Here’s the Miss Barnegat Light Canyon Fishing Report for September 18, 2017.

Captain Louis Van Bergen from the Miss Barnegat Light reports…

Left Saturday morning and headed south to fish the pots for mahi. Some pots had some others had none. Picked a few every other pot.

Headed off to just outside the 1000 fathom line and set up on the drift. Had our first one on quickly after the sun set. Turned out to be a small swordfish we had to release after a quick picture. Had another bite there that just hit and kept going never slowing down. Imagine it was a large model swordfish. Did jig some large deep purple squid that we had never seen before. So cool seeing something new.

Around midnight we headed back up on the bank and anchored up for the rest of the trip. We had well over 50 dolphin chasing squid and baitfish around the boat till just before sunrise when we had another small sword and another beast that we never got the chance to see. Around sunrise we had four fish on within minutes of each other. We landed 3, two on bait and one on a jig. No more bites for us and we headed home at 9am.

With Hurricane Jose headed through the offshore waters this week we are hoping things offshore get mixed up for the better. We have trips every Friday and Saturday till the end of October. We leave in the afternoon and returning the next day around 1pm. Trips are limited to 25 anglers, cost is $400 and rental rods are available for $25. Call the office to make your required reservation at 609-494-2094.

Here’s the Fishing LBI fishing report update for Sunday September 17, 2017.

Offshore reports came in from boats that fished the Hudson, Bacardi and Lindy. Some better than others but here’s the theme we can conclude. Tile fishing is good on the soft bottom in the Hudson. The Lindy seems like the stand out spot over the weekend. It offered a couple of days of good yellowfin tuna fishing. And nice size yellowbirds! Most pushing the 50 pound mark. Some going much larger. Way down south wahooooo were on the chew in the Baltimore. We heard one boat had 18 bites.

Bret Morgan just got back from the edge this afternoon. He fished aboard the Big Dog with Captain Craig. He shared, “We got three big yellowfin on the troll. Mine was the smallest at 62.8 pounds. Last night chunking was slow but we did get one good bite. It came on a large squid down about 100 feet. We almost got spooled but the leader chaffed and broke off. More than likely it was a swordfish.”

This weekend, store staffer Dan fished aboard the Reel Innovations with Captain Jeff Warford. Dan reported, “There were fish but nothing great. The past couple of days the Lindy was producing. For us the chunk was dead. Fortunately a quick grey light bite saved our trip. We got one yellow fin and one white marlin. There was lots of swell out there. The fleet was disappearing when the sets rolled through.” Dan gave us heads up, “Jeff was making bait before pushing offshore. Tossing a cast net, Jeff got a spot in with the peanut bunker.”

This is the second report of spot this weekend. One customer in the shop was targeting blowfish and got a couple spot.

Greg Sonday was on the water this weekend. He reported great clamming and good fishing in the bay. “The blowfish are around but not thick. We had got a handful with a couple good size ones. Most are small. Another guy at the dock caught a dozen and had some large ones.”

John Garzio from Ewing has been fishing LBI all week. He said the mid-island surf has lots of action with small fish. “I’m into fish everyday. Got one large kingfish and a nice keeper fluke on mullet. The small blues are hitting and we also got into some bigger size ones.”

Store staffer Steve-o fished yesterday afternoon drifting live minnows in the bay. He caught and released some good size fluke and sea bass. Another anglers fishing close by was also into the fish. It would be nice if the season was open and these fish could hit the table.

Weakfish reports continue from anglers fishing the bay. The classic shad dart, small bucktail, Lunk City’s Fin-s and shrimp are all doing the trick. If using soft bait watch out for the toothy yellow eyes!

The blues offer fun in the bay, inlet and surf. Daily they are chasing bait around. In the surf, the yellow eyes are north, south and beaches in between. Cast a metal or popper. If bait is preferred, soak meat like mullet or bunker. Good reports from anglers fishing the jetty casting bucktails tipped with Jig Strips trailer. A larger class of blues came through in the afternoon yesterday. Bass are occasionally showing their stripes too.

Regularly anglers on the rocks are catching tog. Gear up with live crabs and get in on the fun!

LBI Surf Fishing Classic

Sign up now for the LBI Surf Fishing Classic. Fishing starts in just 20 days. Be sure to check out the new revised rule changes for 2017. Also save the date for the annual Surf Fishing Seminar. It’s from 10 AM to 1 PM on Saturday, October 7th at the Ship Bottom Firehall.

Now’s the time to sign up for the LBI Surf Derby and also get your LBI 4×4 Beach Permits.

Working south up: Holgate has been open all of September. Beach Haven opened up this weekend. The Township beaches open October 1st. Ship Bottom is at the end of the month(9/30). Surf City opens next Sunday (9/24). Harvey Cedars opens October 1st. It’s best to act now because some townships only sell a limited number of permits.

Did a magic hour trip during the week. Started outside along the beach trolling for false albacore and the likes. Even when trolling @ 8-9 mph I could not keep snappers off the line. Moved out to deeper water and I still was covered up by snappers. Might be the most snappers I have seen in my life this year. Moving back inside found schoolie bass blowing up before sunset and into the dark. Saturday I had Doug Chittenden and friend out. After loading the livewell with live bait we headed out in the morning fog. On a side note if you or you Captain are not loading the livewell this time of year you are missing out. I have written before about Florida style fishing in making bait for a trip and there is no better time than now with peanuts, mullet, and snappers. The Debbie M is a born and raised custom Florida boat and I like to fish that style as much as possible. One of her custom features is a 50-gallon oval livewell (standard was 25 gallon) that keeps the water moving in a true circular fashion. This is important with live baits such as peanut bunker since they do best in a circulating livewell. The other feature is that when full with 50 gallons, the water does not slosh when the lid is down. This minimizes the baits from getting “beat up” when the boat is rocking & rolling. I can keep 500 + peanut bunker healthy with almost no dead loss. No back to my report……… We did not find the bass cooperating as much as my magic hour trip but we did score (picture attached). One issue I see with the local bass and weakfish population going all out right now is water temperature. The ocean is still in the low 70’s and the bay is back up to 76. The second part of the trip we were able to work the inlet even though the tide was ebbing and a swell from Jose was coming in. Most of the swell was getting picked off by the South Bar which helped. Did a number on the bluefish from husky 3-4 pounders to racers in the 7-9 pound class. I think the racers are fish that spent the summer in Barnegat Bay and are starting to come out. Prior to this, all the blues caught aboard the Debbie M all summer were feeding well on the abundance of bait around the inlet. The blues that stayed in the bay had to deal with water temperatures above their optimum and not as much forage causing them to lose weight. All in all, two great trips by just going fishing. Oh, and a lot of catching. Give me a call if you want to head out and go fishing.

Screaming drags, Capt. Alex 609-548-2511

Countdown to fall begins… 5 More Days!!!

Here’s the Long Beach Island fishing report update for Wednesday September 13, 2017.

The LBI surf temp is holding at 68 degrees. There’s an abundance of bait in the waves, wash and on the bar. Both spearing and mullet with snappers mixed in.

Store staffer Blake got into a nice sunset bite. He said it was an awesome time smoking fish on his 8′ light, ALL BASS! The fish are feeding hard on spearing.

Surf sharking continues… Ryan Dellane and friends released a small sand tiger last night. “Late summer shark fishing doesn’t get better than this!”

Rudy (@zep_1) reported, “All by himself, L caught caught and released a 21″ fluke on a mullet rig. Pop gave an assist landing. Thanks Fisherman’s Headquarters for the mullet! We’ve been catching snapper blues in the surf all week with the occasional short fluke on kingfish rigs.”

The last few nights a good push of medium-large bluefish had anglers hooked up with drags screaming.

Vincent Pena sent in this report, “Did a little mid bay exploring this past weekend and picked away at the usual suspects… blues, short bass, “endangered sea bass” but the highlight of the day while blowfishing was two, 17″ triggers. We caught them near the Causeway Bridges.”

Got word the Bacardi went off yesterday. It’s awesome to see some boats got out and found fish with the oil slick calm conditions and Jose’s long period ground swell. Jim Kuhl was out on the tuna grounds yesterday and has this to say, “Finally got into a crazy chunk and jig bite!! What an epic morning! The crew put some nice size yellowfin tuna on the dock.” Fred Soper was also out catching too.

Fishing Report Update

LBI Surf Fishing Classic

Meeting To Talk About Bunker

With the fluke and seabass fisheries shut down a lot of anglers don’t know what to fish for. To that, I suggest that you go fishing for fish. No really. There are plenty of things to catch right now around LBI and Barnegat Bay. Many snappers have grown up to be bluefish. Saturday morning I went around one of the local creeks around sun up and found snappers to small blues actively feeding. They were chasing bait, breaking water and even hitting bare hooks. That’s right, a bare hook. You always hear people saying that they can catch bluefish on a bare hook, but how many time have you actually seen it done?  Well my BBF Capt Dan Sea-gull can do it and I have the video proving it. Just watch this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2vQVE1nWiA&t=1s     I could not catch one with a live peanut bunker while he slayed them with a bare hook. Plenty of big blue roaming the bay and even more around the inlet. Get some fresh bunker or frozen mackerel, anchor up and put some chunks down. Oh, and hold on! There are tons of small bass with keepers in the mix. You just need to fish the right tides, time, etc. Weakfish are present in big numbers of small fish right off the beach and bigger fish in the bay. Don’t wait for reports of weakfish go out and make your own report. No one has ever caught a fish reading reports., hint, hint….. The bay is loaded with small fish. Anchor up in a place with not too much current, put some clam chum down and fish small hooks with salted clam, squid or Fish Bites. I guarantee you will catch more species of fish than you can count on one hand and maybe on both hands. Word of false albacore right off LBI surf is ever so promising. This is a fast paced, hard fighting drag screaming fish.. If you never caught one, you are missing out on one of the best fighting fish New Jersey has to offer. And if there are any Bonito (true Bonito, not Florida bonito which are false albacore) or Spanish mack in the mix you are in for a tasty treat. True Bonito, bled, iced is sushi grade. Just ask anyone who has had some wasabi and soy sauce ready at the cleaning station.

So while others are waiting for stripers or sea bass season why not just go fishing. You may never know what you will catch and you just may find yourself enjoying all the other things offered when you are fishing. Anyone that has ever fished aboard the Debbie M with me knows even when not walking away with a cooler full of fish they are always walking away with life long memories. Now doing afternoon/magic hour trips and I have open next Sunday. Striper dates filling in fast.

Screaming drags, Capt. Alex     609-548-2511