Blues and fluke rebound as Chesapeake-area surf settles after nor'easter

What's biting

What's next

Burnley expects the first week of October to fish noticeably better as seas lay down, though he's flagging beach erosion from the storm and an unknown amount of shifted bottom structure, meaning the first trips back will double as scouting trips. The Ocean City Inlet tide station has the next high near midday, around 12:01 PM ET, and the next low in the early evening, around 6:26 PM ET, a workable window for fishing the incoming water the way Old Inlet Bait and Tackle did through the blow for blues on metal.

With winds easing, that same incoming-tide pattern for bluefish and the inlet-area flounder bite Hook 'em and Cook 'em described both look like the better bets to carry into the weekend, before the next push under the waning gibbous moon resets the pattern again.

Context

Early October in the Chesapeake region normally sits in the fall transition: water cooling out of summer ranges while bluefish and fluke stay active ahead of the deeper chill, typically before striped bass take over as the headline fall species later in the month. A storm severe enough to halt fishing for most of a week is a disruption to that normal rhythm rather than a sign the season itself is running early or late, and the usual pattern should reassert once the water and structure settle.