Northern New Jersey Fishing Report - August 29, 2024

Above: Captain Barry and crew from the Reel Fuelish weighed in a 109 pound yellowfin caught on butterfish while fishing at the AP.

The summer fishing season is ending on a high note in New Jersey, with a great variety of species being caught ahead of Labor Day Weekend.
 
It’s a great time to be walking the surf with light tackle in Monmouth County. There have been reports of 4- to 5-pound blues running the beaches and hitting topwaters, metals, and cut bait. Running alongside the blues have been bonito and Spanish mackerel, with the occasional albie bust-up sending anglers running for a shot. The albies have been fussy, according to the report from Giglios, but the Spanish macks, bluefish, and bonito have been bit easier to fool. Early risers are getting a crack at stripers of 25 to 28 inches in the surf, those are hitting soft plastics and poppers.

There’s also plenty of fluke in the surf, with anglers experiencing fast action on short fish, with enough keepers in the mix to make it interesting.

There’s also been plenty of fluke in the rivers. Again, the ratio of shorts to keepers is heavily weighted toward shorts, but the report from Fishermen’s Den suggests that anglers have been finding more keepers in recent days.  Fishermen from shore, looking for a fish to take home, are doing well with tog, filling their one-fish limit from the jetties.

Shark River’s also holding cocktail and, finally, snapper blues. Those fish are feeding on schools of peanut bunker.

In the inlet, according to Fishermen’s Den, there have been some bonito the last few days. The headboats, going out and chumming, have been doing well with the bonito, along with bluefish and false albacore.

Matt at the Reel Seat mentioned this as well, noting that the light tackle fishing on the headboats for bluefish, albies, Spanish mackerel, and bonito has been lights out. The headboats usually chum the speedsters right to the boat, and anglers then catch them on metals or epoxy jigs.

Matt also said that the fluke fishing was improving, with fishermen finding more consistent limits, with fish in the 4- to 6-pound range on the boats. Along with the fluke, bottom fishermen are finding steady action on ling. Headboats have been capitalizing on this ling bite, getting anglers on this bottom-dwelling favorite.

Mahi fishing has been good at the pots offshore. Fishermen have had the best luck whipping them into a frenzy with a few handfuls of spearing before sending out a hook bait.

Yellowfin tuna fishing is very good. Matt said on his last three trips, there were three fish over 100 pounds – a tank of a Northeast yellowfin. The fish are falling to poppers and jigs. The average fish has been 70 pounds. The small bluefin are still around inshore. Trolling with small splash bars and chains remains the best bet. Tilefishing is excellent, with big goldens and bluelines coming up from the depths.

In addition, the stripers are feeding at night in the rivers, there are some weakfish around, and keeper-size tog are biting well on inshore structure.

“Chris Parlow from Captain Bill’s Landing reported that the middle ground yellowfin bite has heated up this week with many very large yellowfin being landed. Butterfish has seem to be the common denominator for catching these fish. The Chicken Canyon and the AP have been the hot spots. There have also been some good Mahi Mahi landed as well. The inshore bluefin bite has been hit or miss with fish being caught at the Manasquan Ridge, the Tolten Lumps and inside the shipping lanes. There are also some large false albacore and mackerel in the mix. Fluke fishing on the reefs has been excellent for the last week with numerous limits being report both on the reefs and on some of the inshore spots. Bonita, bluefish and fluke are also being caught inside the Manasquan Inlet.”

Fishing Forecast for Northern New Jersey

This fishing is about as good as it gets for late August/early September. Options ranging from big yellowfin tuna to backwater weakfish, with stripers, blues, bonito, and fluke in-between. Medium-action spinning rods rigged with small casting jigs, poppers, or bucktails will get you in on most of the species in the rivers and from the surf. Any boat mission from now until November should include at least one epoxy-jig-rigged rod at the hand in case an albie or bonito blitz pops up.