Flounder Surge and Black Drum Lead Delaware Bay as Summer Pattern Takes Hold

What's Biting

What's Next

The summer transition already underway along the NJ coast should accelerate over the coming days. With surf temps now in the 65-to-67-degree range (per The Fisherman — NJ/DE Surf), the warming trend favors continued improvement in the flounder bite, particularly in Delaware Bay back-channel areas and along the ICW where fish have been staging on outgoing tides.

Flounder anglers should focus their efforts around the turn of the outgoing tide in 10-to-14 feet of water, targeting channel edges and structure. Multiple Southern NJ sources converge on this picture: Waterfront Marine, Fin-Atics, and Ray Scott's Dock all point to live minnows and squid as the most consistent producers, with bucktails tipped with 3-to-5-inch Gulp grubs also drawing strikes. Shore-based anglers working piers and bridge structures are pulling fish to 4 pounds per Fin-Atics, so boat access is not required to get in on the action.

Black drum are still active — Riptide Bait and Tackle reported fish to 25 pounds this week on clam baits — and with stable, warming conditions, expect this bite to hold through at least the early part of the coming week. Evening hours near rocky structure and jetties should produce the best windows.

For striped bass, the clock is winding down. Riptide Bait and Tackle notes that beach striper action has slowed, though clam baits are still coaxing occasional fish and night anglers near bridges continue to find linesiders on soft plastics. As water temps push further into the mid-60s, expect bass to continue their northward push. Early-morning and after-dark sessions are the best remaining plays if targeting stripers this weekend.

Kingfish and spot are just beginning to materialize in the suds per The Fisherman — NJ/DE Surf — watch for this bite to gain momentum on incoming tides with light surf, particularly after any overnight temperature dip. The waxing crescent moon building toward first quarter will intensify tidal flow through the weekend, tightening feeding windows but also concentrating fish on moving water — a net positive for anglers willing to time their trips around the tide peaks.

Context

June traditionally marks the pivot point on the Delaware Bay (NJ side), where the spring striper run gives way to the summer flounder, weakfish, and black drum fishery. By mid-June most years, surface temperatures are pushing into the low-to-mid 60s, which aligns with the current readings from the NJ coastal zone. The flounder-improving, stripers-as-bycatch pattern now being reported across Southern NJ bays is exactly what a normal mid-June progression looks like on this part of the coast.

Black drum have long been a signature late-May-through-June species on the NJ side of the Delaware Bay, particularly in Cape May and Cumberland County waters, where they follow horseshoe crab spawning activity and concentrate near rocky structure and jetties. Reports this week of fish to 25 pounds per Riptide Bait and Tackle are consistent with a normal June drum presence, neither notably early nor late.

Weakfish are historically the Delaware Bay's most storied summer species — the Bay's weakfish runs were a regional institution for decades — but stocks collapsed in the early 2000s and have recovered only partially. The rare 16-inch weakfish noted by Waterfront Marine this week is representative of where the species stands now: scattered individuals present across Southern NJ systems, but a far cry from the thick schooling action that defined the fishery a generation ago. No signal in this week's angler intel suggests conditions are dramatically ahead of or behind a typical mid-June year. The seasonal progression is on schedule.