LBI frontside enjoyed a fairly decent spring run if you were fishing the bunker pods from a boat or the surf. Chunking bunker or snag and drop worked for most of these fish, although a few were caught with pencil poppers.

I believe fish to 49# were caught from the surf, as registered in the Spring LBI tournament.

I don't believe they registered any 50's from the surf, although a few were caught slightly off the beach by boaters.

The surf in LBI never really got into gear with any consistency for smaller bass, or big bluefish. Most of the bass were caught among the bunker schools. Other than that it was slim pickings.

It's been said that the big bluefish have been feeding offshore (5-50miles off) on the abundant bait (sand eels) that usually comes closer into the surf zone. This year 2011 that did not happen for the Spring run, and there is still some hope things will be different for the Fall. The normally abundant small forage (spearing, rainfish, etc) did not show up in the surf and jetty lines until June. This was about a month later than it usually shows up, and seemed to be the case for many areas in the NJ surf.