LBI NJ Fishing Report – LBI Surf Fishing, Barnegat Bay & Inlet

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

Fall in the air and in the water… the last couple days felt much different than summer. Cool breezy west winds groomed Irma’s groundswell and all positive signs in the water for a nice transition into our next season.

While spending the last two days in the boat surfing, I’m happy to have scored awesome surf and experienced bait gone wild. There’s lots of life in the water. Larger schools of spearing (with some mullet too) were pushing around. The waves had clouds of bait and at times it was frantic on top. When keyed in the cocktail blues, striped bass and false albacore had them chaotically sweeping like rain.

I first spotted a fat albert football leap out yesterday and then again the albies were busting today. Another friend surfing had a visual on them too. Speaking of visuals, I saw some anglers catching tog off of the Jetty. The night shift crew continue to report bass and weakfish fishing swim baits (rubber shad), lead head jigs and bucktails.

Unfortunately the good life in New Jersey isn’t the case for those in Florida. Irma’s power and fury is literally off the charts. All of us are praying for the absolute best outcome with this seriously dangerous storm, Godspeed.

September Store Hours: Monday through Thursday from 7am to 7pm, Friday & Saturday 7am to 8pm, Sunday 7 am to 6pm. In early October we’ll extend the hours again. During this time, if there’s anything local anglers need give us a call and we are happy to work something out in the off hours.

NJ Anglers Respond To Fluke & Sea Bass Closure

“Frustrated fishermen attend the September 7 meeting of the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council following the Labor Day Weekend closure of fluke and sea bass, but find immediate answers hard to come by.” Read more of the story by Jim Hutchinson Jr. at the Fishermans.

Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association Weekly Report

By Jim Hutchinson Sr.

Although the weather was not very cooperative the last two weeks of the summer in Beach Haven and the New Jersey summer flounder season which closed September 5, the captains of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association made the most of it when they could. The fluke
catches just seemed to get better and better with some very nice catches of fish going into the fish boxes.

At this point, the captains are keeping one eye on what problems Hurricane Irma might bring to the East Coast while keeping their fingers crossed for the folks in Florida who live along the coastlines.

Captain John Lewis of the “Insatiable” summed up the last portion of his summer fishing activities. “August gave us great fishing inshore with lots of fish coming over the rail and keeper fluke along with black sea bass, bluefish, squid and mackerel on every trip.” Captain John notes that he plans to be active in pushing government officials to provide more fishing opportunities as far as the seasons go and urges other captains and anglers to do the same.

For the next few weeks Captain John says he will be fishing for porgies, bluefish, and bonito inshore while looking for sharks, tuna and mahi offshore. He also has plans to continue his busy schedule of boat deliveries up and down the entire Atlantic seaboard.

Additional information on the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association can be found on their website.

NJ Marine Fisheries Council Meeting

The NJ Marine Fisheries Council Meeting is Thursday, September 7 at 4 p.m. at the Stafford Township Municipal Building at 260 East Bay Avenue in Manahawkin.

Please attend the meeting on to show support for the Council in taking action to open a limited fall fishery for black sea bass in state waters effective immediately.

The fluke and sea bass fishing seasons are close.  This bad fisheries policy dead zone period from now to October 21 threatens anglers, charter and party boat captains, tackle shops and many other small businesses.

Attend this meeting and ask council members to introduce and pass a motion to open black sea bass in New Jersey state waters from September 6 through October 21 with a 12-1/2-inch minimum size limit and a 15 bag limit.

Here’s an article by Jim Hutchinson, Jr. with The Fishermans Magazine

News from the Local Party Boats

Here’s some updates from the local party boats fishing out of Barnegat Light.

The Miss Barnegat Light – Captain Louis shared the following information, “Now that fluke season ended we switch gears and head offshore for the next two months. This Saturday and Sunday we’ll be running for blues, bonito and albacore leaving the dock at 8AM and returning about at 2PM. We start our canyon tuna trips the following weekend. This past weekend some yellowfins and longfins were caught in the canyons, so it looks like things are starting to come together. Want to get out to the canyon for some tuna fishing this season? We will be heading offshore every Friday and Saturday leaving the dock around 3 PM and getting back the next afternoon around 1 PM. These trips are $400 per person. We rent rods for $25. ”

The Carolyn Ann III – The last info we see posted on the CA3’s facebook page is an update from Sunday… Schedule Update: Due to the weather forecast and the unknown path of Hurricane Irma we are going to delay the start of the one four hour porgy and croaker trips until after the weather clears. Please check back for updates.

Update from Ocearch

Here’s some news from Ocearch the non profit great white shark (and other large apex predators) research organization.. Tagged white shark pups are cruising along the New Jersey coast. Five foot female white shark pup Amagansett pinged just south of Toms River. Four foot female white shark pup Finn pinged just east of Belmar. If you aren’t following Ocearch on social media or through their mobile app you should be! It’s really interesting stuff seeing these tagged sharks roam around the ocean. Some (more than you would think) call our local water home. Man would it be cool to get other species (like striped bass, fluke, tuna, weakfish) tagged with data feeds like this!

One Offshore Report

Captain Dean Lambros from the Canyon Runner posted this report today. “We made a quick trip out to the Hudson Canyon today. We had 5 xl’s to 85 pounds and 8 long stars and mahi’s. Hope to see this type of action continue for all of us.I’d like to personally say thanks to our team’s hard work all season.Third place tuna and first place stringer at the Manasquan River Marlin & Tuna Club 2017 Offshore Open.”