Fishing report for 7/17/26

4th of July has come and passed and it has finally slowed down a bit. Now its time to actually give the updates on the fishing report.

Starting with the bay, temps have finally leveled out a bit and man has there been fish. We have been patiently waiting for this to happen and its been pretty good since it did. Fluke have been very active. Lots of reports of shorts with a decent amount of keepers. Most the keepers are being caught in 20-30 foot holes in the bay with mackerel strips and 5 inch gulp being the ticket. Piers have had quite a bit of fluke but mainly shorts. Croaker have pushed in heavy! So if you are having a bad day fishing, switch to a small hook rig with fishbites or bloods and get ready for the quick bites. Little seabass are starting to show up at the piers, they eat anything on a small hook rig. Sand sharks are still all over the place but getting smaller since the spawn. There has been an unbelievable amount of sheepshead and trigger fish in the bays and inlet as well. Sheepshead on tog jigs with sandfleas or fiddlers is best, trigger have been more on squid. Few bass are around during the day oddly enough mainly on mackerel, nighttime around the bridges has been best on plastics or drifting with eels and spot. Still a ton of perch in the deep holes up the river on bloods.

Surfside has been a little up and down. Beach replenishment has begun at the north end its kind of screwing things up. Jetties have had a few small striper and fluke on soft plastics or gulp. But that will be over soon because they are going to bury all the jetties. Kingfish, spot & croaker have been decent towards the center of the island on bloods and fishbites. Quite a few brown sharks around, mackerel is the good bait to start with until you catch a few spot or kings and use them as bait. 

Wrecks and reefs have been pretty good but also day to day. Lots of shorts and keepers on bigger gulp. But it seems they are there one day and move on. Tons of triggerfish out there as well following up baits. So throw a triggerfish rig and enjoy the fun. Keeper seabass are still holding relatively shallow so that's an added bonus.

Offshore the tuna have been hot. Bluefin coming in close, sea isle ridge has had quite a few but they haven't been hard to find elsewhere. Yellowfin have been at the toms and poormans. Tracker bars have been by the far the best, anything that looks like a squid will catch.

Shout out to Logan who sent in this weeks pic. Logan caught this beautiful 28.5 inch striper at 12th street pier on mackerel! Thank you Logan!