Fluke and Sea Bass Stay Hot in Raritan Bay as Bonito Push Inshore

What's biting

What's next

Expect the fluke bite to hold through the next few days as long as the overnight temperature drop reported by Capt Ron's Atlantic Highlands NJ doesn't repeat; a stable water column in the mid-to-upper 60s sits right in fluke's comfort zone for Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook structure. Sea bass should keep filling out limits on the same drifts, since Capt Ron's crew is finding fish around the boat on nearly every trip rather than in one isolated pocket, a pattern that tends to hold for a week or more once it starts.

Watch for the bonito and Spanish mackerel push to build. OTW Northern New Jersey's August 13 report already has both species mixed with bluefin off the beaches and inlets, and Grumpys Tackle (NJ) is telling customers to carry epoxy jigs because warm water has pulled the speedsters into range. If that warm pulse holds through the week, look for bonito and Spanish mackerel numbers to keep climbing along the ocean side of Sandy Hook and the inlet mouths, especially on calm mornings when bait balls up near the surface.

Bluefish should stay mixed into the fluke and bonito catches. The Fisherman — Northern NJ notes boats out of Belmar hammering blues alongside bonito and Spanish mackerel, and that pattern typically extends north toward Raritan Bay as bait pushes along the beachfront through late August.

Striped bass are the wild card. Nothing in this week's local reports singles them out, which is typical for mid-August in the Bay before the first real cool-down starts pulling bait, and eventually stripers, back toward the Hook and the reef structure. Anglers working eels or bucktails around dusk and dawn should still take a few shots, but don't expect a concentrated bite yet.

For planning: early morning and the last two hours of daylight remain the highest-percentage windows for fluke and sea bass on the moving tide, while bonito and Spanish mackerel are most catchable on calm, glassy mornings when they're visibly working bait on top. With the Waxing Crescent moon this week, tidal swings are moderate rather than extreme, so drift speed shouldn't be the deciding factor; picking areas with active bait, as Capt Ron's reports have emphasized all week, matters more than chasing the tide chart. No weekend-specific weather signal is available in this feed, so check a local marine forecast before committing to an open-water run.

Context

Mid-August in Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook typically means a transition period: summer species like fluke, sea bass, and warm-water visitors (bonito, Spanish mackerel, occasional mahi farther offshore) are all still present, while striped bass fishing usually sits at its seasonal low point until water temperatures start easing off in September. Nothing in this week's reports contradicts that pattern. Capt Ron's Atlantic Highlands NJ describes solid, if not exceptional, fluke and sea bass action with keeper ratios that sound consistent with a typical late-summer bite rather than an unusually hot or cold stretch.

The presence of bonito and Spanish mackerel this week, as flagged by both OTW Northern New Jersey and Grumpys Tackle (NJ), is on schedule for mid-August; these fish reliably show up in Northern New Jersey waters once inshore temperatures peak, and their appearance alongside bluefin farther offshore fits the seasonal pattern anglers expect this time of year.

One useful data point buried in Capt Ron's report: an overnight nine-degree water-temperature drop. Swings like that can briefly slow a bite before it rebounds, and it's worth watching whether that cooler water is an isolated overnight event or the start of an earlier-than-usual cool-down, which would be notable this early in the calendar.

Beyond that, this feed carries no buoy or gauge readings this cycle, so there isn't enough comparative data to say definitively whether the Bay is running warmer, cooler, or right on pace against prior seasons. Treat this report as a snapshot rather than a season-over-season comparison.