LBI Fishing Report June 12th

Fishing LBI offers lots of options for anglers both from the beach and boat.

Prime time beach sharking is quickly approaching! Now is the time to prepare and gear up for the season. We’ve got all the essentials from hooks to wire and cable as well as the terminal tackle and accessories to make simple rigs as well as tournament style – kayak deployed versions. The year’s first land based brown shark and sand tiger reports just came in!

Store staffer Willie said, “The surf is warming up and surf sharking has begun!” Here is a photo of him and a couple friends with a small sand bar shark aka brown shark they just caught. Willie mentioned they lost a sand tiger in the wash.

Kenny Depierro caught this sand tiger off the surf this past weekend. Kenny was chunking bunker in search of a linesider when this toothy one picked and ran.
Striped bass fishing continues to be slow through what normally is a very good section of the season. Participation is way down but those putting in the time are finding fish. We’ve got reports from the beach and boat. Anglers are catching the occasional bass trolling. Those fishing the beach and inlet are finding striped ones.

Rich Beverley of Cedar Run earned himself a new personal best striped bass off the LBI surf yesterday. He caught it in the morning fishing bunker off of the mid-island surf.
The local summer flounder fishery is prime with action in full swing. For bay anglers the areas of Double Creek and Oyster Creek Channel as well as the waters around the 42, BI, and BB are producing. There’s been some good size ones. We’ve heard of and seen numerous fish over four pounds. Bucktails tipped with gulp, live minnow and or spearing are getting it done!

Mark Spranger reported a good day fluke fishing today. His biggest was a 23″ 4.5 pound beauty!

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For land based anglers fluke fishing off the LBI surf continues to crank with some outstanding catches.
Willie “Hits” Kayhart has the touch! On his first trip to the beach this past weekend he pulled this 21″ flatty.

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Jon Kelly shared a photo today with a comment, “Who needs a boat? Got this 20″ off my beach today.”
Austin Pounds reported, “No boat needed! The beach has fluke everywhere.”
Chris Bender reports the weakfish are in. Here’s a photo of a small one.
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Crabbing is solid! Now’s the time to soak some bunker. Here’s a photo from Matt Cornman.

The NJ Recreation Sea Bass Fishing Season Closes Monday June 19th. Now’s the time to get in on the sensational bite!

“Sea bass fishing is crazy right now.” Jacob Bowles reports, “The offshore wrecks are loaded with active fish. Today we had them good. You had to work through the shorts to find the larger fish. I got six keepers to just under five pounds. My largest was big enough to win the pool!”

“Flag-Pole” Jim Kuhl agrees the sea bass fishing is very good on the reefs and wrecks. He said, “We limited out by 9am!”

Dave Werner the advisor of the MATES Fishing Club shared a solid sea bass report from today. Dave said, “We had an awesome trip today aboard the Carolyn Ann III. There was lots of action so the kids had a blast. We caught about 50 keepers and a crazy number of throwbacks. The pool winner was Jake (photo below). There were also some ling and tog as well as one winter flounder caught. A huge thanks to Gina on the Carolyn Ann III for the awesome trip.”

Carolyn Ann III would like to share a schedule update… On Monday June 19th they are going to start fishing twice daily (2x four hour trips). Since sea bass will be closed the target species will be fluke. Sailing in the mornings 8am to 12pm then the afternoon 1pm to 5pm. The price is $45 for adults and $25 for children under 12. Rod rental is $7. Credit Cards are accepted.

Captain Jeff Warford aboard the Reel Innovations out of Barnegat Light was offshore over the weekend with the crew. Here’s their report… “Good as it gets! The tunas just couldn’t resist piling on. We fished four hours then headed in with a crew full of sore arms. Here’s Kyle with our over bluefin!”

Early Spring Fishing Around LBI

A low pressure in the NW Atlantic sent quality ENE groundswell this past weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday were on with good conditions! Once again (even more this week) I enjoyed the waves with lots of roaming gannets. The fish finding black tipped wings were cruising at just about every beach I checked and surfed from the south end to mid island to the north end. While they were not dialed in on a kamikaze mission, they were on the search. My memory flipping back to the epic early April sessions of 2012. I recall like it was yesterday! April 4th, 2012 was full of herring boiling with gannets all over them. Bass from 10-20+ pounds chewing on everything we could cast. I know this day is etched with all who were aboard; Eddy, Steve-o and South Philly Fred.

My consistent gannet sightings as of late have me chomping at the bit to break the inlet and go on the search. Sunday’s sun had my head spinning on fishing the flats. I would have liked to be in the game earlier; however sometimes work and life’s priorities take control. We all know how that goes. After shaking the saltwater out of my eyes, ears, nose and hair from the epic weekend of surf, I finally cut the shrink wrap. Soon my boat is hitting the brine. The long range forecast looks great. I’m stoked to get out and fish!

Now time for the actual fishing report…

Reports of good early spring fishing continue. Let’s get in the game and take advantage! Soon other species like drum, weakfish and bluefish will pop up but until then there’s three three options (bass, flounder, perch) in the backwaters. While the early season spots are producing, the open bay has fish cruising too. Check out your past productive areas as well as the Island’s west side haunts. In the ocean it’s bottom fishing for tog and cod on the inshore wrecks and reefs.

Bass:
After work on Sunday, store staffer Willie headed out and fished dusk. He caught this striper among others. Willie said, “Had an epic little rope mesh until I snapped my G.Loomis rod.”

Store staffer Max got his boat in the water recently and found some action. Max said he’s targeting linesiders bass drifting the bay casting artificials, “The first trip out we had about 20 plus bass, all small but good fun.”

Sunday’s reports from Graveling Point were poor. One customer said, “Lots of anglers were trying but no fish were caught while I was there. Put some hours in and others fished a lot longer. No luck.” This area is one of the best and most productive spots in the spring. It will turn back on any day if not already! Keep an eye out as the area is well known for getting the area’s first bluefish, black drum and weakfish.

Flounder:
Nick Honachefsky tagged us in this photo, double fisting pig winter flounder. Nick found them over the weekend. Here’s his report, “Cold, windy, but we claimed out limit Jersey style!” It’s prime time winter flounder so you best get in on the black back snowshoes now if you want a piece of the action!

Tog:
NJ’s Tog fishing season opened Saturday, April 1. It is 4 fish at 15″ until April 30th. Hopefully you didn’t fall for our April Fools post on Saturday. The social media buzz got going much more than we expected. Surprisingly no one call our bluff! Guess it was totally possible and believable because those that went out and fished did good. See yesterday’s report for more details.

While not “local” fishing info there’s a lot of anglers in our area that love to fish and don’t mind traveling to get into good fishing.The Delaware river continues to improve. Recently some more quality striped bass were caught by anglers worming the banks. The Rarity Bay is starting up with small fish and reports of plentiful bait. Once the water temp ticks up a degree or two more it’s going to break open!

On the bait front… This past weekend was our first with fresh and live bait for 2017. Sorry for the delay! We had technical difficulties firing up our bait refrigerator. After 30+ years it did its job and was retired. We got a new unit running and currently have salted clam, live bloods and live green crabs. As always we’ve got all of the frozen fixings too. Speaking of bait… We got a call from one of our bunker boat captains. He was out recently and came across a couple “good pods of bait (bunker)”. We usually start stocking the fresh fat backs in late April.

Check out our Instagram page ( @FishermansHeadquarters ) for the current photo caption contest which is ending April 6, 2017. Caption now for a chance to win a $25 Fisherman’s Headquarters store gift card.

Here is a short clip of one wave from Sunday. Just want share a taste!

LBI Fishing Report Update

Lots of anglers got out this weekend and enjoyed the great spring weather! Primarily boot size bass are chewing but larger sized linesiders are keeping things interesting.
Nino Aversa from PA caught four bass up to 28″ yesterday fishing the bay.


Shawn Hawthorne reported a great outing, “Our first trip of the year with Captain Steve was great! Jay, Ernie and I had a good time catching 100+ bass. No keepers but lots of fun. Got a blue claw crab too.”


Tyler Medica and his dad Joe enjoyed the weather Saturday soaking bloods on a popular sod bank. They caught their first bass of the year and mentioned that two keepers were caught down the bank as well as a bunch of shorts. All on worms.


More reports of winter flounder from this weekend. Target channels, holes and bowls throughout Manahawkin Bay and the Barnegat Bay. We also heard good word on the fresh water fishing too. Pickerel and bass are chewing in the local South Jersey lakes.
Stop by the shop and check out our limited time sale on select fishing reel. There’s spinning and conventional styles from Penn, Shimano and Daiwa.