Fishing Hot Spots

Lake guides for this map

Month-by-month patterns, fish, ramps and rules for each water:

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Fishing Hot Spots by area

Inlets, piers, reefs, lumps, ridges and canyons. Tap one to fly to it on the map.

Fluke and stripers on the inlets, sea bass on the reefs and tuna in the canyons

The Delaware and New Jersey coast is summer flounder (fluke) and striped bass country. Every inlet from Indian River to Manasquan and Shark River has stripers on the jetties at night, fluke in the channels and bluefish and weakfish when the bait runs; false albacore show up at the mouths in the fall. Delaware Bay is famous for big black drum around the lighthouses in May and June and for weakfish off Fortescue, and Island Beach and Sandy Hook have some of the best fall surf fishing on the coast.

Offshore, New Jersey has more than a dozen state artificial reefs and Delaware has its own reef sites, including the Redbird Reef built from New York subway cars, all loaded with black sea bass and tautog. Farther out, ridges and lumps like the Barnegat Ridge, the Mud Hole, the Hambone, the Cigar and the Elephant's Trunk hold bluefish, bonito, albacore and tuna, and the canyons from Baltimore and Wilmington up to Hudson are where the white marlin, bigeye and yellowfin tuna, mahi-mahi and swordfish live.

New Jersey and Delaware both require a free saltwater registry or license, and fluke, striped bass, black sea bass, tautog and bluefish have seasons and size limits that change most years. Check NJ Fish & Wildlife and Delaware DNREC rules before you go.