Black Drum Running Big on New Jersey's Delaware Bay Shore

What's Biting

What's Next

The next several days look favorable for Delaware Bay drum hunters. NOAA buoy 44009 showed winds at just 1 meter per second on Sunday morning, essentially flat calm, and air temperatures around 54°F. Those conditions make boat access across the bay's nearshore structure as easy as it gets this time of year.

Tonight's full moon sets up one of the most important tidal windows of the month. Drum on Delaware Bay are well-known full-moon feeders, and the strong tidal exchanges that come with a full moon push bait into predictable staging areas along the NJ shoreline. Plan sessions around the tide transitions. The best action typically falls in the two hours straddling each tide change, and that window should be at its strongest this weekend.

The horseshoe crab spawn now underway on Fortescue Beach, flagged by Higbee's Bait and Tackle, is a double-edged sword for surf casters. The crabs compete aggressively with bloodworm rigs, making striper presentations increasingly frustrating. But the spawn draws drum into the shallows to feed on eggs and soft-shells. She-crabs and shedders, cited by Big Dave's Tackle as top drum producers this week, are likely to outperform bloodworms anywhere crabs are actively stacked. Fresh clams remain the workhorse bait per Hands Too Bait and Tackle, particularly off the Villas Beaches structure.

Striper action at Fortescue Beach is in a clear late-season fade. Higbee's reports fish to 44 inches are still being caught, but daily numbers are dropping as post-spawn bass push northward. The Fisherman (Northeast) notes that big stripers are migrating up the coast as a whole, so what remains in the bay is the tail of the run. Anglers looking for more consistent action should probe the back creeks, where Higbee's reports white perch turned on sharply last week.

Flounder in the back bays should improve steadily as water temperatures continue to climb from 58°F into June. Expect fluke to stage more reliably in the deeper bay channels on outgoing tides. Bluefish are already present, with Big Dave's Tackle reporting gators to 10 pounds, and that bite should firm up through the first weeks of the month.

Context

Late May is the traditional peak of the Delaware Bay black drum run on the New Jersey side, and 2026 appears to be tracking right on schedule, possibly running heavier than typical. Drum moving into Delaware Bay each spring to spawn have long made the Cape May County bayshore, from Fortescue south through the Villas area, one of the premier inshore trophy fisheries on the East Coast. Fish in the 40- to 60-pound class are standard for this window. The reports of fish approaching 80 pounds from Big Dave's Tackle, and 75-pounders off the Villas Beaches per Hands Too Bait and Tackle, represent the upper tier of a strong season by any measure.

What stands out this year is Hands Too's observation that the Jersey side is producing noticeably larger fish than the Delaware side, a contrast not always evident in average seasons. Whether this reflects the timing of the run, localized bait availability driven by the horseshoe crab spawn, or a holding pattern tied to bay structure is unclear from available data, but it is a meaningful signal for anglers deciding which side of the bay to target.

The horseshoe crab spawn now active on Fortescue Beach is a reliable late-May calendar marker for this region. The spawn typically peaks during full and new moon high tides from late May through mid-June, which puts tonight's full moon squarely in the middle of the most productive spawning period. The simultaneous concentration of drum, stripers, and shorebirds along the bayshore makes the NJ Delaware Bay shoreline one of the more productive coastal environments during this brief annual window.

For context, the spring striper run on Fortescue Beach appears to be on its typical late-May trajectory. Fish are still available but numbers are fading, consistent with the broader northward migration pattern observed across the region per The Fisherman (Northeast). Flounder action in the back bays, while currently modest, is historically on the early side of its summer ramp-up at 58°F water temperatures.