BHCFA Report

Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association Report

By Jim Hutchinson Sr.

The Beach Haven Charter Fishing association will be starting its highly popular Junior Mates Program on Thursday, June 22. Normally, the sessions are held both out in the field and at the Maritime Museum on Dock Road in Beach Haven.

However, due to a scheduling conflict, the first class will be held at The Beach Haven Marlin & Tuna Club which is located at 420 N. Pennsylvania Ave in Beach Haven. Any interested teenagers are urged to attend the session which will begin at 7pm.Questions can be answered by calling Captain John Lewis at 609-670-5980.

The fishing action for black sea bass on the inshore wrecks and reefs continues to be very good. Captain Ray Lopez of the “Miss Liane” had Rich Hamburg and his two grandchildren out for a day of bottom fishing. The group had nonstop action with over 60 feisty sea bass boated. The group took six nice fish home for dinner. Captain Ray reports he is also pleased at the fluke action thus far.

Captain Dave Kreines of the “Byte Me” has had a couple of bay fluke trips recently. Last Saturday he fished alone on a “scouting mission” that resulted in just a couple of short fish. On Monday he had Mike Delin and his father out on a half day trip and the pair boated two nice fluke of 20 and 21 inches along with a few shorts and a skate. The pair of anglers was celebrating the elder Delin’s birthday, and they are already eager to return for more action.

The offshore bite has started with some nice tuna being boated already including some bigeyes over 200-pounds. In addition, there are reports of some big mako and thresher sharks in the area.

Additional information on the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association can be found at www.BHCFA.net.

LBI Fishing Report May 6, 2017

Rick Ziegler stopped in yesterday and picked up his prizes from the past Fall Surf Fishing Classic. Rick was the Bluefish Grand Prize Winner. In addition to the $1000 prize, he was awarded a Penn Slammer III Spinning Reel matched with a custom 9′ rod, a plaque and a Fisherman’s Headquarters $200 Gift Certificate.

Rick stopped back today and shared a report, “I love the new setup! Went up on the beach early but it was a little weedy. Made the shifted over to the bay and got ’em.  The south end bayside, blues all morning on bunker. Whipped out an SP and got bit. ” Here’s a photo from Betty from PA who was fishing with Rick.


A number of anglers loading up on fresh bunker and chunking the surf. Similar theme from all those who reported back… blues on chunks, occasional bass. It seems today is a little slower than the past couple days but there are fish being caught.

Blue claws crawling and chewing lagoons and bay. Those soaking bunker are catching.

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!